I’ve never had an office job and I’ve always wondered what it is a typical cubicle worker actually does in their day-to-day. When your boss assigns you a “project”, what kind of stuff might it entail? Is it usually putting together some kind of report or presentation? I hear it’s a lot of responding to emails and attending meetings, but emails and meetings about what, finances?
I know it’ll probably be largely dependent on what department you work in and that there are specific office jobs like data-entry where you’re inputting information into a computer system all day long, HR handles internal affairs, and managers are supposed to delegate tasks and ensure they’re being completed on time. But if your job is basically what we see in Office Space, what does that actually look like hour-by-hour?
An office is usually divided in different departments that have different functions.
In no particular order, not exhaustive, and skipping management and IT, typical functions could be:
Customer service. Pick up the main phone line and check the official mail box, talk to customers, redirect calls to other departments.
Sales coordinators. Receive orders from customers, through sales representatives or by web etc. They basically ensure that all incoming orders have the proper data to be processed. Keeps track of order confirmations and maybe send data back to the customers.
Logistics. Arrange shipments from suppliers, to customers and between stock locations. Files all documents for toll and tariffs.
Debtor controllers. Keeps track of customer payments, outgoing invoices, payment plans, sending reminders and debt collection.
Creditor controllers. Register incoming invoices. Get approvals from whoever ordered it and pays the bills on time or whenever it makes most sense for discounts and such.
Finance controllers. Keeps track of the entire balance sheet. Bank reconciliations, cash flow, investments, files and pays taxes. General bookkeeping that doesn’t fit in the other departments. Does the financial statements, reporting, monthly, quarterly or annually.
Purchasing, HR/Payroll and PR/marketing are self-explanatory I think.
All of these administrative functions are necessary in most companies, but in smaller companies it all could very well be done by a single person, while in large companies they might have several people in each department.
Many companies have several subsidiaries or other constructions, so tasks or functions can also be spread out like that. For instance, I can be the creditor department in one company while also doing finance in another or payroll in a third. So while the functions are somewhat strictly defined by the tasks, it’s only in very large companies that someone does just one function.
All office functions are constantly being made more efficient. A lot of it is truly boring, so it’s in everyone’s interest to automate as much as possible. I don’t feel sorry for someone losing their office job to an algorithm, no, I’m happy for them not having to do it anymore.
It’s not a stupid question. When I was interviewing for my first office job back in 2001, I literally asked if they could show me what I had to do.
Seing someone who entered data into a program, I asked if that’s it? You really want me to just enter data into that program? OK, I can do that. And so I was hired to put numbers into boxes on the screen and have been doing that ever since. Not the same program of course. I’ve been around all departments by now and spend most of my work time working on avoiding typing numbers into boxes.