Idle at work. Could but are not allowed to help

Question

Andrew is a friend of mine. Andrew's direct boss is Brian who is the head of the department. Unfortunately Andrew doesn't get enough work from Brian and he often bored and idle there. It also causes some friction between Andrew and other colleagues since other people usually has a lot of work. (He asked for more work from Brian several times before.)

Sometimes Andrew helps other managers. (These managers also report to Brian and they are not between Andrew and Brian in the hierarchy.) Brian insists that he has to know (and accept) every work item that Andrew does.

Today Craig (a manager from his department) gave Andrew a few documents for processing, this kind of work was allowed by Brian formerly. A few hours later Andrew talked with Craig and it turned out that Brian revoked his allowance of this work and Craig wants to hide from Brian that Andrew does this work. The work should have been done by the Craig's already busy employees although Andrew also could do this (and has free time).

Additionally, it seems that this was not the only one occasion, there will be more similar documents next week.

Andrew struggles. He wants to be helpful, wants to avoid further frictions between colleagues but also does not want to do anything which Brian would not like. He could talk to Brian and unfold that he did some unallowed work (and earn a bad reputation from Craig and other colleagues and still be idle), could do the work and earn a bad reputation from Brian if the secret turns out or could just ask Craig to get an allowance from Brian (friction again, Craig said that he does not want to do that). Is there any other option?

Answer 1

As Brian is his manager, he should start his discussions with Brian. He needs to let Brian know that

• he does not have enough work to do
• he needs clarity on when he is allowed to work for others when his own work is slow, and what the procedure should be for getting approval for such additional work
• he needs to know what he should be working on when he has nothing assigned

Once he has answers, it might be wise to follow up with an email to Brian detailing what he heard, so that there are no misunderstandings in the future.

For what it's worth, Brian does not sound like a great manager. Andrew might need to polish his resume and move on.

Answer 2

Seeing this, I would believe either/and of the following:

Brian does not trust Andrew, either due to the quality of Andrew's work or due to his ethics. The 'papers' might involve something like credit card numbers, health data, or personal identification (drivers license numbers, etc.) and Brian suspects Andrew will abuse this information.

Brian may also have a cultural, racial, or ethnic prejudice - 'those people aren't allowed to do that stuff'. Since it isn't clear where this is taking place, it isn't clear what specific prejudice is likely.

Brian may not be able to discharge Andrew, so he simply leaves him 'benched'. Brian might have been forced to take Andrew as a subordinate and simply wishes that Andrew would quit.

The best thing for Andrew to do is find work for a different boss, one who should be able to trust him with whatever responsibility he is assigned.

Answer 3

Instead of approving Andrew's tasks, Brian should prioritize them.

Whenever anyone gives Andrew a task, it gets into is task list as a low priority task. Brian can decide which tasks will get higher priorities. Andrew does the higher priority tasks first. If Andrew needs to do something short and simple for a low priority task - like replying to an eMail regarding it - he can do it even if he has higher priority tasks, but otherwise he should focus on the highest priority tasks that he has.

This way, the lower priority tasks(formerly "unapproved tasks") will not get in the way of the higher priority tasks(formerly "approved tasks"), but Andrew will still be able to do them on his (no longer) idle time.