This has been the bane of my existence in almost every job I’ve worked. “Look busy”, “don’t stand idle”, “delegate tasks for yourself”. My dude, if it’s not on the job description and it’s not a task I was onboarded in why would I do it?
But in life we’re just supposed to somehow already know. And assume that we should lie about how we’re spending our time. I’ve fought with multiple managers because I’ll just leave when I get far enough ahead of my work that the only thing left to do is pretend I’m still working. I’ve been reprimanded for helping other areas instead of just still pretending to do work in my own.
It happens in enough fields that I realize, the culture isn’t broken. This IS how average people get through their careers. I’m the one who can only survive in roles that don’t have a hard endpoint for tasks. Because I’m broken in someway that I can’t stop getting ahead of my work and I can’t make myself lie about it.
For most managers, “pretend to be working” is their entire job. They constantly lie about how they’re spending their time.
You’re making them look bad.
That would explain a lot. I don’t think a lot of the people I worked for would feel bad about anything but the ones who were most upset about me leaving when my work was done were ones who sat around or walked laps around the work area observing nothing a lot.