I read posts about people quitting jobs because they’re boring or there is not much to do and I don’t get it: what’s wrong with being paid for doing nothing or not much at all?
Examples I can think of: being paid to be present but only working 30 minutes to 2 hours every 8 hours, or a job where you have to work 5 minutes every 30 minutes.
What’s wrong with reading a book, writing poetry or a novel, exercising, playing with the smartphone… and going home to enjoy your hobbies fully rested?
Am I missing something?
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I’ve worked in jobs with plenty of downtime, but have never worked in one where I could just wander off to exercise or read a book openly. I was expected to be finding things to do or to at least appear busy and engaged.
good point, this changes the calculus
In the late 1980s, I had a roommate who graduated with a business degree and got recruited for a government contractor right out of college. She packed up her life and moved to the DC area. A month into her new job, the contract was pulled. But because she had a clause in the recruitment contract, they couldn’t fire her. But they had no work for her, either. So she had to come to work every weekday, 9-5. She’d sit at her desk with nothing to do. They didn’t ask her to look busy, just present.
She read about 3-5 novels a week. Over the next few months, we watched her get more and more depressed. She’d complain about her situation, but it fell on deaf ears. “Must be nice,” people said in jealousy. “Get paid to do nothing.” She became despondent in the lack of people’s sympathy. “Nobody understands how much this sucks!”
Eventually, she got a new job. Her mood vastly improved.
I’ll never forget that lesson. People need to feel useful, productive. Sitting at a desk with nothing to do, no purpose, no validation. It will destroy you.
Called boreout syndrom.
I was in a similar situation. A few weeks after I got hired, the project I was hired for was cancelled, so they “benched” me.
I spent three months being paid to do whatever I wanted, didn’t even need to go to the office. It was nice at first, but I felt useless and miserable after a couple of months.
This made me understand why some people keep working long after they have enough to retire.
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All I want to do is go back to bed. I can’t do that, so I have to sit there twiddling my thumbs and occasionally refreshing my case load to see if there’s something to do yet. I still prefer it to actually working because I don’t have to think as hard, but it is pretty boring.
I used to have a job with a lot of downtime and if I wasn’t doing real work I had a permanent sense of anxiety and guilt because I knew there were people in the same building as me in manufacturing roles busting their asses for the same pay while I sat and watched YouTube videos, and it also made it seem like I wasn’t developing myself to move anywhere higher, just spinning my wheels making money.
That attitude did get me to ask for more work, but not more of the same work, new tasks, tasks that I then added to my resume and made me look much more appealing to jobs I later got instead.
do these jobs you got later pay you better?
There’s more to life than just wanting more money or time to consume the content and products of others (obviously with the major caveat that we need some amount of money to live)
Most people gain existential joy from making some form of impact on the world, and for many that comes in the form of their work.
Being able to look at something, whether it’s a building you helped build, a website you made, or a contract that you helped get signed and having the knowledge that it wouldn’t exist in the way it does without your effort is a feeling I think is critical for most people to be happy.
Obviously this fulfillment doesn’t have to come from work, and if you can find enough satisfaction in writing poetry or a hobby like that to fill that need then you’re lucky for it, and maybe can look into pursuing a career in that.
I personally have unfortunately never been able to feel like I’m making enough of a mark on this world with my hobbies alone and have pursued work that makes me feel like I’m contributing to society or improving myself
Technically they don’t pay me much more, though it is higher, but I did move from California to North Carolina, with a much lower cost of living and a much lower minimum wage. Comparatively in California I was living paycheck to paycheck, now I own a house.
More importantly the array of skills I could put on my resume was impressive to three or four different jobs I had afterward and showed that I had skills and versatility beyond my previous roles
Literally this for me. Also a lot of times I can get into a focus state with a problem for some hours, and with that time passes fast, compared to just doing nothing and faking being busy.
This book speaks to it better than I can: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-bullshit-jobs/
Specifically take a look at
Chapter 3: Why Do Those in Bullshit Jobs Regularly Report Themselves Unhappy? (On Spiritual Violence, Part 1)
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I’m getting both bored and anxious if I don’t have anything useful to do during work hours. I don’t think it’s my work ethics in the play, but self imposed expectations. When this happens too much too often, is when the work no longer feels “fun” and I have to find something meaningful to do again.
Now I’m very privileged in that my current employer’s been very good with the opportunities within, and I’ve always found another position (and promotion) to challenge myself again.
But I think many people expect their work to be interesting, feeling meaningful personally, and if it fails to do so it’s time to move. It’s crapton of your week anyways you need to spend on the “grind” it would suck if it felt wasted time.
For me I feel like I’m going stagnant in my field. I need a new place with a more advanced environment.
I know work bad but if I don’t keep busy, time crawls. Also, theoretically I would have bosses find me shittier jobs to do if I’m not engaged in the main thing I’m there to do.
I’ve never had a job that there was a lot of downtime except that time I worked for a landscaping company. My boss was chill and we smoked a ton of weed between jobs
This is me. I want a different job because I’m always bored.
It feels meaningless. I’m pushing papers because someone needs papers pushed. Part of my job is actually incredibly useful, but 90% of it is it just me pretending to work by watching YouTube videos so my screen doesn’t go dark and I can make sure I’m not showing as Away in Teams.
It’s a government job too, so it’s unlikely I’ll be replaced by AI despite AI being perfect for replacing me and my colleagues.
I don’t know if you’re complaining but if you are, I don’t understand you. I want to be you.
earning money doing almost nothing is meaningless? You earn money for doing nothing! and you cannot be fired, so…
Yeah, but at that point it’s not your time. You’re essentially selling your life to someone else… and they’re not even using it.
You say you can spend your time writing poetry or reading books… but that doesn’t scratch an itch for everyone. Being stuck to a desk or other work station means your options are extremely limited. You can’t go out and work on your kit-car, or practice a golf swing, or practice monologues for a one person play… or many other things that require a little more activity than being stuck in a chair for nine hours allows.
Money can get you a lot of things in life… but as yet it can not give you time back in your life.
but 90% of it is it just me pretending to work by watching YouTube videos so my screen doesn’t go dark and I can make sure I’m not showing as Away in Teams.
Get a hardware mouse jiggler! I bought one for my partner as a gag gift during the start of the Pandemic, but it’s seriously improved their mental health. Taking naps, reading books, and writing all became possible with next to zero risk. Just get Teams to ping your phone when you get a new message.
There’s a big difference between like “working at a cash register with no customers, but you have to stand there looking attentive or management will yell at you” and “working from home, and I can read lemmy on downtime”
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Two main reasons;
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The boring reason, I get paid because someone thinks they need me, and I need that money. Not being needed is clear sign that the gig is up and when they need to balance the books my job, very reasonably, would be the one to cut.
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The exciting reason, even when I didn’t and don’t again need the money there is a satisfaction to being able to build something or help others as part of larger group. Without needing to work my hobbies would just turn into grander and grander projects until I am working with others all over again.
All sorts of jobs filled me with that sense of pride that video games and movies just can’t. The idea that I actually helped someone or made a difference for my community is just greater for me
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I used to work at a gas station during the night shift. I got yelled at for reading because “I was being unproductive.” Everything got done hours before my shift ended and no one in the morning ever complained. I started doing my work slower, wandered around pretending to sweep, and read in the backroom where they didn’t have cameras and my manager thought I turned over a new leaf.
My job performance was considered better when I was away from my station dicking about looking busy compared to doing everything efficiently and reading while ready to deal with customers.
It gets boring as hell if you have nothing else to fill that time with. I work in IT and at one of my jobs there was literally nothing else to do if someone’s computer didn’t break. All social media was blocked, game sites were blocked (this was like 2013) and so were tons of other things. I worked in a basement so I had no cell service either. My time was spent figuring out what wasn’t blocked lol
You were gaining exp in opsec by doing that :D
