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 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.
What’s wrong with reading a book, writing poetry or a novel, exercising, playing with the smartphone…
Ask your manager. They’ll probably say something like “it looks untidy”.
I’m still in the beginning of my programming career (maybe also the end, looking at how AI is going, lmao) and at my previous job I had fuckall to do. I spent nearly a year without a project, working basically 30 minutes a day. I quit mainly because I was afraid that when I change jobs I will have say 5 years experience on paper, but the knowledge for 1, because I’ve barely done anything.
Work isn’t always about money, you also want to learn stuff so you can make even more money in the future. You can’t really do that if you get paid to watch Youtube all day.
I had a job that was kind of like this. I spent pretty much all of my down time writing a web game that later got me a software job.
I wasn’t bored, though. I miss working on that thing.
As long as you can keep busy that way it is fine to have those jobs with downtime! The challenge arises when, for example, the workplace doesn’t allow personal cellphones on site or in the work area. Or perhaps there is an expectation to look busy all the time so you don’t have the leisure to read or write. I’ve had the luxury to have a job where I can relax a fair bit and have some enjoyable free time with your pastimes listed above.
My previous job was at a workplace with no useable internet, poor cellular signal, and no phones allowed while working policy. Very strict to always be doing something to look busy but when there is nothing to do it gets dreadful.
Looking forward to others experiences on this!
I would agree with this, but I would add something. If you ever get to a point in your work where you have ownership over your tasks and production and aren’t just a tiny cog in a big machine, it can be really fulfilling (at least as much as any paid job can be). I speak with experience only coming from the non-profit side though, so I’m sure a lot of people may not feel that way about corporate jobs. So if you have experienced that kind of fulfillment, and something changes (either your role or your workplace or your manager or whatever) and it’s not fulfilling in the same way anymore, it can be really frustrating, even if you could feasibly fill your time with personal stuff.
Also, sometimes being forced to be somewhere chafes when you’d rather be out in the world or at home. Napping, hiking, checking out a book at the library — hard to do when you’re stuck in a specific place.
Doesn’t keep my mind ocupado
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?
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.
As someone else mentioned, some jobs have micromanagers who get pissy if they think you aren’t working, and keeping up appearances is draining.
From a different perspective, however, is that when it comes to creative fields specifically, downtime means you aren’t improving your skills, creating portfolio work, etc. Due to the contracts creative jobs often have, anything you create on company time (and sometimes outside of company time, not that they can legally enforce it, but they’ll try) is typically owned by the company. As such, working on personal projects during downtime is a great way to lose ownership of a passion project you’re working on, and no official work means you aren’t improving or adding to your portfolio (not that creative fields typically have downtime, usually they’re the opposite).
It’s speculated that that’s why Valve had some major staff members leave the company a few years before Half-Life Alyx; they had nothing to do and were just sitting there spinning their wheels.
OP… for millions of years our ancestors lived outside or in caves but spent much of their time actively doing stuff. Hunting, gathering, fishing, tending and harvesting, playing etc. What they didnt do is sit still in a gray cubicle with sycophantic motivational posters stapled to the cubicle walls under florescent lighting for 9 hours a day 5 days a week. The only thing that maintains sanity is having something to do to distract yourself from the completely artificial work environment you are basically forced to live in for 40+ years because if you dont, you cant pay for what you need to survive.
And you wonder why people dont want that?
The only thing that maintains sanity is having something to do to distract yourself
I don’t see why reading or writing poetry don’t accomplish that
You cant do that in a secured environment. You are not allowed writing instruments, paper or anything that can carry information out of the room. You get a rubix cube and a stress ball. Thats your entertainment. That was my job OP. I worked in IT, insurance and a credit card company at different points and thats what there was. The only thing you were allowed to do in your down time was to read from the internal wiki about something no one and I mean no one thinks is interesting.
No one works in a place like that because they want to. They do it because financially speaking theres a gun to their head. And anyone that has the opportunity to leave is going to leave.
On the flip side, I have a job where there are a number of roles where all you have to do is be ready until idle time stops. There are no restrictions outside of safety. When I’ve covered those jobs, I take it as a break from my regular job and enjoy some music or an ebook. I’ve seen others studying when it was their regular job. And I’ve seen some experience emotional distress, not from the boredom of their job but because it doesn’t allow them to be distracted from their personal lives.
I’m fine with an afternoon with nothing to do, but I’d really rather be at home. The day progresses slower without something to do. Four hours can feel like six if all I’m doing is checking my email every half hour. It feels like two hours when I’m in full flow mode.
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.
I have more flexibility working from ~2 or 3 days per week now, but it still gets boring because I have to be “on call” and ready to re-engage with work quickly. I can’t go anywhere or get deeply involved in anything.
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
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.
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
What’s wrong with reading a book, writing poetry or a novel, exercising, playing with the smartphone
The jobs people complain about tend to penalize them for doing those things instead of pretending to be busy.
you can always do them in hiding
pretend you are writing some report
Exactly. I had a shitty call centre job and would attempt to read during downtime but would be told no.
I’m not one to take that so I would push back saying so you want me to sit here and possibly zone out, rather than remain alert by reading. They wanted the former.
The other reason we want to be busy is because times goes faster.
Exactly this. If I could occupy myself it would be great. Being paid to sit and stare at walls is a way to induce madness.
Truly I tell you, no matter what you were paid, you would scream to leave.
It’s existentially dreadful.
Wasting your life commuting just to sit in a chair for 8 hours only to get paid barely enough to pay your bills for existing in the first place is a convoluted prison when you know that you have so much more potential, which again is also hindered by the same mechanisms that allowed you to turn on the TV and pretend that you lived today.
Sometimes you need to break out of the comfort zone and find another job or take some risks by stirring up trouble where you are. It usually pays off better to do so either way, instead of pretending that the comfortable job gives any kind of job security. There’s really no such thing as a stable job. You only work somewhere until you don’t.
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.
