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
The jobs people complain about tend to penalize them for doing those things instead of pretending to be busy.
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.
you can always do them in hiding
pretend you are writing some report
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.
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.
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.
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’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.
For me, waiting for the phone to ring was torture, because I could be interrupted at any time. It was draining and stressful. If you’re actually able to relax, that’s different.
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”.
Personally? Sitting around too much makes me anxious and antsy, not to mention it makes the time go by really slowly. It’s hard to enjoy pastimes when you’re stuck somewhere you wouldn’t be if you had the choice. (Also, as others have mentioned, not everyone can do those leisure time activities while at work).
My work is actually a little abnormal, but we have plenty of days where we are mostly just waiting around doing nothing for 10hrs and then working really hard for two. Sometimes I do like those days, but more often than not, I enjoy keeping busy with work stuff because sometimes those 12hr days are even longer. If I sat around for the majority of that, I’d be bored out of my skull. Yeah, I can read/do a few things you mentioned, but not for that long.
I also sort of get to live inside my head while I’m working idly with my hands. It’s a little freeing for me mentally to take the load off of my “leisure” brain. I listen to music and kinda pass the time doing my job. And I actually like my job. So that’s a huge benefit.
I see a lot of posts about people becoming depressed because they feel like they have nothing to do and therefore feel useless, but I just can’t relate. My last job pushed harder and harder to make sure we were busy at all times and the constant rush along with it never being enough for middle management to be happy was what made me depressed. I would have killed for downtime to actually breathe.
I used to be bored at work as I had too much downtime, so I decided to just accept more duties. Was nice to be able to solve problems learn new things and it made the time go faster. But you just keep getting more and more work and responsibilities heaped on you for doing a good job, and absolutely nobody notices it until you start falling apart. Then all of a sudden people you’ve never heard of are ‘concerned’ about you. At this point I am burnt out and do even less work than when I was bored, but the difference is that it also drains me.
The lesson is to never try to work at or around full capacity. Don’t fall into the trap of being bored and deciding to take on more work.
Time moves slower when I’m sitting around doing nothing. I’d rather get stuff done and see things getting built; it’s satisfying. If I’m sitting around with no projects it just seems like a waste of time, and I personally don’t like being inefficient.
Other guys? They love just shooting the shit.
I work nights with 2 other guys. One of them is cool and seems to be a bit introverted, but we’re both into sports so we’ll watch games the first few hours and chat intermittently. The other guy openly hates sports, but loves “shooting the shit”, which he understands to mean him going on a fringe political rant or into way too much detail over some random shit he saw on YouTube… Luckily work gave us headsets with ANC, so me and the cool guy just headset up once the games are over and live in silence on the slow nights
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)
rip in power graebae
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”
