Suppressing boredom at work hurts future productivity

https://phys.org/news/2024-03-suppressing-boredom-future-productivity.html

by ryanblakeley • 2 years ago

84 47 2 years ago

itqwertz• 2 years ago

If you work remotely, a good cure for boredom is working 2+ jobs with minimal responsibilities or expectations. Spinning plates, keeping a mediocre output for keeping the job, is a great wealth and boredom fix.

sandspar• 2 years ago

It's a shit market and you're taking someone's job and doing it half assed. The other job seeker loses, your boss loses, you win. In Cipolla's formula this is "bandit with a side of stupid."

testacpwoek• 2 years ago

The other job seeker loses, your boss loses, you win

Yes, that is how our economic system works. What, are you under the illusion we still have some kind of social contract or moral responsibility toward society? If my CEO doesn't, why the hell should I? For the record I don't think it's good, but I didn't invent the game, we're all just trying to play it as best we can.

wryoak2• 2 years ago

As tempting as it is having been unemployed for fifteen months to get indignant, if someone can hold down two simultaneous jobs those jobs are probably not worth having. I could have worked a second job while at my last. That’s a big part of why I left.

johnnyanmac• 2 years ago

and you're taking someone's job and doing it half assed.

if we're being frank: one person's half assed may be better than someone less talented but throwing all their effort trying to finish tasks. Talent isn't equal, even if pay for the position has a relatively narrow range (working twice as hard at one job =/= twice the pay/benefits).

I think there is certainly a conversation to have about "overemployment" and how that can cut into the ability for other talent to be fostered, but I'm not going to pretend that 90%+ of companies ever cared about training their employees or even keeping them for more than 2 years. If they could get some person with 20 YOE working at half their output for 150k (because they then have a 2nd job doing the same thing), I doubt the moral quandries would even come into effect. Just potential legal/NDA issues.

curtisblaine• 2 years ago

The company would gladly replace you with one person doing exactly your job for half the pay - why if you do the same thing reversed you have to care if "your boss loses"?

api• 2 years ago

It’s also poisoning the well for other remote workers, giving remote work a bad name.

Ruin everything for a quick buck and then run, very hustle culture. Of course I guess our society is incentivizing this kind of behavior.

Rinzler89• 2 years ago

2+ jobs with minimal responsibilities or expectations

I was never lucky to find such jobs in my life. Every job I had enough on my plate to not have enough time and energy for a second job.

Plus, in my EU country working 2 full time jobs at the same time is impossible since employers can ask to see your social security contributions history before you start work to make sure it matches what you said in your resume, and there it shows your current and past employment history so they'll find out. Even if you don't get caught at that stage, if you get caught later, they can sue you for it if they find out.

Feels like only Americans have this luxury of plentiful easy jobs for big money and employers who don't ask questions.

babyshake• 2 years ago

I'm not capable of this, but I think the idea for many is to get a job that does have responsibilities and expectations, and treat it like a job with minimal responsibilities and expectations.

halfcat• 2 years ago

if you get caught later, they can sue you for it if they find out

Is it illegal to have 2 jobs in your country?

_visgean3• 2 years ago

Depends on your setup, if you are working as a self employed then nobody can check that. But only works in certain countries.

kccqzy• 2 years ago

Oh American companies check too. There are things like The Work Number https://theworknumber.com/ that collects and stores employment information. The typical company does perform a background check on applicants.

porknubbins• 2 years ago

Like everything in US law its complicated because we are resistant to single unified systems. Working for two Fortune 500 companies is likely to end badly like you said in the EU. But there are many smaller companies here that are not as bureaucratized. So like startup + bigcorp would be safer, different industries even better. The tradeoff is we get fired all the time and have almost no worker protections except for in a few states like CA.

sesm• 2 years ago

I have several things to say about this:

1. Jobs with minimal responsibilities pay minimal salary

2. Influencers that promoted overemployment during Covid are now unemployed and trying to survive by selling informational products

3. If a scammer offers you a deal to scam someone, in reality the most likely victim of the scam is you

padthai• 2 years ago

1. Jobs with minimal responsibilities pay minimal salary

This is so wrong, I cannot even take seriously the rest of the points.

throwawaysleep• 2 years ago

Jobs with minimal responsibilities pay minimal salary

Jobs with minimal printed responsibilities pay minimal salaries. In practice, things are quite different.

And the original overemployed guy doesn’t have anything to sell, lol.

cmrdporcupine• 2 years ago

Great way to kill remote work for the rest of us.

camhart• 2 years ago

I wish employers would better encourage and reward those who put enormous effort into their job. Far too often you just get dragged along with a promise of a promotion down the road. Then its a 5% increase. Meanwhile the sub-par performers collecting the average salary are getting better compensated for their time.

This is one reason why entrepreneurship can be appealing. Not only is there potential reward for hard work, but you are the captain of the ship too. Its not for everyone, but I think its for far more people than who currently try. The world would benefit from more entrepreneurs providing real value through their efforts.

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh• 2 years ago

I think there's a caveat with the current market.

Many Big Tech companies are in a phase of pre/post-layoff hunger games. Meanwhile, more and more AI startups are appearing, with lucrative-looking equity packages.

In both cases, a pragmatist could reasonably conclude that "working hard to keep the high-paying day job" is a better strategy than "going into the jungle and start a startup."

pavel_lishin• 2 years ago

I wish employers would better encourage and reward those who put enormous effort into their job.

I wonder if the reason they don't, is because the folks higher up are also dragging their heels & putting in 40% for the paycheck.

steveBK123• 2 years ago

Agreed re: entrepreneurship.

There is a problem with modern employment if you do not have an upside tether like pnl, profit share, equity, commissions, etc.

That is because all jobs have implicit downside tethers. If things go wrong for the company you can be fired, and if you get a cash bonus then they can also reduce your compensation by slashing bonuses after you do the work.

I've had jobs like this where you get worked dumped on you left & right. Literally doing multiple jobs as others leave, with managers unable to articulate priorities or what can be dropped because everything is important. Meanwhile knowing max raise is gonna be 5% with a random chance your total comp is flat or even down if the company has a bad year. The promotion path is slow and you are 2-3 years out from the next level.

It leaves the employee with a feeling of powerlessness and lack of control. Highly demotivating.

rjzzleep• 2 years ago

In a lot of jobs doing too much will put you on a quick path to getting fired or sidelined for being annoying.

rr808• 2 years ago

The best solution I've read for this is for companies to ensure you put your job on LinkedIn.

bdangubic• 2 years ago

the formula is (years of experience / 5) for number of jobs you can do remotely

bittercynic• 2 years ago

Suppressing boredom diminishes productivity and the likelihood of finding meaning at home, as well.

Guarding against the things I use to avoid boredom is the most effective way I've found of doing the things I'll feel good about later.

card_zero• 2 years ago

You may have misunderstood. "Suppressing" here means ignoring boredom and powering through it. It sounds like you interpreted it to mean the opposite.

taeric• 2 years ago

Love to hear examples of things you guard against. And if you have a good guard.

Article seems to be more that you shouldn't "power through" boredom. Sounds like if you can sprinkle fun in, that would be enough to make it not boring? Where fun could be challenging yourself to something. "How much of this can I get in arbitrary timeframe?" kind of challenges.

tbrownaw• 2 years ago

Of course this only works if you really do have enough non-boring tasks that there's always one available to switch to, and if the boring tasks aren't so boring that you get bored with them before making enough progress.

edem• 2 years ago

When I realized that the gervais principle was not a joke _at all_ I became a contractor, and I moved to 100% remote. This way I produce the output they expect while working on my own products. Best of both worlds and everyone is happy.

Suppressing boredom at work hurts future productivity

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