How to Deal with a Boring Job

Productivity 501 suggests how to deal with a boring job assuming you don't want to -- or can't -- find a new job. Their thoughts:

Asking for more responsibility. The trick is to find something that is being ignored right now so it can be done in his spare time. 

Asking for more education. Check the employee manual.  If they have a defined educational plan, take some college course or other type of training while at work and while having the company pay for it.

Self education. Even if the company isn’t going to pay for it, [you can] get additional training simply by spending downtime learning about things [that] to make [you] more skilled. 

Formal education. Even if the company isn’t willing to pay for it, look at taking online classes and paying for them out of [your] own pocket. 

IMO, it's a rare occasion that people have boring jobs and tons of free time to do other things. Many have boring jobs but a full plate (or more) in "grunt" or "non-enjoyable" work.

That said, I have found myself in a couple of positions where the job required far less than I was able to do -- and I therefore had plenty of time. One situation I dealt with (mostly) in a non-productive way and the other was much more positive. Here are the two stories:

• In the first, I had several hours per week free -- maybe 15 or so. So I decided to take up a hobby (of all things) and started an in-depth study of chess (of all things.) I learned how to play and got to be decent, never good, but it was fun and helped the time pass quickly. I wasn't in a position to look for other jobs and there weren't many extra projects, so chess helped me pass the dead time. However, this only lasted a few months, when I thought of a huge project that could benefit the company, sold it to management, and then spent the next six months (20 hours per week or so) developing and implementing it. The project was a huge success and even helped our team make bonus that year! ;-)
• The second time, I actually started looking for other opportunities because I thought it was a dead-end position and I was going to stagnate/go crazy in it. But then I started thinking of responsibilities that were related to what I was doing, but not directly. I suggested exploring them and the request was approved. They ended up filling in all my dead time, being quite enjoyable, challenging/growing me as an employee, and benefiting the company -- a win all the way around.

So of all the tips above, I guess I agree most with "ask for more responsibility." But I would rephrase it into "develop new opportunities that benefit you and the organization." In other words, you need to identify specific opportunities, sell them to management, and then make them happen. Don't simply go into your boss and ask for "more responsibility" (BTW, I don't think they are suggesting that above.) Then again, you can pull your boss into the effort by asking how you could potentially contribute more to the company and see what he says. Perhaps he'll spark an idea for you.

How about you? Have you ever been in a boring job with extra time on your hands? What did you do?

Comments

[Williams]

I never in a boring job. Trust me it is very unpleasant. But fortunately this time I would have more time to do other work in his spare time available. So now I can experience in the financial progress.

[dcs]

I had a boring job when I first got out of college. It was at a small newspaper. The job required kindergarten-level skills - use of scissors, and pasting mostly. Eventually, noticing all the mistakes in the paper (I had to look at every page for my job) and having extra time, I started proofreading it. But even that didn't take up all of my time. So I started fooling around/fixing the computer problems other employees ran into. One day one of the photographers came in all frazzled about having to write a story, a bunch of captions, and process a roll of film. I, the minimum-wage part time composition person, said "I'll soup it four you. Whaddya got there, T-Max? You using the T-max solution or D-76?" To say she was surprised was an understatement.

But it can (and did) backfire. Suddenly I was the computer guy/darkroom tech/proofreader in addition to the original job (which I eventually eliminated by taking the paper to an all-digital production process - something they had been trying to do for over a year before I got there). Trouble is I was still minimum wage, still part time. I didn't insist on being compensated for the additional work or skills.

So if you do this kind of thing, make sure when it's done that you ask for a raise (or bonus). Without making it sound like a shakedown, make sure it's clear that the last project was a free sample, but you expect to be paid for the next or you'll go back to the original job and no more.

[Everyday Tips]

My first job out of college was incredibly boring, and my boss was even more boring. He was riding the wave to retirement, so he didn't really care about anything. I asked for more responsibility/training and he said 'you are just too inpatient'. I was discouraged and frustrated. Fortunately, that assignment only lasted a year, but I also had a long commute and just hated it all.

Where I am now, we are working on incredibly old technology. If I were going to pursue a 'career' with this job (I am on a one year contract), I would get some education in Java or some other coding that had real-world experience so I could be more marketable. You gotta have something to sell, and without that, you will just stagnate.

[MattJ]

Have you ever been in a boring job with extra time on your hands?

While in college I took a part-time job delivering office supplies for a company that offered free delivery. My shift was the afternoon deliveries on the South & West sides of town. The amount of time it took to finish depended on how many packages I had to deliver, and how far the total route between drops were. The business was struggling, and most days I was done in 1-1.5 hours. (Although occassionally I would be kept busy for the full 4 hours) At first I came back and asked for more to do - cleaning the warehouse and whatnot, but the warehouse doesn't need cleaned every other day. It was clear that my bosses expected me to finish my deliveries and then just sit in the truck doing nothing, and then come clock out at 5pm. My immediate supervisor (who was a full-time delivery guy who did the other half of the city) typically went to a bar to play pool or to a strip club after his deliveries were done. In fact, he took me to play pool on company time while he was training me. It was a very unsatisfying job. I felt like I was stealing all the time, even though it was clear that everyone up the chain expected us to be 'out delivering' for four hours, even when the sales staff couldn't provide us with four hours of work.

What did you do?

After about 3 months, I went back to my old part-time job in construction.

[jim]

I had an internship in college that could have been pretty boring at times. However I just found myself something useful to do or read documents to educate myself. One of the other interns would read a book with his feet up on the desk.

If you're bored due to dead time with no work to do then you just need to find something to fill the dead time. However if you're bored cause you don't find your work challenging then thats a different problem. If you're a roofer who finds roofing to be boring then you probably need to either deal with that or look for a career change.

[Amy]

I'm eternally grateful for the mind-numbing temp jobs I had between acting gigs in NYC. When I didn't have work, I wrote cover letters, researched jobs, balanced my checkbook, wrote down notes about auditions, taught myself Word and Excel basics no one else would've taught me (making me a more valuable temp and more efficient in my civilian life), and all the things I could do on my PDA to keep my life together when I was on the road. I never understood my deskmate who spent all day playing video games -- I figured that was for times I wasn't in a suit.