5 ms·

Suppressing boredom at work hurts future productivity

84 points by ryanblakeley 2y ago

itqwertz 2y 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 2y 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."
  - clipsy 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - slibhb 2y ago
      If capitalism cares about anything, it's economic growth. It's unclear to me how half-assing two jobs is good for economic growth.
      - nemomarx 2y ago
        If you perform well enough that your boss doesn't notice, clearly it's providing the value you're getting paid for it? And getting 2-3 jobs out of a person is a multiplier to growth in theory, since they augment more other workers labour.
        slibhb 2y ago
        > If you perform well enough that your boss doesn't notice, clearly it's providing the value you're getting paid for it? Let's assume the goal of capitalism is economic growth. The fact that you can hold two jobs while doing no work is not evidence that your actions are helping either of your companies, or the economy, grow.
        dns_snek 2y ago
        If those companies are unaware of how much work their (salaried) employees are capable of doing, they're by definition inefficient and deserve to get replaced by more competent competitors. That's the system working exactly as designed. The employee working two jobs is doing something equivalent to price discovery.
        Nathanba 2y ago
        that's like saying "if you steal from someone and he doesnt notice it, clearly he doesn't need it" If you think about this a bit more deeply, you realize "wait...a second"
        card_zero 2y ago
        That's correct for property: it's called "adverse possession".
        clipsy 2y ago
        When the job market is bad, these companies will not even slightly hesitate before demanding so much work that you need to put in 10, 20, even 30+ hours per week of unpaid overtime. They want to act like amoral money-extraction engines but they want to be treated like well-behaved moral agents.
      - dns_snek 2y ago
        Capitalism doesn't care about anything other than personal profit. Half-assing two jobs might not be good for economic growth, but it's the essence of capitalism - earn the most you can for doing the least you can get away with and vice versa, extract the most labor you can while paying the least you can get away with.
        slibhb 2y ago
        Capitalism is free markets, private property, voluntary exchange of labor, capital accumulation, etc. What you're complaining about is greed. Greed has existed throughout human history (and probably before). Greed is found wherever there are people (and probably animals), including in non-capitalist arrangements.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        dns_snek 2y ago
        I wasn't complaining about greed, not in this comment anyway. I was merely describing the nature of free markets with supply & demand as its driving principle. Those are the rules, but employers despise getting beaten at their own game.
        slibhb 2y ago
        Markets don't reward greed. They reward behavior that grows the market. In the long run growing the market comes down to capital (as in factories, roads, and stuff), technology, skills, culture, and people.
        _giorgio_ 2y ago
        [flagged]
  - testacpwoek 2y 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.
    - Nathanba 2y ago
      imo it's not useful to act as if the social contract is completely gone or that it will ever be completely gone and I say that as someone who surprises himself every year with how much further I have to lower my expectations on humanity. But... there will always be some kind of social contract because life without trust isn't possible, you'd have to be a machine under total surveillance with iron clad checks on every twitch of your finger otherwise.This is all just the ebb and flow of capitalist desires: One side tries to extract every bit of profit out of you and the other side tries to do the same. In that struggle hopefully both sides end up in an equilibrium that is humane and fair and no single side wins.
    - wryoak 2y ago
      It’s about the moral contract with yourself, but that’s your business and no one else’s. If you compare your values to those of your CEO, or anyone, then you’ve likely lost sight of that. You become fearful of being who you want to be and fixated on attachment and loss prevention.
      - dns_snek 2y ago
        I've never worked two jobs like that, but if an opportunity presented itself, I'd probably take it. I'll save my morals for people who actually care about me. You can be perfectly moral in your personal life while being amoral in your professional life when it comes to matters like these. Trying to be moral in an inherently amoral environment is just opening yourself up for exploitation.
        collingreen 2y ago
  - wryoak 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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.
    - LoganDark 2y ago
      Pretty much. I see these people all the time, they know how to slack off to the maximum extent possible while still appearing somewhat productive to their superiors. They just exist and don't raise a fuss which keeps them employed for years or decades with near zero effort, all the while I'm worrying immensely about everything and so tired at the end of each workday that 12 hours of sleep is barely enough!
  - halfcat 2y 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?
    - _visgean 2y ago
      usually every contract for a job will have some clause like working hours etc. You would be breaking that clause.
- sesm 2y 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 2y ago
    > 1. Jobs with minimal responsibilities pay minimal salary This is so wrong, I cannot even take seriously the rest of the points.
    - Spivak 2y ago
      Yeah, one of the most shocking things I learned as an adult is that work is inversely proportional to salary. It's obvious in hindsight but it's hard to deprogram the lies you were told constantly growing up. Jobs with shit pay are offered by employers who are price sensitive and who are trying to squeeze every little bit of effort out of each dollar. Take that not even $15/hr line cook and compare it to your software dev hourly and ask yourself are you working 5x harder than they are? Oh fuck no, I'm working less hard most weeks.
      - rincebrain 2y ago
        "In theory" the equation is something like [time+energy spent] * [value for work not being doable without specialized knowledge/experience] * [demand for the work], with the goal being to maximize the second and third to absurd values, so you can decrease the amount of actual energy you expend. In theory.
    - zelphirkalt 2y ago
      Could you name a job with minimal/low responsibility that pays better?
  - throwawaysleep 2y 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 2y ago
  Great way to kill remote work for the rest of us.
- camhart 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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.
    - imbnwa 2y ago
      Strange how little I hear this asked after
  - steveBK123 2y 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.
- rr808 2y ago
  The best solution I've read for this is for companies to ensure you put your job on LinkedIn.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  the formula is (years of experience / 5) for number of jobs you can do remotely
bittercynic 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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.

84 points by ryanblakeley 2y 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 2y 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."
- clipsy 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - slibhb 2y ago
    If capitalism cares about anything, it's economic growth. It's unclear to me how half-assing two jobs is good for economic growth.
    - nemomarx 2y ago
      If you perform well enough that your boss doesn't notice, clearly it's providing the value you're getting paid for it? And getting 2-3 jobs out of a person is a multiplier to growth in theory, since they augment more other workers labour.
      - slibhb 2y ago
        > If you perform well enough that your boss doesn't notice, clearly it's providing the value you're getting paid for it? Let's assume the goal of capitalism is economic growth. The fact that you can hold two jobs while doing no work is not evidence that your actions are helping either of your companies, or the economy, grow.
        dns_snek 2y ago
        If those companies are unaware of how much work their (salaried) employees are capable of doing, they're by definition inefficient and deserve to get replaced by more competent competitors. That's the system working exactly as designed. The employee working two jobs is doing something equivalent to price discovery.
      - Nathanba 2y ago
        that's like saying "if you steal from someone and he doesnt notice it, clearly he doesn't need it" If you think about this a bit more deeply, you realize "wait...a second"
        card_zero 2y ago
        That's correct for property: it's called "adverse possession".
        clipsy 2y ago
        When the job market is bad, these companies will not even slightly hesitate before demanding so much work that you need to put in 10, 20, even 30+ hours per week of unpaid overtime. They want to act like amoral money-extraction engines but they want to be treated like well-behaved moral agents.
    - dns_snek 2y ago
      Capitalism doesn't care about anything other than personal profit. Half-assing two jobs might not be good for economic growth, but it's the essence of capitalism - earn the most you can for doing the least you can get away with and vice versa, extract the most labor you can while paying the least you can get away with.
      - slibhb 2y ago
        Capitalism is free markets, private property, voluntary exchange of labor, capital accumulation, etc. What you're complaining about is greed. Greed has existed throughout human history (and probably before). Greed is found wherever there are people (and probably animals), including in non-capitalist arrangements.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        dns_snek 2y ago
        I wasn't complaining about greed, not in this comment anyway. I was merely describing the nature of free markets with supply & demand as its driving principle. Those are the rules, but employers despise getting beaten at their own game.
        slibhb 2y ago
        Markets don't reward greed. They reward behavior that grows the market. In the long run growing the market comes down to capital (as in factories, roads, and stuff), technology, skills, culture, and people.
      - _giorgio_ 2y ago
        [flagged]
- testacpwoek 2y 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.
  - Nathanba 2y ago
    imo it's not useful to act as if the social contract is completely gone or that it will ever be completely gone and I say that as someone who surprises himself every year with how much further I have to lower my expectations on humanity. But... there will always be some kind of social contract because life without trust isn't possible, you'd have to be a machine under total surveillance with iron clad checks on every twitch of your finger otherwise.This is all just the ebb and flow of capitalist desires: One side tries to extract every bit of profit out of you and the other side tries to do the same. In that struggle hopefully both sides end up in an equilibrium that is humane and fair and no single side wins.
  - wryoak 2y ago
    It’s about the moral contract with yourself, but that’s your business and no one else’s. If you compare your values to those of your CEO, or anyone, then you’ve likely lost sight of that. You become fearful of being who you want to be and fixated on attachment and loss prevention.
    - dns_snek 2y ago
      I've never worked two jobs like that, but if an opportunity presented itself, I'd probably take it. I'll save my morals for people who actually care about me. You can be perfectly moral in your personal life while being amoral in your professional life when it comes to matters like these. Trying to be moral in an inherently amoral environment is just opening yourself up for exploitation.
      - collingreen 2y ago
- wryoak 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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.
  - LoganDark 2y ago
    Pretty much. I see these people all the time, they know how to slack off to the maximum extent possible while still appearing somewhat productive to their superiors. They just exist and don't raise a fuss which keeps them employed for years or decades with near zero effort, all the while I'm worrying immensely about everything and so tired at the end of each workday that 12 hours of sleep is barely enough!
- halfcat 2y 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?
  - _visgean 2y ago
    usually every contract for a job will have some clause like working hours etc. You would be breaking that clause.
sesm 2y 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 2y ago
  > 1. Jobs with minimal responsibilities pay minimal salary This is so wrong, I cannot even take seriously the rest of the points.
  - Spivak 2y ago
    Yeah, one of the most shocking things I learned as an adult is that work is inversely proportional to salary. It's obvious in hindsight but it's hard to deprogram the lies you were told constantly growing up. Jobs with shit pay are offered by employers who are price sensitive and who are trying to squeeze every little bit of effort out of each dollar. Take that not even $15/hr line cook and compare it to your software dev hourly and ask yourself are you working 5x harder than they are? Oh fuck no, I'm working less hard most weeks.
    - rincebrain 2y ago
      "In theory" the equation is something like [time+energy spent] * [value for work not being doable without specialized knowledge/experience] * [demand for the work], with the goal being to maximize the second and third to absurd values, so you can decrease the amount of actual energy you expend. In theory.
  - zelphirkalt 2y ago
    Could you name a job with minimal/low responsibility that pays better?
- throwawaysleep 2y 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 2y ago
Great way to kill remote work for the rest of us.
camhart 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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.
  - imbnwa 2y ago
    Strange how little I hear this asked after
- steveBK123 2y 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.
rr808 2y ago
The best solution I've read for this is for companies to ensure you put your job on LinkedIn.
bdangubic 2y ago
the formula is (years of experience / 5) for number of jobs you can do remotely

bittercynic 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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.