Bored out of your mind at work? Your brain is trying to tell you something. | Dan Cable | Big Think

Bored out of your mind at work? Your brain is trying to tell you something.
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We've all been bored on the job at least once in our lives, but that boredom is actually very old human wiring. We constantly seek out new information to keep our minds sharp, and when tasks get repetitive we get bored and move on. But what if you can't move on? What if the tasks are your job and you have to repeat them day after day to keep a roof over your head? That, says London Business School professor Dan Cable, is why boredom has become an epidemic. Our brains aren't used to staying in their lanes, so perhaps that boredom is not a bug after all, but a feature.
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DAN CABLE:

Dan Cable is Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School. Dan's research and teaching focus on employee engagement, change, organizational culture, leadership mindset, and the linkage between brands and employee behaviors. Dan was selected for the 2018 Thinkers50 Radar List, The Academy of Management has twice honored Dan with Best Article awards, and The Academy of Management Perspectives ranked Dan in the 'Top 25 most influential management scholars'.
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TRANSCRIPT:

DAN CABLE: Well about two years ago I stumbled on a piece of neuroscience that just stunned me. As a psychologist, I wish somebody had told me more about this but what I learned is that there appears to be a part of our brain called the ventral striatum, that's the technical term, or you also could call it the seeking system. And this system is urging us to explore the boundaries of what we know. It's urging us to be curious. And, by the way, I mean innately. I mean children six months old, three months old. If you give them some toy they love it for a little while. As they get used to it, your car keys become more interesting. It's the new and it's the desire to learn. And evolutionarily this system was developed to help us, to keep us learning. When I learned about this seeking system it really turned me on because it started to give me an insight into why disengagement from boring work, that may not be a bug. That might be a feature.

In the 2015-2016 Gallup polls, the evidence is that about 70 percent of people are not engaged in what they do all day long and about 18 percent of people are repulsed, they're actively disengaged from what they do. And I think that the reason why I say this is a problem, and it could even be called an epidemic is because work is mostly what we do. We spend so much more time at work than with our families or with those things called hobbies. And so I think that the pervasiveness of people feeling like work is a thing that we have to shut off from, a thing that we can't be our best selves, a thing that we have to get through on the way to the weekend. I think that is a sort of humanistic sickness and while it is bad for people, that's the humanistic bit, it also is really bad for organizations who get lackluster performance.

I think that it's interesting to think about when this all started happening and I didn't live back in the 1850s, but all the records suggest that you could buy shoes and those shoes would be sold by some store, some cobbler. And maybe there would be three people that worked there. Rarely would there be five people that worked there. And while that probably wasn't the best work in the world, each of the people in the store would watch the customer walk in and then they'd make a shoe for that customer. And they'd take leather and they'd sew it and then they'd give it. And around 1890 we got this different idea as a species where we should not sell two pairs of shoes each day, but two million. And this idea of scaling up had certain implications for how work felt. And part of that was because it was decided that the way to do this would have extreme efficiency by breaking the work into really small tasks where most of the people don't meet the customer. Most of the people don't invent the shoe. Most of the people don't actually see the shoe made from beginning to end. And this idea of removing the meaning from the work was intentional. And the idea of removing the curiosity from the job was intentional. For Henry Ford curiosity was a bug, it was a problem and he needed to stamp it out in the name of reliability and quality. Now I'm not saying we're still acting just like the 1900s, but I am saying that's when we cut our teeth on management practices and the way we use control systems and punishments and extrinsic reward...

[InvestigatorMelodytchi]

I like how this video was randomly recommended to me while I was browsing YouTube at work because I was bored.

[psychoactivednb]

Working 5 days to enjoy 2? Sounds like a pretty shitty ratio to me

[SamtaniPradeep]

"The idea of removing meaning from job and curiosity from job was intentional " this line nailed it

[jerod]

I love how he dances around the concept that modern employers treat employees like widgets and tools rather than human beings.

[scottgreen]

I take extra long toilet breaks and read scientific journals so I don't feel like killing myself.

[digitalbread]

Repetitive tasks like working a 9-5 puts your brain in zombie mode. It feels lifeless.

[glakhmed]

I always thought there was something wrong with me because I would get so bored at work to the point of fighting off sleep. But as soon as I would leave work, I would feel energized.

[adriannabrown]

I once got fired for having an earbud in my ear listening to podcasts and music on the job. I was working back to back 12 hour shifts, hated the repetitive rinse and repeat of packaging and running around up and down stairs, paper cuts, dirt under the finger nails, meeting rates...I was exhausted all the time. At some point, the (not well maintained) bathroom became my refuge. And that says a lot. The job made was making me depressed all over again. I thought, am I going to be doing this the rest of my life... I'd much rather die. So when I was terminated, I didn't even fight.

[toms]

Just realized I turned 35. That's 12, 750 days on this spinning orb. Most of them have been a waste doing nonsense in school or at work. Every day is groundhog day. I've basically forgotten how to feel since work is so painfully mind numbing. 12, 000 or so more days and I can retire. What a waste of a life.

[aprilrobles]

I work as a nurse, and although I sometimes think that I put myself into a shitty job, I am now grateful that I can say I have never felt bored even for a single day in my work. 😁

[VarshaManoj]

This was really interesting and new to me.
No wonder why curiousity is the only emotion that has the abilty to increase your focus on anything. You don't get distracted when you are curious.

[fs]

It amazes me to see how many of us (especially individuals between the ages of 22-26) are going through the same thing. Disliking / hating the mundanity of such repetitive and unfulfilling work - I trust we all find the thing that makes us spark

[kenshinhimura]

I can't keep a job more than 1 year because I'll go crazy. I have to constantly be doing something different.

[fractallusion]

This is why I listen to podcasts for literally my entire shift, quenching my thirst for both knowledge and entertainment. I feel very grateful in that sense.

[szithaanu]

I just can't give my all to something that my heart isn't in, no matter how good the pay is. Three and a half years ago I got myself into a position where I now only work two 12 hour shifts a week in an industry that pays very well. My heart still isn't in it but it's only two days of very easy work which makes it so much more bearable. I was told I was mad for giving up full-time work because the money was so good but I was miserable and depressed. Now I have five days a week to dedicate to the things in life that matter.
I've always felt that spending all your days doing things that don't stimulate you mentally, physically and spiritually is a total waste of life.
Here's to all of us who had the balls to say "Fuck it, I'm out".

[malia]

I am quitting my draining job in two weeks. All the time I was blaming myself for feeling bored and not being able to stay focused, feeling bad and guilty. But now I see it clearly and I know it’s never 100% my fault for feeling that way. There is one toxic belief I realised why I stay in this job for so long “if this place doesn’t want me nowhere else will”.

Leaving this job not knowing what to do next is scary as hell, so I choose to focus more on believing in myself that I can breathe life back into me.

[aperson]

every minute i'm here is a minute i want to leave, but having a secure and decently paying job at the age of 26 is a hard drug to beat. i always swore i was never going to be like the generation before mine, where the only thing i look forward to is the weekend and vacation time, but here i am. it kind of feels like my /self/ is being eroded somehow.

[spiraldive]

Yep... its called de-skilling. As long as it continues, skilled members of staff will disengage from their day to day work & look forward to achieving their personal goals elsewhere - in their personal lives, hobies, sports & past times. Work has become a ballache, a means & an end to pay bills & facilitate those hobbies. Long live the weekend.

[DarthAssViolater]

I've always been a pretty positive guy my whole life. Finished college then worked for a television company afterwards. I'm not sure why, but just doing the same thing everyday and being someone else's employee made me, for the first time in my life, suicidal. I remember driving back home and just crying, not even knowing why.

I had to quit after 10 months, I was scared I would actually commit suicide. I think some people's brains just don't allow them to be someone's else's slave,

I remember seeing a documentary about Basquiat. He broke down in tears and had to quit after just a single day of being an employee. I really think it's in our DNA how some people are fine doing the same thing and being numb while others really can't live that way.

[theboombody]

I never once looked at a job posting and thought how awesome it was. Every job looks boring to me. And that's fine. What I can't stand is ingratitude. I had a job once as a high school teacher and I couldn't stand it. No one is more ungrateful than a teenager because most of them (at least where I was) aren't knowledgeable enough about the world to appreciate anything yet, and I found out I wasn't patient enough to help teach them that lesson. Now I work for a small business with an EXTREMELY grateful employer who may not always go with my feelings but ALWAYS takes them into consideration. I have been with that employer 15 years and no telling how much longer I will stay there. Because it's VERY good to be appreciated, even if the work involved gets dull from time to time.