Work can be boring, yes, it can be repetitive, but that feeling does not have to be destructive.
Many people may say, ‘My job is so boring but it pays well!’ which means that you feel stuck and not able to change things.
Are you bored at work? Does toil and tedium sum up your life, it’s like a long, hard haul. Work can be boring but work should not lack meaning.
Table of Contents:
1. What is Boreout at work?
The signs you are bored at work are constantly wishing you could be somewhere else, or feeling numb that there is this huge area of your life that is just wasted.
Boredom Boreout Syndrome is a psychological disorder that causes physical illness, mainly caused by mental underload at the workplace due to lack of either adequate quantitative or qualitative workload.”
‘Boreout’ Wikipedia. 1
“‘Boreout’ is chronic boredom. That sums it up,” says Lotta Harju, an assistant professor of organisational behaviour at EM Lyon Business School, France, who has studied Boreout for years.
She said that being chronically bored for days on end may indicate that you need to address the issue because failing to do so can have consequences.
In 2014, she worked on a study, looking at more than 11,000 workers at 87 Finnish organisations and found that the turnover of employees increased, bored workers thought more about early retirement, and health and stress symptoms increased. 2
These health issues can lead to insomnia, impatience, irritability, fatigue, and low levels of motivation and self-esteem.
2. Dealing with boredom at work
‘I’m so bored at work I could cry!’
‘My job is so boring I can’t focus!’
There are a number of reasons why work can be boring:
- A demoralising physical environment like a cubicle farm.
- Feeling under-challenged over a prolonged period.
- A job that has no meaning, no purpose and tasks are devoid of value and are pointless.
Do we find ourselves spending more and more time shopping online, chatting with colleagues, planning other activities, cyberloafing [which is a term to describe employees who use work time to do non-work-related activities on the internet, such as web browsing, social media, personal emails, etc.]
If so, these are the signs of boredom at the workplace.
Everyone’s work can be boring at times, but that has no effect on us when we can see that the task we are doing is making a difference.
When our work is particularly repetitive it is important to feel that you are part of a team and that you have good relationships at the workplace.
As a student working in a large horticultural nursery, I spent some months on a potting machine with a team of four people.
The tasks were keeping the machine supplied with pots and supplying the small plants for potting, two people potting and removing the potted plants.
The jobs were dusty and noisy, but even though the job was repetitive, I found great satisfaction from seeing all those plants getting potted on.
The rhythmic, unrelenting clatter of the machine even felt exciting to me.
Many say that work has become boring since the industrial age when people worked in factories, but looking back to farm work before the Industrial Age, wasn’t it boring to be sything corn all day?
In another job, I had to hoe weeds all day long out in the fields for weeks when I was younger and I was bored out of my mind!
It was then that I realised that I needed to use my brain and my giftings in a job for me to be satisfied.
Perhaps in your job, you aren’t using your talents and skills.
It may be time to look for another job or to get some training or get some more qualifications.
Stop waiting around.
‘Bored at work: what your apathy is trying to tell you.’ By Sonia Valente. 3
Try taking an active part in your career development and tell your manager you’d like to take a training course.
If an interesting position opens up in your company, consider applying for it yourself.
The main thing is to show your manager that you’re good at what you do and ready to move up.
To support your case, provide concrete evidence such as positive feedback from satisfied customers or past performance reviews.
You can also show proof of how you’ve gone the extra mile to meet your objectives.”
Obviously, giving meaning to a job is not just up to the employee, the management needs to create a healthy environment where hard work is praised and valued.
Perhaps you want to set up your own business or follow your life’s passion.
Speaking from my own personal experience I felt it was a huge jump and too much of a risk to go big.
Too many business startups go big too quickly, they buy new vans and have an expensive office suite, etc.
Business these days seems to promote getting loans and starting with a bang.
But loans cost a lot of extra money, if you can survive without them the better your cash flow will be.
The Internet is great for small startups, especially where you can do practical stuff like learning how to create a website, SEO, Facebook, etc.
Paying for professionals to do these things does cost a fortune.
You need to get your foot into that niche market so you can start making sales without spending masses of money.
3. Did Noah get bored with building the Ark?
Could Noah have built the Ark and how long did it take?
From the Bible, we can presume that the job of building the Ark took over one hundred years!
That sounds like real drudgery and hard work.
This article is based on Genesis 6, where God said to Noah:
I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.
Genesis 6:13-16 NIV
I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.
This is how you are to build it:
The ark is to be 450 ft long, 75 ft wide and 45 ft high.
Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top.
Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks…(etc.)”
For many, toil and tedium sums up their life, it just seems like a long, hard haul.
Now, consider this.
God could have miraculously done something for Noah, but He didn’t.
Surely the Lord could have told Noah to keep in his house, to spread the blood of a sacrifice around the door, as the Israelites did in Egypt, and a destroying angel could have carried out the destruction.
But Noah had to work very hard building this huge boat.
It didn’t supernaturally get built, it would take toil and tedium.
It took a lot of planning and supervision.
It cost loads of money to buy materials and pay for the labour to build it.
Noah may have thought: ‘This boat building is totally mundane and it’s doing my head in. I could use my time much more profitably for God if I let someone else do all this.’
But the Lord wanted Noah to build the Ark with the help of his family and employees.
We have no reason to doubt that Noah found pleasure in the hard work because he was doing what God wanted him to do.
Noah was able to eagerly press on with his hard work because it had meaning.
Is God allowing hard things to come our way so as to test us? How does God discipline us?
In the hard times don’t trust in man but realise that God is protecting us from even worse things. Learn how to trust God.
Be content, this situation may be for the ‘proving’ of our faith.
4. Going on the dole to work for the Kingdom of God
Times are hard at the moment with many people out of a job and they do not have a choice, but in the past, I have come across some who have been tempted to think: ‘If I sign on at the dole office, then I could use all of my time working for the Kingdom of God.’
But that wouldn’t be how the Lord would see it. Paul wrote:
We gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”
2 Thessalonians 3:10 NIV
That’s very plain and to the point!
If you have tried to get a job, provided you are not being too selective, that doesn’t mean that you will have to starve!
We need to test our motives.
But the Bible does NOT allow us to CHOOSE to go on the dole so that we can work for the Kingdom of God.
If we have got a job, then we can sometimes be tempted to ask ourselves: ‘What has my everyday job, and my tasks around the home, got to do with eternity?’
Paul wrote:
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands, just as we told you. So that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders, and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”
1 Thessalonians 4:11 NIV
We need to take our responsibilities seriously here on Earth.
In heaven we will have responsibilities, so, our time now is training for that.
We are Christ’s representatives, so whether we’re at work, or in our leisure time, non-Christians will be observing us, and hopefully, we will win their respect.
5. Work can be boring – is secular work unspiritual?
The Lord does not see our ‘secular’ work as being unspiritual.
It isn’t something that gets in the way of our spiritual life.
Let’s not be ashamed of the ordinary work we do, week by week.
Do it unto the Lord.
Here is a famous example from history:
You could say that the life work of English politician William Wilberforce was gradually eliminating slavery through 69 initiatives he piloted that changed his nation—and the world.
‘Is Secular Work Valued by God?’ By Os Hillman 4
However, after he came to faith in Christ at age 26, he almost quit politics to go into the ‘ministry’ because he thought it to be a ‘higher’ calling.
Fortunately for us, a converted former slave trader named John Newton (the writer of ‘Amazing Grace’) challenged the young man to stay where God could use him most—in politics.”
Jesus worked as an unassuming carpenter until he was about thirty years old and then he became the Saviour of the World.
Both roles were at the centre of God’s plan for Jesus’ life.
Remember what Jesus said:
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Matthew 11:28-30 ESV
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Jesus does not want us to stop labouring, he wants us to change the Master that we work for.
He wants us to take up his yoke, which is an implement of work.
That yoke is not just ‘the ministry’.
It is more likely to be secular work in an ordinary job.
We can then be content that we are in the middle of his plan for our lives.
But perhaps you have a bit of a tyrant for a boss that is making you want to get out of secular work and into ‘the ministry’.
But a caustic boss is not sufficient reason to change your job or to get out of secular work.
You may say squirm and say: ‘They are really unpleasant, and they are real slave drivers!’
But Paul had some advice, for those working under such a boss:
Slaves (!) obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favour, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.
Colossians 3:22 NIV
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you receive an inheritance from the Lord, as a reward.
It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
[1] An erratic and fickle God? Does God change His mind?
[2] Are we born good or bad?
[4] Our hard work AND God’s miracles – working for God is different to working with God.
References – open in new tabs:
Ark image: thanks to The Pictorial Dictionary published by The Educational Book Company, London.