Boreout is a fancy new term for being bored at work, and an employee recently prevailed in a lawsuit – receiving a payout of about $45K USD from his employer for not giving him enough work to keep him engaged.

While this may seem absurd, if you have been bored at work you may have experienced how days can drag on. When our work is monotonous everyday, we may leave work feeling exhausted even though we did little.

Perhaps if employers do not always have enough work to keep employees busy, they should let them either do other things with their time at work, or allow them to leave and manage their own time so long as the work gets done.

The nature of work is changing. Some jobs are still going to be boring, but both employers and employees have a role to play in finding meaning either in the boring or within ones life sufficient to make the boredom more manageable.

“Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work.”

~ Teresa Amabile

(I came across this fitting quote in the Momentum Extension – which is my homepage – just as I was logging in to write about boreout).