Asklemmy

What’s wrong with reading a book, writing poetry or a novel, exercising, playing with the smartphone

The jobs people complain about tend to penalize them for doing those things instead of pretending to be busy.

I'm fine with an afternoon with nothing to do, but I'd really rather be at home. The day progresses slower without something to do. Four hours can feel like six if all I'm doing is checking my email every half hour. It feels like two hours when I'm in full flow mode.

I suppose it depends on a lot of things. My personal viewpoint is neurological. My brain and body dont work well in slow moving jobs, especially if they have surprise „hurry up and wait“ situations.

The other problem is that where I live you get fired if you read on the job, no matter if you dont have any work for 6 out of 8 hrs. You‘re supposed to get busy or at least look busy.

Thats why I usually work self employed. I can decide what to do with my time. I usually work a lot more than 8 hrs and I expect to be paid for the work I do, not the minimum required amount I am owed.

OP... for thousands, millions of years, our ancestors lived outside or in caves but spent much of their time actively doing stuff. Hunting, gathering, fishing, tending and harvesting crops, playing etc. What they didnt do is sit still in a gray cubicle with sycophantic motivational posters stapled to the cubicle walls under florescent lighting for 9 hours a day 5 days a week. The only thing that maintains sanity is having something to do to distract yourself from the completely artificial work environment you are basically forced to live in for 40+ years because if you dont, you cant pay for what you need to survive.

And you wonder why people dont want that?

Doesn't keep my mind ocupado

It's existentially dreadful.

Wasting your life commuting just to sit in a chair for 8 hours only to get paid barely enough to pay your bills for existing in the first place is a convoluted prison when you know that you have so much more potential, which again is also hindered by the same mechanisms that allowed you to turn on the TV and pretend that you lived today.

Sometimes you need to break out of the comfort zone and find another job or take some risks by stirring up trouble where you are. It usually pays off better to do so either way, instead of pretending that the comfortable job gives any kind of job security. There's really no such thing as a stable job. You only work somewhere until you don't.

As someone else mentioned, some jobs have micromanagers who get pissy if they think you aren't working, and keeping up appearances is draining.

From a different perspective, however, is that when it comes to creative fields specifically, downtime means you aren't improving your skills, creating portfolio work, etc. Due to the contracts creative jobs often have, anything you create on company time (and sometimes outside of company time, not that they can legally enforce it, but they'll try) is typically owned by the company. As such, working on personal projects during downtime is a great way to lose ownership of a passion project you're working on, and no official work means you aren't improving or adding to your portfolio (not that creative fields typically have downtime, usually they're the opposite).

It's speculated that that's why Valve had some major staff members leave the company a few years before Half-Life Alyx; they had nothing to do and were just sitting there spinning their wheels.

It gets boring as hell if you have nothing else to fill that time with. I work in IT and at one of my jobs there was literally nothing else to do if someone's computer didn't break. All social media was blocked, game sites were blocked (this was like 2013) and so were tons of other things. I worked in a basement so I had no cell service either. My time was spent figuring out what wasn't blocked lol

For me, waiting for the phone to ring was torture, because I could be interrupted at any time. It was draining and stressful. If you're actually able to relax, that's different.

I used to have a job with a lot of downtime and if I wasn't doing real work I had a permanent sense of anxiety and guilt because I knew there were people in the same building as me in manufacturing roles busting their asses for the same pay while I sat and watched YouTube videos, and it also made it seem like I wasn't developing myself to move anywhere higher, just spinning my wheels making money.

That attitude did get me to ask for more work, but not more of the same work, new tasks, tasks that I then added to my resume and made me look much more appealing to jobs I later got instead.

I'm getting both bored and anxious if I don't have anything useful to do during work hours. I don't think it's my work ethics in the play, but self imposed expectations. When this happens too much too often, is when the work no longer feels "fun" and I have to find something meaningful to do again.

Now I'm very privileged in that my current employer's been very good with the opportunities within, and I've always found another position (and promotion) to challenge myself again.

But I think many people expect their work to be interesting, feeling meaningful personally, and if it fails to do so it's time to move. It's crapton of your week anyways you need to spend on the "grind" it would suck if it felt wasted time.

This is me. I want a different job because I'm always bored.

It feels meaningless. I'm pushing papers because someone needs papers pushed. Part of my job is actually incredibly useful, but 90% of it is it just me pretending to work by watching YouTube videos so my screen doesn't go dark and I can make sure I'm not showing as Away in Teams.

It's a government job too, so it's unlikely I'll be replaced by AI despite AI being perfect for replacing me and my colleagues.

As long as you can keep busy that way it is fine to have those jobs with downtime! The challenge arises when, for example, the workplace doesn't allow personal cellphones on site or in the work area. Or perhaps there is an expectation to look busy all the time so you don't have the leisure to read or write. I've had the luxury to have a job where I can relax a fair bit and have some enjoyable free time with your pastimes listed above.

My previous job was at a workplace with no useable internet, poor cellular signal, and no phones allowed while working policy. Very strict to always be doing something to look busy but when there is nothing to do it gets dreadful.

Looking forward to others experiences on this!