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 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.

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.

A lack of responsibility and feeling like your work is pointless is pretty much the biggest drive of depression

There's a big difference between like "working at a cash register with no customers, but you have to stand there looking attentive or management will yell at you" and "working from home, and I can read lemmy on downtime"

I'm still in the beginning of my programming career (maybe also the end, looking at how AI is going, lmao) and at my previous job I had fuckall to do. I spent nearly a year without a project, working basically 30 minutes a day. I quit mainly because I was afraid that when I change jobs I will have say 5 years experience on paper, but the knowledge for 1, because I've barely done anything.

Work isn't always about money, you also want to learn stuff so you can make even more money in the future. You can't really do that if you get paid to watch Youtube all day.

This book speaks to it better than I can: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-bullshit-jobs/

Specifically take a look at

Chapter 3: Why Do Those in Bullshit Jobs Regularly Report Themselves Unhappy? (On Spiritual Violence, Part 1)

The problem is that I feel like the higher ups might some day look at who is bringing in money and who doesn’t and then think „Do we even need this guy?“. I feel useless. My previous job was very toxic about this stuff. They would punish me for not having any tasks even though it’s not my fault. Which is why I always make sure to tell people when I’m not busy and even suggest things I could do. Still, I get lots of downtime between projects in my current job. I kinda got used to it but it’s always nagging on me.

But bored? No. I always find activities to do. Play with my dog, do housework, read a book, play games, take a nap,… Even days with full downtime go by very fast. But I’m at home. It would be different if I had to be in the office and look busy all the time.

Companies are not stupid and will rarely ever pay you to do nothing, so if you suddenly find yourself with nothing to do at work and not being handed any new projects, they are probably thinking of letting you go and it's probably time to look for a new job.

Context switching is the reason why. There's "downtime" where I work at because of the times I work (night time / I believe its called a "graveyard" shift). However, its never nothing for the whole shift, its intermittent. So lets say I decided to play a game (or work on a personal project, or any other number of things) I'd have to get into the mindset of whatever I'm doing, then see that a ticket has come in, switch my mindset back, answer the ticket and perform the work required for the ticket... and then switch back again.

As @toomanypancackes said in their reply, I honestly just either want to go back to bed, or not have to worry about work and do my own thing (uninterrupted). Those aren't options unfortunately, so I'm just left to be in that weird purgatory of "There's not a lot of work to be done, but there's some every so often... so I can't completely go away". I prefer it over it being absolutely slammed with tickets because that's just exhausting.

Every so often I'll put on a rerun of a show since it doesn't matter if I "get into" the show or not, but actually doing something significant isn't usually an option unless its actually dead during my hours.

Time moves slower when I'm sitting around doing nothing. I'd rather get stuff done and see things getting built; it's satisfying. If I'm sitting around with no projects it just seems like a waste of time, and I personally don't like being inefficient.

Other guys? They love just shooting the shit.

There is anxiety associated with feeling like you're not working as hard as you think you out should be.

For me I feel like I'm going stagnant in my field. I need a new place with a more advanced environment.

Had some student jobs where I had lots of downtime, but was forbidden from doing anything other than sit there, under threat of being fired.

Everyone found ways to be on their phone, sneak in an ear bud, or read something, but I was out of the door as soon as I had found something else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreout

I see a lot of posts about people becoming depressed because they feel like they have nothing to do and therefore feel useless, but I just can't relate. My last job pushed harder and harder to make sure we were busy at all times and the constant rush along with it never being enough for middle management to be happy was what made me depressed. I would have killed for downtime to actually breathe.

I might get enough downtime in a day to be boring, but split up too much to actually do any of those things. Like who tf is writing a novel between orders?

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.

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.

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.

Personally? Sitting around too much makes me anxious and antsy, not to mention it makes the time go by really slowly. It’s hard to enjoy pastimes when you’re stuck somewhere you wouldn’t be if you had the choice. (Also, as others have mentioned, not everyone can do those leisure time activities while at work).

My work is actually a little abnormal, but we have plenty of days where we are mostly just waiting around doing nothing for 10hrs and then working really hard for two. Sometimes I do like those days, but more often than not, I enjoy keeping busy with work stuff because sometimes those 12hr days are even longer. If I sat around for the majority of that, I’d be bored out of my skull. Yeah, I can read/do a few things you mentioned, but not for that long.

I also sort of get to live inside my head while I’m working idly with my hands. It’s a little freeing for me mentally to take the load off of my “leisure” brain. I listen to music and kinda pass the time doing my job. And I actually like my job. So that’s a huge benefit.