How
much do you love job !~ do you feel it is mundane ! – are you able to find
differently interesting things even in routine work !!“ennui”
- (noun) : a feeling of
listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or
excitement. Synonyms:boredom, tedium, listlessness, lethargy, lassitude,
languor, restlessness, weariness, sluggishness, enervation;
In
conventional usage, boredom is an emotional or psychological state experienced
when an individual is left without anything in particular to do, is not
interested in his or her surroundings, or feels that a day or period is dull or
tedious. It is boring –
boredom in not having things to do or not liking what we have to do !How
attentive are you in meetings ! ~ especially when your Boss is addressing and
do you yawn ?!?
A yawn is
a reflex of simultaneous inhalation of air and stretching of the eardrums,
followed by exhalation of breath. Pandiculation is the act of yawning and
stretching simultaneously. Yawning is commonly associated with tiredness,
stress, overwork, lack of stimulation and boredom, there is something to
suggest that it is linked to the cooling of the brain.Yawning is contagious too…. Next time in a meeting, try or
observe a big yawn, when one covers his/her mouth out of courtesy; many others
are likely to follow the suit, involuntarily ~ setting up a chain
reaction. So, that involuntary action is not necessarily indicative
of boredom or not listening to the speaker !! Yawning is an embarrassment
and puts you in some bad light……
Read this interesting article in BBC
today titled ‘Is there such a thing as 'bore out'?.A Frenchman is suing his former employer for "bore
out" - boredom's equivalent of burnout - which he says turned him into a
"professional zombie". Frederic Desnard wants 360,000 euros (Rs. 2.66
croresapprox) for being "killed professionally through boredom" by
his 80,000-euro-a-year job as an executive in a perfume business. But is
"bore out" real?
"It
was just so boring. I felt ill knowing I had to go back on Monday
morning," says Steve Coster about his time as an insurance
broker."Every aspect of it was the same. The commute every day is the
same, the people are the same, the lunch is the same. You turn up every morning
and sit there."Coster, 47, from Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, found numerous ways
to numb the boredom of his £40,000-a-year job."I used to go and sit in the
toilet cubicles. I would always be the most eager person to get up and make the
tea. I would hide behind my screen and surround myself with files so I looked
busy, but I wasn't doing anything."He spent 17 years in insurance and says he eventually got
depressed. He eventually went to
a counsellor. "It was also
affecting relationships. I was self-sabotaging everything. And I was drinking
too much….
Boredom
expert Dr Sandi Mann says workplace boredom is a growing problem and a
"significant source of stress" for many people.It can have
"severe" consequences including reduced life expectancy, she says,
highlighting a study of 7,000 UK civil servants which found very bored workers
were more likely to die during a 24-year research period than those who were
not bored.She says people are probably not "bored to death" by work,
but may die younger because bored people often seek stimulation from things
like unhealthy food, alcohol, drugs and "risk-taking
behaviour".However, she says boredom itself can lead to stress and
depression.
Mann
argues that being bored can in some cases encourage creativity - a theory she
expounds in her book, The Upside of Downtime: Why Boredom is Good - but she
says severe, long-term boredom is a different matter.The French case, she says,
is an important one that could lead organisations to take boredom more
seriously, just as they came in the past to recognise the damaging effects of
stress.
A
common theme among bored people is a state of "perceived
meaninglessness", he says, but he argues that it is a "normal
emotion" and can have positive effects such as prompting people to change
their lives.Lucy Parsons, who studied at Cambridge University and was
headhunted for a graduate scheme at a supermarket chain, is one person who
found her work so depressingly dull that she gave it up and retrained.Lucy
Parsons says colleagues were surprised when she quit because she was doing well
at work. "They massively
underestimated my abilities and I was so bored," she says.
One
Monday she was told to write an instruction manual for workers and completed
the task by midday - only to be told her manager had expected it to take a week
and had no more work for her."I worked there for three years and that was
pretty much the story of my time," she says.Eventually she quit, crying
out of boredom and became a school
teacher, and is now a self-employed exam coach.Teaching might have saved Mrs
Parsons from "bore out", but it was an unhappy job for Luke
Darracott, who spent two spells in Spain teaching English.
Away from this, does
this concept of bore-out and boredom purely Western ? – till a few decades ago,
we saw people [our own relatives, known persons and more] ekking out living in
small Companies, doing the same routine for 3 decades +, not changing jobs, happy with their
employers, employment and environ, lived happily and retired peacefully, taking
care of their families well and shaping the future of their children nicely.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
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