How Not to Join Life in the Bored Room

A lot more people are bored at work than never before and some of these people are doing jobs seen by many as interesting.

I was in the square mile today - traditional business centre of London - on my way to the station when I walked past a glass building housing employees of a big investment bank. As I walked past, I noticed a man at his desk playing the card game solitaire on his computer.

The day before I had gone for a meeting but I had turned up early at the office. While waiting for my meeting to start, I overheard a couple of people talking about their next shopping items, taking time off work and looking forward to the weekend. From there discussion you could say they would rather be anyway apart from at work.

It was not until I walked pass the man playing on his computer that I remembered an article I had read about a University of Central Lancashire study on people being bored at work. The article stated that boredom at work was now an epidemic; a third of British people are bored at work and in jobs such as teaching, marketing, and law.

A large number of people from the study lack job satisfaction. People it seems are tired of spending hours in meetings and dealing with paperwork. I know from experience that in any meeting you are bound to find two or three people busy drawing or scribbling on their note pads out of boredom.

The question is how do you find yourself in such a situation and how do you get out. Would you agree that most people (maybe yourself included) get a job because they feel having a job is the only way to make money?

Given a choice, people would rather be doing something else, what they consider interesting and fulfilling, which is great. However, the problem is that they think money cannot be made from what they enjoy doing. Therefore, they do what I consider difficult; try to make money in a boring job, forgetting that their state of mind affects their earning power.

There are also many ways of making money, many of which include doing what you enjoy. You do not have to join the bored room to make money you just need to think of ways you can provide a service doing what interest you.