Dying of Boredom

You can, literally, die of boredom.

I might do actual bodily harm to myself and others before I die of boredom. (Joking.)

Science Shows You Can Die of Boredom, Literally. ~Todd B. Kashdan, Ph.D

I detest being bored. I’m never bored at home or anywhere outside of the work suite. Why then am I bored?

The application automation that is supposed to transport the work for me to do from the initial point of contact does not exist. Therefore, a suite of humans is used as cheap oven-ready automatons.

The first day we only experienced a couple of hours of this debilitating activity.

The second day I awoke grumpily and remained so all day.

“Do what you like, you always do,” was my response to a simple request from an annoyingly loud know it all thirtysomething man as he approached the windows behind me, while simultaneously asking if I minded him opening the windows.

The poor guy did nothing to deserve it — other than challenge me on how many calls I’d had the day before when we were observing every 5 minutes refreshing instructions, he wasn’t doing as requested and bragged he’d had three. I’m still too grumpy to be the mature person in this scenario.

While the management praises us for our ‘hard’ work and patience and commitment to the project, we sit and chat, read, and do jigsaw puzzles which we interrupt every 30–60 seconds to refresh a system page.

I am stewing in a riot of distractedness from both the task I’m being paid to do and the desperate urge to stimulate my brain.

I am not a robot. But according to a colleague of mine, I should be grateful for having a job.

When it was suggested that the refresh action was automated, we were told it was being worked on.

One can’t help thinking that the product manager’s specific requirements for system designers and developers might have considered how the work — a key element of the project — would actually arrive on the computer screen.

In sum, boredom is a transient affective state in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest in the current activity. “It is often accompanied by the feeling that it takes conscious effort to maintain or return attention to the activity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1978; De Chenne & Moody, 1987; Leary, Rogers, Canfield, & Coe, 1986).” ~ Cynthia D. Fisher (Boredom at Work: A Neglected Concept)

According to Cynthia D. Fisher’s Boredom at Work: A Neglected Concept, and demonstrated perfectly by my younger colleagues, the amount of stimulation varies with age and personality and the amount of time we are exposed to the repetitive task.

Yesterday, all the minimum living wage earners in the suite were refreshing pretty much only as often as they remembered or when a manager walked through the suite politely saying “refresh please.” They have as much genuine interest in reminding us, as we have in doing our mindless task.

The diverse ages, experiences, and tolerance and importance of the task to individuals dictated how we each reacted.

For example, a young man sitting four-metres away from me has had his head back in his chair and his eyes closed for an hour or so. The managers smile as they walk past.

The group of young women to my right, spent all of yesterday refreshing sporadically between games of mahjong. They completed all the available games, so today they are refreshing a little more regularly between discussing another young woman’s behaviour. I am trying to avoid the gossip by writing this and not commenting.

My colleagues to the left, are great readers and equally great at sharing their and their families’ life histories. I listen for a while but inevitably switch off from the noise.

I open my personal email account in a Google Incognito window and start writing about the topic at the top of my mental stack or I edit one of the thirteen drafts I have already written since the start of this monumental waste of time and taxpayers money.

Thousands of workers in the government’s new test and trace call centre failed to trace a single contact of a coronavirus case in the first three weeks of operation. ~Many government call handlers traced no Covid contacts — BBC News

A week on and I have accepted this is my lot for the moment, possibly the next year. I continue to write, read, and save links to research articles that look interesting when the website access is blocked. Readying the drafts for me to work on during my four days off.

I’m also learning how to play mahjong and appreciate being totally absorbed in 144-piece jigsaw puzzles.

I even remember to refresh the page to load no cases when I need a quick breather from occupying my brain.

Proving I am indeed human but capable of surviving boredom by finding something more than refreshing a page to satisfy me.

I’m still not acknowledging the existence of the loudmouth and my life is far more pleasant for it.

To address the issue of the incompetence shown by the company that owns the call centre contract there follows some further information.

On the one hand, my colleagues and I could lose our jobs as a result of this article being discovered. Don’t get me wrong, I am worried about no income and not being eligible for any government help. But I remain ungrateful for this job. I am nothing more than a backside on a seat.

On the other hand, I think the government should shut down these call centres contracted to Tory minister’s pals, and contract NHS trained and employed people because the NHS provides services and people who actually know what they are doing.

Matt Hancock has put Serco in charge of the phonelines for contact tracing, a vital part of the government’s public health strategy. This is a company that mismanaged data at a GP surgery, and failed to train staff properly for a breast cancer hotline service. Along with G4S, it claimed money from the government for tracking prisoners who were later found to be dead.

“The public will be outraged to hear this latest news of a further fine. We call on the government to cancel Serco’s contracts and bring test, track and trace into local, expert public sector hands.” ~ Cat Hall, We Own It

My plan is to stay alive. No dying of boredom for me!

Thank you for reading.

Karen Madej is an English language coach and writer. She’d very much like to change the way the world works because it is broken after centuries of being plundered by hetero-patriarchs.