How bored do people get at work?

Hey,

bit of a weird question but how bored do you guys get at work if at all?

The question may sound strange but im just wondering after analysing my current job role. I think that on average im bored throughout 70-80% of my working day everyday - which is not good as its drives me insane! i usually end up browsing the web, shopping online (not good!!!), uni work/ cisco reading but find it difficult to concentrate really.

So what about you guys and what do you do to fill those hours in?

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Hyper-Me

about 40-50% of my time is downtime (atleast this past month or so). I generally browse the internet or try to research new tech products and such.

I would try to study, but the minute I crack open a book or start to watch a video a client calls, so it always gets nixed.

veritas_libertas

Bored 80% of the time even when I am busy. Not doing technical problem solving leaves my brain bored. I would love to be working with servers right now.

pml1

It really varies a lot from day to day. My job is a mix of help desk/on site support/whatever else the department needs.

The days where I just watch the help desk are a mixed bag...sometimes I'm slammed with requests, other times I'm bored out of my mind. As was mentioned previously, I find it ridiculously hard to study at work. There are too many distractions and interruptions.

However, I am glad to find out that I'm not the only one who frequently gets bored at work!

steve13ad

Alot of my time is windshield time traveling between sites, so it can get kinda boring. I can't remember what I did before I had XM.

ConstantlyLearning

Almost 100% of my time is working besides from lunch.

Ahriakin

nel wrote: »

how bored do you guys get at work ?

....enough to read this

I pop onto sites like this for a few mins between tasks. Otherwise never bored , not that it's always enjoyable but there's just WAY too much to do.

NightShade03

Never bored with the new place I'm at, however should there be some down time I pop onto here or check the news feeds for updates. Something is always broken though so I'm always on the move.

DevilWAH

Never really,

If i have to do a job I don't like then I spend time to get it out the way asap, this makes sure I have time to play around with ideas that ~I want to implement.

I always have 3 or 4 unofficial projects on the go (by this i mean ideas I am looking in to to see if they are worth pursuing officially) And another one or two official projects that I am implementing.

If only I had time to be bored!!

Every single official project I have had to do in the last few years, has been one suggested by me to the management. I would say if you are board at work then find something intresting to do with your time.

Even the days I work on helpdesk I still carry out my project work inbetween calls.

Kaminsky

Throughout many previous jobs I have had co-workers grumbling that some times through the day I am not really doing anything. I try to get the concept across to them that I, like many techies, are paid for what we can do when it all goes horribly wrong and not what we actually do.

blargoe

Very little. 2% or less. Sometimes there's work I'd rather not be doing, but it usually has me engaged enough mentally to not drop down to boredom. Also we're running a very lean IT staff so there is never a shortage of work for anyone here, from support all the way up.

neathneathneath

I work in a high school, so there's very little time to get bored.

Stangely enough, I am unable to concentrate on exam studies whilst at work as my mind is on work-related things that are crying out to be done.

I tend to study in my own time - evenings / even going in an hour earlier to get some quiet time - this tends to work for me.

Turgon

nel wrote: »

Hey,

bit of a weird question but how bored do you guys get at work if at all?

The question may sound strange but im just wondering after analysing my current job role. I think that on average im bored throughout 70-80% of my working day everyday - which is not good as its drives me insane! i usually end up browsing the web, shopping online (not good!!!), uni work/ cisco reading but find it difficult to concentrate really.

So what about you guys and what do you do to fill those hours in?

Never bored. My client gives me far too many network designs, migrations and deliveries to do to provide any boredom. It's 98% preparation and 2% sheer terror

crrussell3

While there are days I might get bored and not really feel like diving head first into a project/task I will barely get my head around before the day ends, I have way too much work right now to be bored. I guess that is the bonus/downfall of working someplace where your predecessor did things to where on a daily basis you go wtf?!?!?

forkvoid

My previous job: about 98% boredom. I automated most of my job within a couple months of being there. I dreaded waking up every day due to the absolute boredom I knew awaited me.

However, my new/current job... never. I have way too many projects and ideas for projects to be bored. There may be work I don't want to do that I try to put off, but never boredom.

jamesleecoleman

I usually don't get bored at work because there are things to be done. Sometimes when there isn't anything that is needed to be done or I can't help with in my department, I goto a different department and work there, whatever they need help with. Its nice because I get to meet new people. I've met over 50 people that work in my college.

When there isn't anything to do anywhere, I come to this site and check out whats new, study cisco stuff, and work on homework.

tiersten

If I'm bored and have nothing to do then I'll create a project to do. I've written several useful internal utilities purely because I had nothing else to do.

tiersten

phoeneous wrote: »

In what language?

C++, Python and the proprietary language built into the banking system. I already knew C++ and Python but I learnt the proprietary language whilst writing the utilities and modules.

Pash

tiersten wrote: »

C++, Python and the proprietary language built into the banking system. I already knew C++ and Python but I learnt the proprietary language whilst writing the utilities and modules.

Wow that is hardcore. I thought you were solely infrastructure as well. Id be careful how many useful utilities you create though, if you ever left that bank they would be after your blood just to get updates or "fixes"....or is that the idea?

Me? I am stupidly bored at the moment, the only project I have coming up at the moment is a very small office relocation (literally moving a bunch of traders from one end of the building to the other). I have no support work coming in an when it does it's along the lines of....patch workstation in and create AD account.....I am spending my time trying to write helpful powershell script's for various task's that I am too lazy to do manually. I have an interview for what I would say is my ideal job tomorrow evening, I am overly preparing for this one because I really like the sound of it.

bertieb

I force myself into reading something useful, i.e. technet etc. Thankfully I work with a good bunch of people at the moment who can take finutes minutes out to have a laugh - I find this helps relieve the boredom. In my previous job, every day sapped my soul due to the boredom hence why I got outta there sharpish!

Pash wrote: »

I have an interview for what I would say is my ideal job tomorrow evening, I am overly preparing for this one because I really like the sound of it.

Good luck buddy!

tiersten

Pash wrote: »

Wow that is hardcore. I thought you were solely infrastructure as well.

I was originally a programmer then I went AIX + AS400 system admin and then finally network admin. I'm in awe of the developers who do the business logic in the banking system though. They've got programming skills and an understanding of finance which I'm sorely lacking.

Pash wrote: »

Id be careful how many useful utilities you create though, if you ever left that bank they would be after your blood just to get updates or "fixes"....or is that the idea?

Nah. I'll just pass it onto one of the developers who have to do the other stuff

Pash wrote: »

I have an interview for what I would say is my ideal job tomorrow evening, I am overly preparing for this one because I really like the sound of it.

Good luck!

subl1m1nal

I've had it both ways. First IT job was a happy medium. Busy about 90% of the time. Always new projects going on. Downtime was spent researching new technologies. This company had HUGE space requirements (mapping firm), and network speed was always an issue. It was nice to have an unlimited budget as well. Only problem was boss was an idiot.

Second job was consulting in which I was busy 110% of the time, which is a reason I found a new job. I was stressed out. Not enough help to bail me out when I'm behind. My bosses were nice and knowledgeable, just not understanding when it comes to P.O.ed clients.

Third and current job is with a bank. Bored 50% of the time. I fill the time by reviewing servers, logs, and studying. Also play games on facebook, blog, and read and participate in various forums. I'm liking it thus far, I just hope the boredom doesn't get to me.

loxleynew

Um my job is about 95% boredom and 5% work. When I am working i'm doing server stuff down to maybe just creating accounts or moving peoples offices ect. It was fine for about a year but i'm on to year 2 now and yea.... This economy sucks trying to get a new job with limited experience though.

I spend my time browsing internet and ect, talking on facebook. I tried to keep myself busy by creating projects a while ago but not anymore. Boredom got to me lol... I do sometimes study for my upcoming CCENT exam end of April.

DevilWAH

loxleynew wrote: »

Um my job is about 95% boredom and 5% work. When I am working i'm doing server stuff down to maybe just creating accounts or moving peoples offices ect. It was fine for about a year but i'm on to year 2 now and yea.... This economy sucks trying to get a new job with limited experience though.

I don't get this attitude! I am a help desk engineer, or at least that is what I was employed to do about 5 years back and I have yet to be promoted, or leave the help desk behind.

My current projects are

Plan and Deploy and port based authentication policy across 1500 user ports,
(CISCO ACS server)
Move our network to layer 3,
work with a few disease modelling guys to design a distributed/grid computer platform,
Redesign the DNS to allow more secure control over records.
Move a few hundred servers to DHCP from static IP's
And I have just finished building a Linux based network for hosting websites.

Now I didn't start of 3 years back by going up to my manager and saying "oh I want to rearrange the entire network is that OK for me to do?"

It started with things like auditing the printers on site, assigning management address to all the network devices. Its taken a long time to get to the point where I can suggest big changes and my managers don't dismiss me out of hand.

You don't gain experience by sitting on face-book or browsing the net. If you want experience you have to go and find it. The first question any employer going to ask some one who has been on the help desk, is "apart from the help desk what else have you done?". To an employer 10 years help desk experience is pretty much the same as 1, if you don't have any thing else.

Oh and sorry to pick out your post for my rant this is not in any way aimed directly at you but more towards so many helpdesk staff I know personally who spend all day on the internet and then whining there job is boring. I really should not judge because for the first 2 or so years on the help desk I was the same. But after a time you realise there are only two ways to get out of the rut. You either hope to get lucky and some one offers you a job with more scope and more interesting work. Or you make the job interesting and push to do more, get experience and move on.

The thing is is amazing how fast you gain experience if you work at it. 3 years ago I was just one of the help desk engineers. Today I have worked on projects with nearly every system and application we have, and as we never had a network engineer before I took the job and made it mine. As well as the back ups, the print servers, and the monitoring of everything.

I still get paid the same money as the guy who surfs the internet all day and answers the phones... But the way I see it in another 3 years time, he will still be sitting there answering the phones, and I will be playing with networks and not worrying quite so much about the bills.

Pash

DevilWAH makes a very fair point.

I guess there are different circumstances for in-house IT and IT service industry though. Personally id love to have a support desk position back, after we lost a large contract last year because our directors didn't want to lower our price I have been sat in our main office counting the grains of wood on my desk. I have tried to come up with new ideas, not only for our office but for customer sites as well. But, the response is either, "don't waste your time with that, it's not generating business" or "please read up on xxx xxx". So you do tend to lose heart quickly, I don't like not having a challenge and I really am wishing for one right now.

loxleynew

I understand your point and true there is always things I could be doing. Like I said in the first year and a half I did just that.

I upgraded all our PCs in our office (about 50)
I built a WSUS server because we didn't have one.
I re-designed our GPO because it wasn't replicating and added policies to tighten security.
Upgraded old servers from win2k to win2k3
I got my MCSA
I'm taking my CCENT in 3 weeks

However it all depends on the company really. Some jobs honestly are too small to get into what I want to do like mine. There is no point in building a linux environment or upgrading routers ect. I mean I could but also this place is too small to wet my feet if that makes any sense.... If I want to learn here it's from no one except google or books. It gets tiring after a while. Id like to learn with other people OR from other people not just reading from books. To a point that works but it also gets to a point where you are in out of your league.

Don't get me wrong I understand where you are coming from but I'm not complaining or didn't mean to. I was just explaining my job. There comes a time in your position where you want to move on (have to move on) to get more experience. If you stay in the same job in IT for too long you become stagnant and bored no matter who you are or what you are doing. It's the nature of IT. To move ahead you need to move to new jobs. I'm not saying every 6 months and it depends on the job you currently have. I hope that makes sense....

nel

Pash wrote: »

DevilWAH makes a very fair point.

I guess there are different circumstances for in-house IT and IT service industry though. Personally id love to have a support desk position back, after we lost a large contract last year because our directors didn't want to lower our price I have been sat in our main office counting the grains of wood on my desk. I have tried to come up with new ideas, not only for our office but for customer sites as well. But, the response is either, "don't waste your time with that, it's not generating business" or "please read up on xxx xxx". So you do tend to lose heart quickly, I don't like not having a challenge and I really am wishing for one right now.

im in a similar boat. ive worked here for 6 months and have NEVER had an interesting task - and im serious here. Thing is theres loads to be done including DC upgrades with nexus kit but we get contractors in to do any decent stuff. Once ive finished my Bsc Hons degree im gona either start studying for the CCNP or take on a masters and utilise my time at work better. it seriously is depressing especially when theres good stuff to be done!

DevilWAH

nel wrote: »

im in a similar boat. ive worked here for 6 months and have NEVER had an interesting task - and im serious here. Thing is theres loads to be done including DC upgrades with nexus kit but we get contractors in to do any decent stuff. Once ive finished my Bsc Hons degree im gona either start studying for the CCNP or take on a masters and utilise my time at work better. it seriously is depressing especially when theres good stuff to be done!

3 years ago we had contractors do all our network installs for us. No one touched the network in house. The only reason I ever got involved was becasue I had to some times show contractors where kit was.

After a time I began to work out what they were up to, (this is before even knew the difference between a switch and a router). You wouln't belive the number of times I suggested to my boss that the simple taks like screwing a switch in a rack that was preconfigured by a contractor, could be done in house and a save a call out charge, and be told that "I would prefere we get in an engineer to do it". Then it became "get an engineer to check your doing it ok". Then it became "sod getting an engineer, if Aaron does it we save money".

That moved on to configuring, and then to desigining. And now we reserver engineers/consolutences for the planing stage of large projects to give my ideas a once over to check I don't miss anyything (As I am the only network person in the company its nice to have a second opinion.)

If there are things like You say DC upgrades and stuff you want to get involved with, and you have consolutences in doing the work. Talk to them, ask them if they need anything. ask them what they are up to and doing. (most engineers I have meet have been happy to talk to me about stuff they are up to, espicaly if they can stand and talk as I screw switches in to the cabs for them).

My view is if you want to get involved in a project like that you start at the bottom, grabbing and work you over heard about or can to so with it. Once you have a foot in the door you jsut open it wider bit by bit, untill before any one notices it you are just as involved as any one else. And you become a imporatnt part of a large project that your manager can't just tell you "its not you problem" any more.

Chris:/*

nel wrote: »

Hey,

bit of a weird question but how bored do you guys get at work if at all?

The question may sound strange but im just wondering after analysing my current job role. I think that on average im bored throughout 70-80% of my working day everyday - which is not good as its drives me insane! i usually end up browsing the web, shopping online (not good!!!), uni work/ cisco reading but find it difficult to concentrate really.

So what about you guys and what do you do to fill those hours in?

To be very honest I am very busy at work. Yet in those few hours of down time I do I have, I either study to improve my skills or write scripts. The scripts I write are used to optimize my work schedule, reduce equipment downtime, improve equipment failure notification or increase my quite time.

RobertKaucher

Pash wrote: »

Wow that is hardcore. I thought you were solely infrastructure as well. Id be careful how many useful utilities you create though, if you ever left that bank they would be after your blood just to get updates or "fixes"....or is that the idea?

This is my major concern about my current job. I am constantly writing custom tools to automate various reports and other items for people. Right now I am working on one that queries SQL Server for the report data, plugs it into Excel, formats the spread sheet, saves it and emails it to a list every day at 2:30 PM.

They're gonna' want to pay the next guy Help Desk wages and expect him to know SQL, PowerShell, C#, SharePoint, VMWare and MCSA/E level stuff about AD.

nel

DevilWAH wrote: »

3 years ago we had contractors do all our network installs for us. No one touched the network in house. The only reason I ever got involved was becasue I had to some times show contractors where kit was.

After a time I began to work out what they were up to, (this is before even knew the difference between a switch and a router). You wouln't belive the number of times I suggested to my boss that the simple taks like screwing a switch in a rack that was preconfigured by a contractor, could be done in house and a save a call out charge, and be told that "I would prefere we get in an engineer to do it". Then it became "get an engineer to check your doing it ok". Then it became "sod getting an engineer, if Aaron does it we save money".

That moved on to configuring, and then to desigining. And now we reserver engineers/consolutences for the planing stage of large projects to give my ideas a once over to check I don't miss anyything (As I am the only network person in the company its nice to have a second opinion.)

If there are things like You say DC upgrades and stuff you want to get involved with, and you have consolutences in doing the work. Talk to them, ask them if they need anything. ask them what they are up to and doing. (most engineers I have meet have been happy to talk to me about stuff they are up to, espicaly if they can stand and talk as I screw switches in to the cabs for them).

My view is if you want to get involved in a project like that you start at the bottom, grabbing and work you over heard about or can to so with it. Once you have a foot in the door you jsut open it wider bit by bit, untill before any one notices it you are just as involved as any one else. And you become a imporatnt part of a large project that your manager can't just tell you "its not you problem" any more.

Hey,

Yeah i can totally agree with what your saying which is why i have mentioned it several times in meetings, in person, via email etc and still to no avail. im just at the point where i give in trying now.