A bore out

As a counterpart to the burn-out, where too much work pressure and prolonged exposure to stress leads to overstrain and/or fatigue, the bore-out provides the same result through boredom, disinterest and lack of challenge.

Bore-out symptoms
It is estimated that 15 percent of employees are seriously hindered by boredom at work. Not only office workers suffer from it; a bore-out can strike in all industries. Whether you are a shop assistant, gardener or psychologist, a decrease in the number of customers, orders or appointments can also lead to the diagnosis.

Lying about the amount of work you do can be just as stressful as taking on too much (for example, out of fear of being fired). As a result, the symptoms of a bore-out and a burn-out are almost the same:

• listlessness
• insomnia
• frustration
• irritation
• low self-esteem
• decreased/increased appetite

The symptoms can be accompanied by physical complaints:

• headache
• stabbing in the heart area
• muscle and joint pain

How it starts
Suppose you work as a junior partner at a large law firm. You are driven, motivated and have the ambition to deliver a lot of good work. When an assignment is completed, you are the first to stand at your boss’s desk to claim a new assignment.

However, your boss has no work for you because he has trouble delegating tasks. The workload is increasing for him (a burnout is looming), while you slowly languish through frustration, boredom and lack of challenge (the first symptoms of a bore-out).

At first, you may enjoy the low work intensity. After all, you now have time for things you never had time for before: making a shopping list, emailing old acquaintances, browsing the Marktplaats for a new bike…

You actually like your new office activities and you soon become adept at devising strategies for turning down new assignments under the guise of ‘too busy, too much work, too little time’.

However, pretending can also lead to stress and overwrought. Especially if you like to portray yourself as indispensable and committed, both at work and in your private life, and you do everything you can to keep this image that way (without actually being indispensable and committed), you can easily become mentally exhausted.Strategies for getting out of work
Do you recognize yourself in the strategies below to show your boss and colleagues how committed you are without actually delivering work? Then it might be time to work on a solution to outsmart a bore-out.

• Stretch your work strategy – your tasks take up much more time than necessary. You are tasked with writing an article on a certain topic that you already know everything about, but spread your work over a few days under the guise of ‘I need to do some more research’.
• Pseudo Commitment Strategy – you pretend to be very dedicated, but you are actually filling your time with things other than work. You work long days at the office and make sure you never go home before your boss does, but basically you do nothing but surf the Internet for personal purposes.

Time for action
What you can do yourself to prevent a bore-out:

• Keep asking your boss for work: Being busy makes you feel useful, which boosts your self-esteem (even if you don’t find the work interesting).
• Set deadlines for completing your tasks, so that you maintain regularity in your work.
• Try to keep work and private life separate: call and surf the internet for personal purposes at home or limit the time you spend to your lunch break.
• Make sure you have enough relaxation after work: leave work at work and try to enjoy your free time.
• Make it negotiable: tell your boss honestly how you feel. He will appreciate your openness and most likely want to help you (it won’t help your boss if you end up sick either).

Does your boss still refuse to delegate tasks or are you unable to find your work interesting again? Then look for a new challenge. You may be able to request a transfer to another department or another employer may offer more options.