A few years after I left the civil service I found myself short of cash and took a seasonal job with a well-known UK high street chain as a temporary stockroom

A few years after I left the civil service I found myself short of cash and took a seasonal job with a well-known UK high street chain as a temporary stockroom assistant. The work was similar to working in an Amazon warehouse, but with rudimentary tech (I had to memorise the layout of the stockroom to be able to locate items). The intellectual challenges of the work were zero. I coped by lowering my expectations, parking my intelligence outside the shop before clocking on for my shifts and getting on with the work. What got me through each day was the people I worked with: they may have been low achievers academically but they were infinitely fascinating and complex people with lives and hopes beyond the stockroom which they were happy to talk about as we worked. It's been the same with every job I've taken over the years: the challenges of the work are always secondary to the colleagues I've worked with. Take an interest in the people around you and the boredom (or fear) of the tasks at hand will become more manageable.