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Work avoidance typically stems from fear of failure, not boredom. If workers are screwing around when there is work that needs to be done, that is indicative of

Work avoidance typically stems from fear of failure, not boredom. If workers are screwing around when there is work that needs to be done, that is indicative of an environment that doesn't provide the proper failsafes. That said, a lot of jobs simply don't have a constant stream of work that needs to be done, with the work available being dependent on when the customer chooses to engage. It is likely that for a lot of jobs downtime is just the name of the game and without changing customer habits there isn't much you can do.

oceanplexian 3y ago
> Work avoidance typically stems from fear of failure, not boredom. For me work avoidance is a symptom of not having enough interruption free time. And in-person is actually substantially worse than remote. Most of the problems I’m working on you can’t bang out in 10 minutes. Reality is that for some problems you need a highly skilled engineer to spend 4-8 continuous, highly focused hours producing iterations or trying to troubleshoot a broken build in a 20,000 line log file across 100 interconnected dependencies. So if you’re going to be productive it requires a time commitment and a certain working style.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
knallfrosch 3y ago
Or it's just boring work. I'm employed as software engineer with no reports as a team of 4 engineers. The project has entered maintenance mode and we just investigate bugs, chase teams we're dependent on, confirm a change works on 4 different versions.. my productivity has tanked. I'd rather write a new feature with clean code and improve the existing code base in the meantime.
- chasd00 3y ago
  boredom is as bad as being swamped. I hate being bored, it's excruciating. At least with deadline pressure there's some adrenaline involved.
nikkwong 3y ago
I feel like you are wearing some very strong rose colored glasses; I personally think it’s naive to believe that remote workers are always highly engaged. People optimize their work productivity around different personal goals.. and I have worked with many who seem to try to do as little work as possible to not get fired. Which often involves a lot of loathing and procrastination. It would be wonderful for employers and employees alike if computer work was always interesting. But it just isn’t. Amazon Turk workers are in front of computer out of necessity and probably would like to commit the least amount of work for the maximal possible reward. I happen to be of slightly better means but share their sentiment exactly.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > and they would kill to do anything else with their time And yet they don't. That is not because they are bored, but because they fear the possible failure.
  - nikkwong 3y ago
    No; they don’t, because they cannot afford to not.

oceanplexian 3y ago

> Work avoidance typically stems from fear of failure, not boredom. For me work avoidance is a symptom of not having enough interruption free time. And in-person is actually substantially worse than remote. Most of the problems I’m working on you can’t bang out in 10 minutes. Reality is that for some problems you need a highly skilled engineer to spend 4-8 continuous, highly focused hours producing iterations or trying to troubleshoot a broken build in a 20,000 line log file across 100 interconnected dependencies. So if you’re going to be productive it requires a time commitment and a certain working style.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

knallfrosch 3y ago

Or it's just boring work. I'm employed as software engineer with no reports as a team of 4 engineers. The project has entered maintenance mode and we just investigate bugs, chase teams we're dependent on, confirm a change works on 4 different versions.. my productivity has tanked. I'd rather write a new feature with clean code and improve the existing code base in the meantime.

chasd00 3y ago
boredom is as bad as being swamped. I hate being bored, it's excruciating. At least with deadline pressure there's some adrenaline involved.

nikkwong 3y ago

I feel like you are wearing some very strong rose colored glasses; I personally think it’s naive to believe that remote workers are always highly engaged. People optimize their work productivity around different personal goals.. and I have worked with many who seem to try to do as little work as possible to not get fired. Which often involves a lot of loathing and procrastination. It would be wonderful for employers and employees alike if computer work was always interesting. But it just isn’t. Amazon Turk workers are in front of computer out of necessity and probably would like to commit the least amount of work for the maximal possible reward. I happen to be of slightly better means but share their sentiment exactly.

randomdata 3y ago
> and they would kill to do anything else with their time And yet they don't. That is not because they are bored, but because they fear the possible failure.
- nikkwong 3y ago
  No; they don’t, because they cannot afford to not.