Boredom
I’m sick of football, my head is full of hay-fever and the council are digging up the road outside my office window. But things could be worse. I could work for the insurance company I spent several hours with the other day.
Along with various other organisations, I had been invited by this particular company’s beleaguered HR department to an afternoon aimed at encouraging employees to make the most of all that the city around them has to offer – lunchtime music concerts, talks and walks, gyms and sports clubs, libraries and short courses, massages and spas, volunteering opportunities and in-house social clubs etc. etc. The clichéd work/life balance may have been the message, but there were loads of interesting things to do.
But well, you know what I’m going to say next.
Were the employees interested? No, of course not. They just drifted around looking faintly bored, if not perplexed, by the whole thing. As one man told me ‘We don’t have time for this kind of stuff. I go to work and don’t have time to do anything else other than watch TV’ and another ‘Why would I want to do a course for fun? What’s the point?’. But mostly, they all just looked non-plussed.
Admittedly, some people were interested in life outside work and commuting, and to give them the benefit of the doubt, others may have been put off by the continuous loop of background ‘motivating’ music featuring the likes of ‘Happy Talk’ from South Pacific and C&C Music Factory’s ‘Gonna Make you Sweat’.
Perhaps the world of insurance just attracts boring types, but really?! Life must be tragic for some people.
Tags: boredom... b'dum b'dum
June 18th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Do you know I can’t resist.
Here’s a picture of me.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4481346&l=4beedd842f&id=684752938
June 19th, 2010 at 10:01 am
For a moment there, I thought you were going to tell me that you worked for an insurance company in City of London.
But well, this explains a lot anyway.
It’s in Scotland then?
June 19th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
If I did, I’d try and make the best of it. Neither London, nor insurance is for me.
It’s in a fairly remote part of the Southern Highlands, about ten miles west of Pitlochry. The sign in your pic is a few hundred yards from the sign in mine.
Wish I was there now…
June 19th, 2010 at 11:33 pm
y’know round pegs fit round holes, and they kinda like it, believe it or not. I’m a square peg, stuck in a round hole (or is it the other way round??!) I know so many people like this. They love their mundane jobs, and almost live for work (I work to live). It kinda reminds me of that page in Wilson with the guy at the airport!! One day they might look back and regret it!
Am LOVING the footie (except the England games… ugh). And seeing much more of it this time than I have the last few tournaments.
P
June 21st, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Hmmm, Piley, you are probably right. Since writing this post, I’ve realised that once again I live in naive la-la land. You see, I work and always have done, with largely square pegs! Encountering anyone else always gives me a mild shock. For all his other foibles, Wilson is right on this one!
June 21st, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Having just had a week off doing some of those sort of things, I’d kill for the opportunity to be waved at me to do more. Of course, I do do more, but having them offered on a plate would be nice. Other than gyms of course.
June 21st, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Ah, SimonB, I’m relieved that someone else agrees. I just wish I could buy that extra time off bored people so that I could do more with it. I’ve got a big stack of books that I need to read for starters… I like the sound of your holiday, very nice and relaxing.
July 1st, 2010 at 1:58 am
It sounds like something I’d react negatively to, though I hope for the right reasons. I define my life by what I do outside the workplace, so I tend not to listen to anyone who makes suggestions about how I might enrich my life. generally, if I ain’t doing it already, then I ain’t gonna be interested in it. Have to say though, the old ‘too busy watching TV’ excuse is either very lame, or a sorry indication of your devotion to what is in all probability a thankless, shit-awful tedious job. I’ve been offered condensed hours, and frankly, they can fuck off.
July 1st, 2010 at 10:23 pm
If you’re not already doing it, you’re not interested?! Oh, come on now – how are you ever going to discover anything new then? I do take your point about work sponsored things though – they do have a touch of the ‘ick’ about them.