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14: When You're Bored at Work · Finding God at Work

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  (Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, I'm Chris.
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  This is Finding God at Work.
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  Just a reminder that Finding God at Work
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  isn't just a podcast, it's also an online
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  course.
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  Check it out at findinggodatwork.org.
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  Our current series is Divine Disappointments, Facing Pain
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  and Sorrow at Work.
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  And today, I want to talk about the
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  pain of boredom.
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  What is the most boring part of your
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  work day?
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  I was leading a discussion along these lines
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  in a course once and a participant named
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  Lindsay spoke up.
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  She was a tech at a gastrointestinal clinic
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  where they ran colonoscopies.
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  And she said she and the other techs
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  would take turns with the responsibility to wash
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  the used colonoscopy probes.
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  So talk about a crappy day at work,
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  quite literally.
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  She said it would often take more than
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  half an hour because they would collect multiple
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  probes and then wash them all.
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  And it would take a while.
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  And it was just totally boring.
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  Not a challenging job, a crappy job, an
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  unpleasant job, but definitely not one that used
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  her full mental faculties.
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  What for you is your crappy boring part
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  of your work day?
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  And what would it be like to meet
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  Jesus in the crap of boredom?
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  Is that possible?
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  I think it is.
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  I've experienced it a little bit myself.
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  And there are others who have experienced it
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  even more than me who I think can
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  guide us and help us see that there's
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  actually spiritual opportunity in boredom at work.
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  Okay.
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  But before we get to that, we just
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  got to understand what boredom is better.
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  If we're going to offer our boredom to
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  Jesus, let him meet us there.
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  We need to know what boredom is and
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  why we experience it.
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  So drawing on the work of a couple
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  scholars here named Wilmar Shafeli and Marissa Salanova,
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  they wrote a chapter about boredom and burnout
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  and engagement in a 2013 textbook called An
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  Introduction to Contemporary Work Psychology.
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  It's just kind of a basic college textbook.
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  Here's how they define boredom.
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  Boredom is an unpleasant state of low arousal
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  and dissatisfaction, which results from under stimulation, an
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  unpleasant state of low arousal and dissatisfaction, which
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  results from under stimulation.
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  Okay, so two parts there, low arousal and
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  dissatisfaction.
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  The low arousal piece has to do with
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  how stimulating our work is.
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  So we're designed as human beings for kind
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  of undulation in life, right?
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  We wake up, we work, we maybe we
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  have some rest time in the evening, we
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  go to sleep.
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  So we're designed to have both high activation
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  times and low activation times in our life.
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  Work is one of those places that includes
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  a lot of arousal.
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  But if it doesn't include enough, that's unpleasant,
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  an unpleasant state of low arousal.
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  And that dissatisfaction, that connects more to the
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  meaning of work.
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  We'll talk more about that in a moment.
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  So one way that the scholars talk about
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  this is two different dimensions.
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  The dimension of activation and the dimension of
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  pleasure.
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  And I'm going to paraphrase them and instead
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  of pleasure, talk about health, because I think
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  it still connects.
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  So if you imagine one dimension being the
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  up and down dimension, where there's activation at
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  the top and deactivation at the bottom, and
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  then the other dimension being left and right,
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  where there's unhealthy on the left, and healthy
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  on the right.
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  And if that's hard for you to visualize
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  while you're listening to it on audio, check
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  the show notes and click through to our
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  web page.
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  And we have the visual there on on
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  the web page so that you can take
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  a look at it.
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  But in that top right quadrant, because we're
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  going to kind of four quadrants here, the
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  top right quadrant is where we're activated.
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  And we're healthy.
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  That's called work engagement.
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  That's when we're absorbed in what we're doing,
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  we have things to do, and we have
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  the energy to do them.
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  We might even sometimes get close to that
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  thing that psychologists call a flow state where
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  we're just in the work and even our
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  sense of time changes because we're so deeply
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  in it.
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  That's kind of the ideal of our working
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  life.
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  Now, if you move down the activation dimension
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  to deactivated or low activation, but you stay
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  healthy, what's that?
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  That's satisfaction.
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  That's when you get to the end of
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  your workday.
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  And you're just like, Oh, yeah, we did
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  good work today.
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  Now I'm ready to relax.
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  Right?
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  So satisfaction still healthy, but it's lower activation.
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  Okay, now, but if you go back up
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  to the upper right, high activation and healthy,
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  but then you move unhealthy while staying high
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  activation, what do you get then?
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  You get workaholism, the high energy, high activation,
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  but it's not healthy.
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  It's a kind of obsessive connection with our
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  work.
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  And then what if you move down, you're
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  staying unhealthy, but now you're getting to low
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  activation or deactivation.
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  That's a burnout where that high energy turns
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  into exhaustion, cynicism, distancing from your work.
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  We'll talk more about burnout in our next
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  episode, that lower left hand quadrant of unhealthy
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  and deactivated.
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  That's also where boredom is because we don't
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  have enough challenge to activate us.
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  And so we're in this place where we
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  have low arousal, we have dissatisfaction, we're under
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  stimulated, we're deactivated.
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  That's where boredom is.
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  Okay, so far, so good.
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  We all know what boredom feels like.
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  But what contributes to boredom?
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  What are the contributing factors?
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  Well, these scholars identify several.
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  One is monotonous and repetitive work.
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  Okay, that makes sense.
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  I remember one afternoon I had to just
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  fold like 50 or 100 letters in trifold
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  and then stuff them in envelopes.
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  There was no way to automate it.
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  That was a monotonous and repetitive task.
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  That was pretty boring.
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  Second contributing factor that they identify is what
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  they call mental under load and poor skill
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  utilization.
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  So just like we can have mental overload,
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  we can have mental under load.
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  And then poor skill utilization is like where
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  you're really skilled at one thing, but then
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  you don't get to do that thing with
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  your job.
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  So they talk about nurses, where so much
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  of their time is taken up doing paperwork.
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  So they're highly skilled to provide health care
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  directly to patients.
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  But then so many of their hours are
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  spent just completing these bureaucratic tasks.
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  So that's poor skill utilization.
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  And they're not very mentally stimulating or challenging.
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  And so that's mental under load as well.
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  But then the third thing that they identify,
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  which I think is really helpful, is absence
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  of meaning.
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  So if we think about monotonous and repetitive
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  work, and mental under load, poor skill utilization,
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  those are kind of external factors in our
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  work lives.
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  Those are things that we might not have
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  direct control over.
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  But then this third thing is absence of
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  meaning.
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  This is a more internal quality in our
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  work lives.
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  This has to do with how we think
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  about our work and why it matters.
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  Okay, we'll come back to that internal quality
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  of boredom in a couple minutes.
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  But what about the consequences of boredom?
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  In the same chapter, they look at negative
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  consequences for you, and negative consequences for the
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  organization.
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  So if you're bored at work, obviously, that's
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  not pleasant.
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  But you're actually more likely to experience a
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  workplace injury or accident.
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  Interesting.
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  You also are more likely to perhaps cope
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  with the boredom with substances.
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  And so there tends to be alcohol and
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  drug abuse, sometimes with a boring work experience.
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  Now, there's also bad results for the organization.
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  People who are bored tend to be absentee
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  more often, there's less productivity, there's more turnover.
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  So boredom isn't good for anybody.
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  It's not good for you.
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  It's not good for the enterprise that you
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  are a part of.
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  So that leads us to the question, what
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  can we do about boredom?
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  And the first thing I want to say
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  is that we can do something about boredom.
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  Part of the challenge with boredom is if
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  we only think about it as something we
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  experience and have no control over, rather than
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  realizing that we have a part to play
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  in our experience of the work.
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  So we might think of the serenity prayer,
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  the one that goes, God grant me the
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  serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
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  the courage to change the things I can,
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  and the wisdom to know the difference.
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  Prayer is popular in Alcoholics Anonymous, was apparently
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  first popularized by a preacher named Reynold Niebuhr.
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  But I think it captures something really important.
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  And that's the fact that we have agency,
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  we have things that we can change, and
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  we need courage to change those things.
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  We also need wisdom to know what those
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  things are.
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  And so when it comes to boredom, I
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  think understanding these external qualities and these internal
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  qualities can help us understand how we can
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  change our experience of boredom, what we can
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  do.
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  I also think that the Bible encourages us
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  to think this way.
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  So Ephesians 5, verses 15 through 16, this
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  is in the NIV, be very careful then
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  how you live, not as unwise but as
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  wise, making the most of every opportunity because
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  the days are evil.
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  So Paul's writing about our kind of overall
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  context, the days are evil, right?
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  We live in a society and a world
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  where many evil and unjust things are happening,
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  where people are not aligned with the purposes
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  and love of God.
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  And so we need to make the most
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  of every opportunity.
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  In older translations like the KJV, that phrase
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  is actually translated redeeming the time.
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  And again, redemption is like the economic metaphor
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  of buying something back.
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  We need to buy back our time for
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  the purposes of God, for the purposes of
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  His love in the world.
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  So what would it look like to redeem
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  the time in our boring experiences at work?
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  To let Jesus meet us there and do
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  something with those experiences.
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  Okay, so first let's look at those external
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  factors, monotonous and repetitive work, mental under load
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  and poor skill utilization.
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  Again, boredom isn't good for you.
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  It's also not good for your organization.
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  So the first thing to do is to
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  see, can you change those external factors?
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  Can you make your work less monotonous and
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  less repetitive?
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  Now, again, maybe you can't, it's different for
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  different people, the amount of freedom that you
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  have in your work and what your responsibilities
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  are.
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  But it's always worth asking, right?
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  So I remember I once had a colleague
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  and there was an email that we needed
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  to send.
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  We needed to send it individually, but the
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  exact same email to about 30 or 50
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  different people.
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  And I asked him if he could do
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  that.
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  And he said, sure.
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  I had to go off and be at
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  a meeting.
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  I came back and I realized he was
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  still working on it.
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  And I was really confused.
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  And I realized he didn't know how to
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  do a mail merge.
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  He didn't know there was a way that
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  you can kind of, you know, program your
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  email service to send the same email individually
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  to multiple people.
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  He was literally copying and pasting the email
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  and sending it one at a time.
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  He just didn't know there was a more
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  efficient way.
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  That's an example of him being engaged in
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  a boring task, but he didn't need to
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  be engaged in.
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  There was a way to do it more
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  efficiently that he just didn't know about.
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  So if you find yourself doing a monotonous
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  task or a repetitive task, you might ask
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  maybe your supervisor or, you know, maybe even
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  just do a Google search, like, is there
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  a more efficient way to do this?
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  Is there a more automated way to do
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  this, right?
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  If you're, if you're needing to send the
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  same email to multiple people, figure out how
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  to do a mail merge within your email
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  service.
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  If you find yourself doing a lot of
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  copying and pasting inside of Microsoft Excel, where
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  there's information on one sheet, and it just
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  needs to be pulled through to the other
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  sheet, learn how to do a VLOOKUP formula.
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  It's not that hard.
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  You can do it, or you can find
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  somebody on your team that can show you
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  how to set it up.
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  So, again, that's part of how we can
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  take responsibility for good work outcomes, not just
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  for our own benefit, but also for the
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  organization we're working for as disciples of Jesus
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  is to ask, okay, is there a way
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  that this work could be done with less
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  monotony and less repetition?
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  That's going to be better for everybody.
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  What about mental under load and poor skill
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  utilization?
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  This is probably one where you have to
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  have a conversation with your supervisor, but you
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  can ask for more or different work, right?
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  So if the problem is you just don't
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  have enough work to do, you can go
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  to your boss and let them know that
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  and say, are there other ways that I
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  can add value?
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  Maybe think creatively and make a couple of
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  suggestions of projects you could take on.
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  Or again, if it's that poor skill utilization,
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  could you ask for different work?
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  Is there a way that you could figure
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  out how to spend more of your hours
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  leaning into what you're most skilled at doing
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  so that you can add more value to
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  the team?
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  Again, rather than just passively kind of going
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  with the flow of how our work is
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  presented to us, we can take responsibility for
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  asking, is there a way to do my
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  job better?
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  Where I'll be less bored and that's good
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  for everybody.
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  Again, as you have opportunity, depending on your
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  work situation.
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  But what about that third thing, the lack
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  of meaning that can lead to a sense
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  of boredom?
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  This is where I think Jesus can really
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  meet us if we welcome Him.
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  A verse that we've looked at many times
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  is Colossians 3.23, where Paul writes, whatever
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  you do, do it as working for the
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  Lord, not for human masters.
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  Whatever our job is, no matter how boring
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  it is, it has the meaning of being
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  done for Jesus if we present it as
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  an offering to Him, if we welcome His
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  presence into what we're doing.
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  One really helpful way to do that is
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  with contemplative prayer.
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  And here's where boredom is actually an opportunity.
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  When you're bored, when you're doing a repetitive
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  task or a task that doesn't require very
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  much mental stimulation, you might have brain space
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  left over for prayer.
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  So remember Lindsay from the gastrointestinal clinic, this
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  was her solution for when she had to
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  clean the used colonoscopy probes is she made
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  that half hour her time of prayer about
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  her work specifically.
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  So she would pray for her coworkers, she
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  would pray for her boss.
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  If she was stressed about something, she would
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  pray about that.
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  She used that extra mental capacity to make
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  that a very meaningful time of connection with
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  Jesus.
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  And so what I would encourage you to
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  do is when you think about taking responsibility
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  for your work, also take responsibility for where
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  your mind wanders while you are bored.
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  Because if you're like me, you start doing
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  a boring task and then your mind just
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  sort of floats away.
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  And that's part of why it's unpleasant, right?
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  As you're you're thinking about other things, as
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  long as you're just thinking about how boring
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  the task is.
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  That's also a place where we have agency.
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  You can pay attention to what you're paying
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  attention to.
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  You can choose to set your attention somewhere
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  specific.
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  You can even choose to set your attention
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  on Jesus, on the goodness of God, as
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  you do that boring or repetitive task.
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  Just welcoming Jesus's presence while you do the
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  task often is enough for you to suddenly
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  realize how to do the task in a
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  healthy way, right?
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  Sometimes the boredom, the repetition is unavoidable, but
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  doing it in a miserable way is not
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  unavoidable.
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  When we welcome Jesus's presence, we find that
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  even those moments can have meaning.
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  Along these lines, I want to quote from
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  a book called A Modern Mystic.
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  It's from a really interesting mid 20th century
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  character named Frank LaBuck.
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  He worked in literacy.
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  He was a missionary.
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  Don't have time to get into his whole
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  biography, but one of his practices was to
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  try and welcome God's presence in the nitty
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  gritty aspects of his work, including the boring
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  ones.
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  He writes this, yesterday and today I have
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  made a new adventure, which is not easy
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  to express.
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  I am feeling God in each movement by
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  an act of will, willing that he shall
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  direct these fingers that now strike this typewriter.
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  I must work to be sure, but there
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  is God working along with me.
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  Some hours spent by some night watchman might
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  be the most glorious ever lived on earth.
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  Some hours spent by some night watchman might
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  be the most glorious ever lived on earth.
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  If we welcome Christ's presence in those boring
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  moments, we redeem the time.
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  They can become moments full of the glory
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  of the Lord.
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  Lord Jesus, we do welcome you today, this
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  week, this month, whenever we face boredom, help
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  us to attend to what we're paying attention
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  to help us to take responsibility for our
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  part of the dynamic and define the meaning
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  that you can give to our work as
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  we do it for you.
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  Jesus, do your work in us as we
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  do our work with you.
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  Thanks for listening.
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  Finding God at Work is a production of
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• 16:24
  dedicated to forming Christians for mission in everyday
• 16:27
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