i was watching the 1999 movie office space the other day a comedy set at the peak of the 1990s
corporate culture it is one of my all-time favorite movies but the more i watch it the
more i notice something the core of this comedy is its cynical commentary on working a boring job
at a boring company but the more i watch it the better the jobs of peter and his co-workers look
because it's a comedy the writers took a lot of creative liberties to make peter's
working environment especially terrible but even still 20 years later it doesn't look that bad
his office cubicle would be a luxury to most workers today in an open plan office with no walls
in sight he is allowed to go on extended lunches with his colleagues and even his over dramatized
shitty boss knows that working on a weekend is a big ask rather than an expectation this made
me think of the classic anecdote find a job you love and you will never work a day in your life
most of us go to work because we have to not because we want to and that means a lot of us
are stuck spending a good portion of our waking hours doing things that aren't very enjoyable
a cunning strategy that school career planners and linkedin gurus will promote to get around this
unfortunate predicament is to find a job that you love doing so that you are excited to go to work
every day and you don't feel like you are working at all on the surface this sounds sensible now
more than ever with new technologies there are millions of different job titles out there with
new professions and career paths being made every single day my job as a now full-time youtuber
didn't exist 15 years ago but now it's the career that children want most beating out traditionally
popular options like astronaut but i want to do what i do best which is to rein in on this
parade of finding fulfillment through your work instead i want to try and convince you that what
you want instead is a really boring job a job that doesn't make you or anybody else excited
a job that nobody would dream of so it's time to learn how money works which was made possible
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there are lots of very attractive jobs out there that for a number of factors would appear to be
preferable over other jobs there is being a doctor lawyer or high-level corporate executive which is
enticing because these roles are traditionally very well paid and are very well respected by
society at large if you tell someone that you are a c-suite executive at a fortune 500 company
you are instantly going to get more respect than if you told them that you work in retail
is this how it should be of course not but it is and people are willing to sacrifice a lot for that
respect these roles come with the expectation of very long and irregular hours to say nothing
of the years of grueling study or corporate butt kissing needed to get the jobs in the first place
now there's actually nothing wrong with these jobs most people know what they are getting themselves
in for when they pursue these kinds of careers and the trade-offs are clear most people do these jobs
because of prestige not because they love them so what about jobs that people are more passionate
about the jobs that people would supposedly love to do i am talking about jobs in the fields that
people get excited about like gaming fashion travel and sports imagine getting paid to make
video games or attend fashion events around the world sounds like a dream right well no
big name companies in aspirational industries are more often than not terrible places to work
the reason for this is simple they know that people want to work for them so if you as a worker
aren't willing to put in unpaid overtime deal with abusive management and accept comparatively
low pay then there are dozens or sometimes even hundreds of equally qualified candidates who are
willing to put up with these issues because they get to work what they thought would be their dream
job turnover in these companies is extremely high especially when it is considered that
these businesses are attracting skilled career driven workers the type of worker that you might
normally expect to stick around for longer than a regular employee now of course changing jobs
regularly is actually a good idea employees that change companies on average every two years are
paid significantly better than their peers who attempt to work for internal promotions but you
need to be quitting for the right reasons quitting your current job to start a new more senior role
at a company offering double your current salary as a great career move quitting your current job
because you can't mentally handle another week of a coding crunch is probably going to stall your
career development another reason it's best to avoid doing what you love for work is that you
won't love it forever even the most exciting jobs you can imagine have a lot of boring work that
comes with them a video game tester will spend most of their time doing the same mission over and
over again to make sure there are no bugs and most people that work for nfl teams spend their days in
an office answering emails just like everybody else even if a dream job does manage to live up
to its type initially there is one surefire way to end up hating something you originally loved
and that is being forced to do it for 40 hours a week with the threat of homelessness hanging
over you if you don't really you are much better off working for money and then using that money
to enjoy things you love in your own time in your own way hopefully i have convinced you
that exciting jobs are not all that they seem but surely that doesn't mean that a boring job is the
best alternative right well they have a few big perks that a lot of people don't really consider
a boring job at a boring company will on average be easier to get than the rare more prized
jobs at exciting companies having more options available to you especially early in your career
can be a big head start over your peers who waited out or go through extended internships to get a
traditional dream job boring jobs will also on average pay better ford's median employee made 64
316 dollars in 2018 including bonuses overtime and stock awards gm's media and employee made slightly
more than 77 849 dollars tesla a far more exciting business paid its median employee just 56 163
this of course will not be true for every company but again if there are more people that want to
work at a company then generally that company can get away with paying their workers less
this is even more apparent when we zoom out to look at entire industries
on average web developers will earn more than game developers a marketing manager for exxon
will learn more than a marketing manager for the patriots and an administrative
assistant at a bank will earn more than an administrative assistant at vanity fair
if you are doing a job to make money you should maximize the amount of money you can get for
doing that job you won't see the name on the side of your building from your desk anyway
now if making money isn't the most important thing for you when considering a career a boring job
still has its perks boring jobs are just genuinely more enjoyable a boring company is more likely to
be filled with employees and managers who realize that a job is something people do to put food on
the table this type of corporate attitude tends to result in more productive workplace relationships
a manager at a generic boring company that has been in their job for decades and has no ambitions
of moving up the corporate ladder is not going to take it personally when you ask for a raise
a promotion or a reference letter contrast that with a company where the management has
drunk though we are changing the world kool-aid and you are much more likely to face opposition
when doing these things that all employees should really be doing as regularly as possible
time and time again we hear stories about high staff turnover and toxic workplace culture in
companies that sound exciting from the outside this is because when managers believe what they
are doing is more important than just working a job to make a living they naturally expect their
colleagues to work harder than should reasonably be expected to toxic workplace cultures are almost
inevitable in environments where managers will think to themselves that straight-up verbal abuse
is really just a heated disagreement amongst peers who are too passionate about what they do
these types of managers are also much more likely to go unchecked in exciting fields because again
staff turnover is not a big deal when there is an endless line of new candidates now before anybody
says it in the comments yes you're absolutely right there are great managers and there are
terrible managers in every kind of company but you are much more likely to run into one in a
job that you thought was going to be exciting and that's the biggest bonus of a boring job better
management on average that boring company manager from earlier that has been at the job for a decade
will have one big advantage over the manager from an exciting company with high staff turnover
they will have more experience at their job working for a manager that has seen every possible
problem the job can throw at them is going to be a much more pleasant experience than working for
a manager who is figuring it out as they go along a more experienced manager also has less to prove
if they feel secure in their own position then they won't feel the need to work their employees
to the bone to avoid becoming one of those turnover statistics themselves last month i made
a video about why management is always terrible and the reason that video was so important is
because people don't quit jobs they quit managers even the best most exciting job in the world would
quickly become unbearable with a useless manager that takes their shortcomings out on their workers
working a boring job gives you a better chance of finding a good manager who will make your
time at work not totally miserable and also help to progress your career so that you can make more
money and use that to enjoy the hobbies that other people were dumb enough to try and build a career
around i have a theory about why we all love movies like office space or tv shows like parks
and rec and the office so much these shows all highlight the realities of a boring workplace to
a comically ridiculous degree but at the same time they are also very comfortable places to work the
people stick around and even the bad guy bosses are not abusive towards their employees maybe
this is an indictment on how low the bar is for what we consider comfortable working arrangements
in america but i think it's something more we turn to these kinds of shows for comfort binge watching
we wouldn't do that if we didn't secretly think that maybe working alongside these people in these
boring offices wouldn't be such a bad thing now if you want to learn more about why good managers are
so hard to come by go and watch my video on why company management is always terrible a special
thanks again to morningbrew for making it possible for everybody to keep on learning how money works