to those of you who get bored at work if there's lots of downtime, why?

What’s wrong with reading a book, writing poetry or a novel, exercising, playing with the smartphone

The jobs people complain about tend to penalize them for doing those things instead of pretending to be busy.

Exactly this. If I could occupy myself it would be great. Being paid to sit and stare at walls is a way to induce madness.

Truly I tell you, no matter what you were paid, you would scream to leave.
Exactly. I had a shitty call centre job and would attempt to read during downtime but would be told no.

I’m not one to take that so I would push back saying so you want me to sit here and possibly zone out, rather than remain alert by reading. They wanted the former.

The other reason we want to be busy is because times goes faster.
you can always do them in hiding

pretend you are writing some report

In the late 1980s, I had a roommate who graduated with a business degree and got recruited for a government contractor right out of college. She packed up her life and moved to the DC area. A month into her new job, the contract was pulled. But because she had a clause in the recruitment contract, they couldn't fire her. But they had no work for her, either. So she had to come to work every weekday, 9-5. She'd sit at her desk with nothing to do. They didn't ask her to look busy, just present.

She read about 3-5 novels a week. Over the next few months, we watched her get more and more depressed. She'd complain about her situation, but it fell on deaf ears. "Must be nice," people said in jealousy. "Get paid to do nothing." She became despondent in the lack of people's sympathy. "Nobody understands how much this sucks!"

Eventually, she got a new job. Her mood vastly improved.

I'll never forget that lesson. People need to feel useful, productive. Sitting at a desk with nothing to do, no purpose, no validation. It will destroy you.

I was in a similar situation. A few weeks after I got hired, the project I was hired for was cancelled, so they "benched" me.

I spent three months being paid to do whatever I wanted, didn't even need to go to the office. It was nice at first, but I felt useless and miserable after a couple of months.

This made me understand why some people keep working long after they have enough to retire.
Called boreout syndrom.

I used to have a job with a lot of downtime and if I wasn't doing real work I had a permanent sense of anxiety and guilt because I knew there were people in the same building as me in manufacturing roles busting their asses for the same pay while I sat and watched YouTube videos, and it also made it seem like I wasn't developing myself to move anywhere higher, just spinning my wheels making money.

That attitude did get me to ask for more work, but not more of the same work, new tasks, tasks that I then added to my resume and made me look much more appealing to jobs I later got instead.

Literally this for me. Also a lot of times I can get into a focus state with a problem for some hours, and with that time passes fast, compared to just doing nothing and faking being busy.
do these jobs you got later pay you better?
- Technically they don't pay me much more, though it is higher, but I did move from California to North Carolina, with a much lower cost of living and a much lower minimum wage. Comparatively in California I was living paycheck to paycheck, now I own a house.
  
  More importantly the array of skills I could put on my resume was impressive to three or four different jobs I had afterward and showed that I had skills and versatility beyond my previous roles
- There’s more to life than just wanting more money or time to consume the content and products of others (obviously with the major caveat that we need some amount of money to live)
  
  Most people gain existential joy from making some form of impact on the world, and for many that comes in the form of their work.
  
  Being able to look at something, whether it’s a building you helped build, a website you made, or a contract that you helped get signed and having the knowledge that it wouldn’t exist in the way it does without your effort is a feeling I think is critical for most people to be happy.
  
  Obviously this fulfillment doesn’t have to come from work, and if you can find enough satisfaction in writing poetry or a hobby like that to fill that need then you’re lucky for it, and maybe can look into pursuing a career in that.
  
  I personally have unfortunately never been able to feel like I’m making enough of a mark on this world with my hobbies alone and have pursued work that makes me feel like I’m contributing to society or improving myself

As long as you can keep busy that way it is fine to have those jobs with downtime! The challenge arises when, for example, the workplace doesn't allow personal cellphones on site or in the work area. Or perhaps there is an expectation to look busy all the time so you don't have the leisure to read or write. I've had the luxury to have a job where I can relax a fair bit and have some enjoyable free time with your pastimes listed above.

My previous job was at a workplace with no useable internet, poor cellular signal, and no phones allowed while working policy. Very strict to always be doing something to look busy but when there is nothing to do it gets dreadful.

Looking forward to others experiences on this!

I would agree with this, but I would add something. If you ever get to a point in your work where you have ownership over your tasks and production and aren’t just a tiny cog in a big machine, it can be really fulfilling (at least as much as any paid job can be). I speak with experience only coming from the non-profit side though, so I’m sure a lot of people may not feel that way about corporate jobs. So if you have experienced that kind of fulfillment, and something changes (either your role or your workplace or your manager or whatever) and it’s not fulfilling in the same way anymore, it can be really frustrating, even if you could feasibly fill your time with personal stuff.

Also, sometimes being forced to be somewhere chafes when you’d rather be out in the world or at home. Napping, hiking, checking out a book at the library — hard to do when you’re stuck in a specific place.

There's a big difference between like "working at a cash register with no customers, but you have to stand there looking attentive or management will yell at you" and "working from home, and I can read lemmy on downtime"

It's existentially dreadful.

Wasting your life commuting just to sit in a chair for 8 hours only to get paid barely enough to pay your bills for existing in the first place is a convoluted prison when you know that you have so much more potential, which again is also hindered by the same mechanisms that allowed you to turn on the TV and pretend that you lived today.

Sometimes you need to break out of the comfort zone and find another job or take some risks by stirring up trouble where you are. It usually pays off better to do so either way, instead of pretending that the comfortable job gives any kind of job security. There's really no such thing as a stable job. You only work somewhere until you don't.

The problem was that they didn't want us doing those fun things. They wanted us to be working even when there is no work. So we all ended up pretending to work and if you've never done that before, it's unbearably boring.

Imagine you're only working ten minutes out of every hour, but it's in the form of one minute out of every six. You can't read, you can't study, you can't watch youtube and having to switch gears every few minutes leaves you exhausted at the end of the day.

Sounds like a law office. That's the only place I've ever heard of six minute chunks.
- My work indicates that anything we do should be logged to the tenth of an hour accuracy. I don't know anyone who doesn't mostly round to the quarter hour at best.

OP... for thousands, millions of years, our ancestors lived outside or in caves but spent much of their time actively doing stuff. Hunting, gathering, fishing, tending and harvesting crops, playing etc. What they didnt do is sit still in a gray cubicle with sycophantic motivational posters stapled to the cubicle walls under florescent lighting for 9 hours a day 5 days a week. The only thing that maintains sanity is having something to do to distract yourself from the completely artificial work environment you are basically forced to live in for 40+ years because if you dont, you cant pay for what you need to survive.

And you wonder why people dont want that?

The only thing that maintains sanity is having something to do to distract yourself

I don't see why reading or writing poetry don't accomplish that
- You cant do that in a secured environment. You are not allowed writing instruments, paper or anything that can carry information out of the room. You get a rubix cube and a stress ball. Thats your entertainment. That was my job OP. I worked in IT, insurance and a credit card company at different points and thats what there was. The only thing you were allowed to do in your down time was to read from the internal wiki about something no one and I mean no one thinks is interesting.
  
  No one works in a place like that because they want to. They do it because financially speaking theres a gun to their head. And anyone that has the opportunity to leave is going to leave.

I'm fine with an afternoon with nothing to do, but I'd really rather be at home. The day progresses slower without something to do. Four hours can feel like six if all I'm doing is checking my email every half hour. It feels like two hours when I'm in full flow mode.

Totally this. My work day flies when I'm busy.

Time moves slower when I'm sitting around doing nothing. I'd rather get stuff done and see things getting built; it's satisfying. If I'm sitting around with no projects it just seems like a waste of time, and I personally don't like being inefficient.

Other guys? They love just shooting the shit.

I work nights with 2 other guys. One of them is cool and seems to be a bit introverted, but we're both into sports so we'll watch games the first few hours and chat intermittently. The other guy openly hates sports, but loves "shooting the shit", which he understands to mean him going on a fringe political rant or into way too much detail over some random shit he saw on YouTube.. Luckily work gave us headsets with ANC, so me and the cool guy just headset up once the games are over and live in silence on the slow nights

This book speaks to it better than I can: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-bullshit-jobs/

Specifically take a look at

Chapter 3: Why Do Those in Bullshit Jobs Regularly Report Themselves Unhappy? (On Spiritual Violence, Part 1)

I see a lot of posts about people becoming depressed because they feel like they have nothing to do and therefore feel useless, but I just can't relate. My last job pushed harder and harder to make sure we were busy at all times and the constant rush along with it never being enough for middle management to be happy was what made me depressed. I would have killed for downtime to actually breathe.

Ya there's definitely a minimum and a maximum for "being busy". You don't want nothing ever, and you don't want things all the time.

There is anxiety associated with feeling like you're not working as hard as you think you out should be.

I'm still in the beginning of my programming career (maybe also the end, looking at how AI is going, lmao) and at my previous job I had fuckall to do. I spent nearly a year without a project, working basically 30 minutes a day. I quit mainly because I was afraid that when I change jobs I will have say 5 years experience on paper, but the knowledge for 1, because I've barely done anything.

Work isn't always about money, you also want to learn stuff so you can make even more money in the future. You can't really do that if you get paid to watch Youtube all day.

I had a job that was kind of like this. I spent pretty much all of my down time writing a web game that later got me a software job.

I wasn't bored, though. I miss working on that thing.

Context switching is the reason why. There's "downtime" where I work at because of the times I work (night time / I believe its called a "graveyard" shift). However, its never nothing for the whole shift, its intermittent. So lets say I decided to play a game (or work on a personal project, or any other number of things) I'd have to get into the mindset of whatever I'm doing, then see that a ticket has come in, switch my mindset back, answer the ticket and perform the work required for the ticket... and then switch back again.

As @toomanypancackes said in their reply, I honestly just either want to go back to bed, or not have to worry about work and do my own thing (uninterrupted). Those aren't options unfortunately, so I'm just left to be in that weird purgatory of "There's not a lot of work to be done, but there's some every so often... so I can't completely go away". I prefer it over it being absolutely slammed with tickets because that's just exhausting.

Every so often I'll put on a rerun of a show since it doesn't matter if I "get into" the show or not, but actually doing something significant isn't usually an option unless its actually dead during my hours.

Companies are not stupid and will rarely ever pay you to do nothing, so if you suddenly find yourself with nothing to do at work and not being handed any new projects, they are probably thinking of letting you go and it's probably time to look for a new job.

Guess it depends where you work. All my jobs, once I got used to the environment were incredibly easy to slack off at. All my reviews and feedback were always overwhelmingly positive. And I've usually been given a counter offer when I resign.

The problem is that I feel like the higher ups might some day look at who is bringing in money and who doesn’t and then think „Do we even need this guy?“. I feel useless. My previous job was very toxic about this stuff. They would punish me for not having any tasks even though it’s not my fault. Which is why I always make sure to tell people when I’m not busy and even suggest things I could do. Still, I get lots of downtime between projects in my current job. I kinda got used to it but it’s always nagging on me.

But bored? No. I always find activities to do. Play with my dog, do housework, read a book, play games, take a nap,… Even days with full downtime go by very fast. But I’m at home. It would be different if I had to be in the office and look busy all the time.

Two main reasons;

The boring reason, I get paid because someone thinks they need me, and I need that money. Not being needed is clear sign that the gig is up and when they need to balance the books my job, very reasonably, would be the one to cut.
The exciting reason, even when I didn't and don't again need the money there is a satisfaction to being able to build something or help others as part of larger group. Without needing to work my hobbies would just turn into grander and grander projects until I am working with others all over again.

All sorts of jobs filled me with that sense of pride that video games and movies just can't. The idea that I actually helped someone or made a difference for my community is just greater for me

Had some student jobs where I had lots of downtime, but was forbidden from doing anything other than sit there, under threat of being fired.

Everyone found ways to be on their phone, sneak in an ear bud, or read something, but I was out of the door as soon as I had found something else.

For me I feel like I'm going stagnant in my field. I need a new place with a more advanced environment.

Personally? Sitting around too much makes me anxious and antsy, not to mention it makes the time go by really slowly. It’s hard to enjoy pastimes when you’re stuck somewhere you wouldn’t be if you had the choice. (Also, as others have mentioned, not everyone can do those leisure time activities while at work).

My work is actually a little abnormal, but we have plenty of days where we are mostly just waiting around doing nothing for 10hrs and then working really hard for two. Sometimes I do like those days, but more often than not, I enjoy keeping busy with work stuff because sometimes those 12hr days are even longer. If I sat around for the majority of that, I’d be bored out of my skull. Yeah, I can read/do a few things you mentioned, but not for that long.

I also sort of get to live inside my head while I’m working idly with my hands. It’s a little freeing for me mentally to take the load off of my “leisure” brain. I listen to music and kinda pass the time doing my job. And I actually like my job. So that’s a huge benefit.

All I want to do is go back to bed. I can't do that, so I have to sit there twiddling my thumbs and occasionally refreshing my case load to see if there's something to do yet. I still prefer it to actually working because I don't have to think as hard, but it is pretty boring.

As someone else mentioned, some jobs have micromanagers who get pissy if they think you aren't working, and keeping up appearances is draining.

From a different perspective, however, is that when it comes to creative fields specifically, downtime means you aren't improving your skills, creating portfolio work, etc. Due to the contracts creative jobs often have, anything you create on company time (and sometimes outside of company time, not that they can legally enforce it, but they'll try) is typically owned by the company. As such, working on personal projects during downtime is a great way to lose ownership of a passion project you're working on, and no official work means you aren't improving or adding to your portfolio (not that creative fields typically have downtime, usually they're the opposite).

It's speculated that that's why Valve had some major staff members leave the company a few years before Half-Life Alyx; they had nothing to do and were just sitting there spinning their wheels.

It gets boring as hell if you have nothing else to fill that time with. I work in IT and at one of my jobs there was literally nothing else to do if someone's computer didn't break. All social media was blocked, game sites were blocked (this was like 2013) and so were tons of other things. I worked in a basement so I had no cell service either. My time was spent figuring out what wasn't blocked lol

You were gaining exp in opsec by doing that :D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreout

I do machine repair in the evening shift. If nothing is broken, I generally don't have much to do. They don't bitch too hard because they know if shit goes down, I'll work 16 hrs on a Saturday to get it working. I have access to a metal mill and lathe and spend a lot of down time learning and creating personal projects on it. Hell, I built a wooden bedframe and no one said a thing.

I might get enough downtime in a day to be boring, but split up too much to actually do any of those things. Like who tf is writing a novel between orders?

Doesn't keep my mind ocupado

For me, waiting for the phone to ring was torture, because I could be interrupted at any time. It was draining and stressful. If you're actually able to relax, that's different.

I suppose it depends on a lot of things. My personal viewpoint is neurological. My brain and body dont work well in slow moving jobs, especially if they have surprise „hurry up and wait“ situations.

The other problem is that where I live you get fired if you read on the job, no matter if you dont have any work for 6 out of 8 hrs. You‘re supposed to get busy or at least look busy.

Thats why I usually work self employed. I can decide what to do with my time. I usually work a lot more than 8 hrs and I expect to be paid for the work I do, not the minimum required amount I am owed.