Boring Work Is Often Absolutely Essential
A few weeks ago, I published a post on “Everything HR Needs to Know about ‘the Cloud’” and also posted it on the HR Bartender Facebook page. I was a little surprised when someone commented, “Boring!” (Actually, the comment was “Borrrrrinngggg…..” but let’s not dwell on that.) The reader is certainly entitled to their opinion.
But there are two things we need to remember about labeling something boring.
#1 – What’s boring to one person could be absolutely thrilling to someone else.
Our lives and our jobs all have little pieces that someone might consider boring. I used to work with someone who loved filing. Yes, filing! Many people in the department despised it. But she was happy. I once asked her why and she said that she enjoyed the quiet time.
#2 – Everything we need to know to be successful is not exciting and/or interesting.
This ties into point number one. Some of the things we need to know in our careers and lives we won’t consider fun. But we have to learn them anyway. At least if we want to be successful, we need to be capable. Here’s an example. Driving is not my favorite thing to do. But I need to know how to drive in order to go to work and school, take vacation, and run personal errands. So, I drive and give it my 100%.
As new technologies are introduced and the business world changes, some of the work we are asked to do could be seen as “boring”. Think about it. There are entire companies and industries that some people might consider boring. That doesn’t mean it isn’t important and essential. It doesn’t mean we won’t benefit from doing the work. It’s possible we might learn something while doing “boring” work.
Each of us has to figure out how we’re going to handle the “boring” parts of our work.
- Can you identify the boring parts of your job?
- How do you feel when you have to work on something that’s boring?
- Are you able to still give boring work the same attention?
[Tweet “We Have To Learn How to Deal With the Boring Parts of Our Work”]
The boring work isn’t going to ever completely go away. Something will always be boring to someone. But we need boring work to be completed. The question is, can you rise above the “boring” to be successful?
Image courtesy of Sharlyn Lauby
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