Boredom is the Mind Killer* (with apologies to frank herbert)
Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. - Dune
Replace "fear" with "boredom" and you have a glimmer of the modern day commuter's new take on Henry David Thoreau's old familiar quotation, "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation".
In 1854's "Walden", Thoreau wrote that most people are slaves to their work, indentured to their paymasters. In 1999's "Office Space" we got a humorous look at the same phenomenon fast-forwarded some 150 years, where modern day technical workers find themselves not so much indentured as hopelessly stuck, one paycheck away from ruin and unwilling to risk it all for something better, trading away their best years for a mere semblance of safety and security. How many of us haven't felt like Peter Gibbons on occasion?
Peter, Michael and Samir, Office Space, 1999
If you're an entrepreneur, boredom is the last thing you want your employees to be thinking about. Boredom kills the soul, it drains the life from a person. And it means something is terribly, awfully wrong. So why is it that so many startups, successful or not, end up such boring places to work? Is this just a part of the way things are? Or are there strategies for the founder and the worker bee to make sure their company doesn't end up becoming another "Innitech".
The "strict" boss
QuickSprout's Neil Patel can be excused for espousing time clocks for tech works by simply being young, painfully young, but a strict penny pinching boss is the surest route to a lousy lot of bored, defeated worker bees, instead of inspired, driven, contributing co-creators. A long time ago I coined the phrase "cheap spendthrift" for the founder/boss who's penny wise and pound foolish, brow beating the staff about minutes on the time clock, electric bills, toilet paper and office supplies. Where this inevitably leads is a brain drain and what's left over are the people too scared or too inured to boredom to ever leave. The type you have to carry out on a stretcher.
The nebbish manager
37signals just pointed out in a wickedly funny post entitled "Beware the manager with free time" that sometimes no manager is best, especially when there's no management to be done, because the nebbish manager, sycophantic and duplicitous and with an uncanny ability to alienate everyone, will somehow find a way to invent work and misery for their victims employees. And for some reason, the middle ranks of growing companies naturally seem to swell with this type.
The white rabbit
A VC reminds us that events often overtake companies. It's a little like chasing that rabbit down the rabbit hole:
Morpheus: I imagine that right now, you're feeling a bit like Alice. Hmm? Tumbling down the rabbit hole?
Don't get too attached to strategizing. Get your product to market and let your people and the market itself take it from there. You'll be pleasantly surprised what they're trying to tell you.
Boredom is a crushing, life destroying force we all face from time to time. Some of us get used to it, but nobody should allow it to become a chronic condition. Remember that if you're always bored then something is absolutely not right. Find it, change it up, or get out. Nothing's worth all that and life is way too short. Something better is always out there, and maybe as close as a heart to heart with someone at work. Whichever path you choose, make the choice. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Posted by LocaVori on September 23, 2009 at 9:41 p.m..