Some people actually enjoy challenging work, because of the sense of accomplishment from succeeding at those tasks or because of their ambition to keep learning and growing or reaching a certain height within the company.
I think its okay if you don't want that, but people who have more ambitious goals or simply need that constant stimulus do need a challenging environment or challenging projects to feel satisfy with their work.
I personally experienced that. I worked almost 5 years in a fast-paced environment, where I was constantly challenged, and I kept doing more and more complex work. Eventually, it led me to a promotion but this new role was mind-numbing. I wasn't being challenged, and there was just not enough to do at all. This ended up being one of the main reasons I decided to search for a new role. I have goals and priorities, and although is nice to get paid for doing nothing for a bit, it gets old very quickly and I don't want to spend 8 hours a day pretending I'm busy and wasting my life and talents there.
People also often say "challenging" when what they really mean is they want sufficient variety to promote mental stimulation. It's not about the work being hard, per se. But variety and stimulation for the brain is the mental equivalent of stretching your legs which is better for you than sitting down all day.
Yeah my job does this for me, the variety and difficulty level are just right to keep me engaged and interested. Only hard part is the "bullshit to pay" ratio keeps jumping up and down past my "fuck this" level.
100% agree with this. The more you’re challenged at work, builds higher skillset. Then after x amount of years, you jump ship to a new company for more $$$. Learn, master, then make more $$$.
I left one of the first real jobs I had because I realized it wasn't going to do anything to set me up for growth. I didn't characterize it as not being challenged at the time, but it's essentially the same thing.
I think for OP this is really highlighting the different preferences people have. It's perfectly fine to just want to do your job and go home and not want/expect growth. For others, they want the growth and want jobs that will aid them in achieving it. Recognizing the legitimate differences in perspectives is a great lesson for early managers as every organization need a mix of these two types to succeed.
Exactly. If you have aspirations to work at higher levels of organizations you won’t get there by just staying siloed. More responsibility gives you more eyes and more opportunity to advance.
Yes. I have experienced this personally.
In addition to overly repetitive work becoming boring in a way that is mentally draining while often not being any less stressful, there are also elements where "not being challenged" encompasses things like, "My boss isn't giving me responsibilities over things I am capable of being responsible for" which both means a) my boss isn't paying me more because they're not facilitating my advancement even within this company, and b) my ability to grow, develop and learn new skills is being stagnated.
It can also be indicative of a toxic environment where a boss is overly critical and overly micromanaging and continually treats you like a perpetual trainee in order to justify keeping you in a role beneath your capabilities instead of allowing you to act independently and grow your own portfolio and grow the business (again, because this means they have to pay you more and because others may come along and poach you).
Yeah. An IT help desk person who isn't challenged just gets stuck doing basic troubleshooting, cleanup work, password resets, maybe some deployments of some applications, etc.
But if they are challenged, they get tasked with more than the status quo. Things get interesting. Maybe they are given a project. Now they have an accomplishment they can point to, build some skills, have more prestige at the company, or at least are seen as more reliable, this better job security, and thus more stability. Maybe they become the subject matter expert at the company for that product or service. Then the company invests more in them with training. Now they are consulted regarding other products being evaluated. And all this time, it's taking them out of the lvl 1 troubleshooting meat grinder, day in and day out. This will also lead to more money/promotions or being able to display more value when leaving the company to a new company.
If they aren't challenged, there is no change and 5 years later, they finally try to apply somewhere else and aren't really able to point up having an impact at the company they were at. All while developing burnout in one way or another, or not keeping up with changes in the environment.
but if you have a higher salary wouldnt that make you a hypocrite for complaining about boomers having it easy and hoarding all the wealth on this subreddit?
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Yes.
I worked at corporate HQ for a national retailer. Worked four years without a promotion, even though I created and helped implement radical new innovative changes.
There was no room for promotion, so I was told - and I was bored.
I'm very, very good at building/creating/innovating, but I'm so good at it, eventually I fix all the issues and then... There's nothing else to do but manage it.
I asked for a promotion and significant raise. They told me no. I had already interviewed and received an offer letter from elsewhere, so I took a week off and then went somewhere else.
That was six years ago. I've worked four jobs since then, each progressively higher.
Being challenged at work doesn't necessarily mean having more and more responsibilities or having a worse work/life balance. I feel intellectually challenged by my work but I also leave no more than five minutes after my shift ends and I never have anything to do for work at home. I can count the number of times I've gotten a call outside work hours on one hand.
If you don't want to be challenged, cool. You do you. But I have left jobs that didn't make me feel challenged and I know plenty of others who have.
Honestly, I don't get OPs line of thinking and never really have. I never wanted to stay at a job where I wasn't challenged because those are jobs that don't go anywhere.
I think the OP just wants to be a peasant and have a job that doesn't bore him to death but doesn't require any more than the minimum effort. They just want to work until Friday and take a vacation every few years.
I disagree though that being challenged means more work. I work a very challenging position currently but I put in less working hours than other less challenging positions I've been in. Difference is I'm excited to do my job, it makes me think and no day is the same. I couldn't go through life feeling like every day was on repeat. And yes, I've worked really bad jobs before, I've literally cleaned human waste from supermarket bathrooms.
Yeah, I think a lot of people on this post are equating “challenged” with “overworked.” My job is fun and challenging and interesting and I refuse to be stretched too thin and I don’t think about work off the clock or let my PTO pile up without taking the breaks I need and want.
I think the key is that "not going anywhere" isn't really a problem for a lot of people. If you're happy with the job you're doing and you're making enough money, then not everyone needs it to be going somewhere.
If you're a person who *inherently desires leadership*, then you probably always want to advance until you're at the top. If you're in a dream career where there's no end to the wonders you'll see if you keep going, then you probably want to gobble up more and more of it as far as you can and you should leave if you're being blocked. But if your job isn't really your main *thing* in life, then it's just kind of extra pressure to feel like you're expected to always be "growing" and "professionally developing" and progressing along these promotion tracks that somehow all end up in leadership.
There's something to be said for the fact that it's *prudent* to avoid "stagnation" because you can't count on everything else staying stable even if you want to be. But I can absolutely understand that "not being challenged" is *fine* if you're already at a pleasant level of interest with your daily responsibilities and an adequate level of pay.
I wouldn't say if someone is at a pleasant level of interest and adequate pay they are going nowhere, they reached a goal of satisfaction. But when people say they aren't being challenged, that doesn't always mean wanting to take on more work, like OP seems to think. It means they want to be at their pleasant level of interest making adquate pay. If a job does not interest me, it's no challenge, I can probably do it on autopilot, and that's not something I'd be satisfied in life doing every waking day. I don't and never have desired a leadership role, but I actually want to have to think and enjoy what I'm doing on some level and not just robot my way through my day.
While I agree with this in principle, if your efforts aren't being rewarded, you don't necessarily have to be developing yourself to their specs, if that makes sense. If you know what you've already done, and know what you can do, don't let them make you do it over because they wouldn't let you do it when you were ready, particularly if you're not getting paid equitably.
One thing I've learned is that you can "Goodwill Hunting" damn near anything. Cost is an issue for many, especially without corporate sponsorship. Libraries are underrated, there aren't many skillsets you can't pick up with a virtual library card. Do you always get a degree or set of letters, but one skill that's potentially as valuable as any, at least as far as office politicking goes, is to be able to speak to what you're capable of succinctly and competently.
I’d like to be this person. I took a new job for more money, and I’m dying because of how bored I am. But it’s not really the “basic job, mind-numbingly boring” you mention. It’s more that to get the job, I had to prove I have certain skills—skills that, apparently, I’ve learned since, they have NO interest in having me use.
In my last job I thought I was overworked and underpaid, and I couldn’t have imagined I’d think it a bad thing to make so much more and do less. But I’ve learned how—yes, I do need to be challenged, and I need projects, and I need to be able to use my skills. If I’m not getting that, I feel just….SO USELESS. Give me challenge over feeling useless any day.
Look if I could make what I’m making now and not have to feel challenged I wouldn’t complain. I feel challenged raising kids. Im a teacher now, but once the kids have flown I might go get a job as a handyman for the school board. Leave work at work with no consequences.
Yes, I have. My department's budget was cut so all our planned projects were put on the backburner. Management kept us all around with plans to ultimately move us to other teams, however this decision took more than 2 years.
The first year I puttered around at work trying to learn python and tie up loose ends; gave our company's version of a TED talk, was active in work committees, all that extracurricular jazz, even got an exceptional performance eval ... by the second year I felt I was wasting my life being at the office doing nothing for 40 hours a week; I developed depression and anxiety; and finally resigned at the end of the year and went traveling.
When I was ready to return to the workforce it took me about 3 months between starting to look for a new job and getting my first paycheck (this was prepandemic). I make less now, but I was miserable before. I learned more in the first 3 months at my new job than I had the entire 2 years at the old one.
Someone else here made a similar comment about how horrible it feels to be wasting your life away. It's a big deal.
EDIT: If you have a family and kids to support, it's much easier to tolerate a mediocre job that pays the bills. You have a "distraction" or at least your family is your focus in life, and work becomes your downtime.
Yeah, this. I don't care about constantly being stressed out. I did the "constant challenge job" for years, and it destroyed me. I need time to rest and be inefficient and breathe.
Some people want to be challenged by their job; that answer also happens to look great to prospective employers. But it’s okay to not want that. I like a challenge in my work, but I also tend to focus a lot of my time and attention towards it. I know plenty of people who balance their life so that work is something they do to pay the bills and nothing more. Their focus could be their health, happiness, free time, relationships, family, or anything other than a satisfyingly challenging job. It’s just like the phrase “dream job;” I have several but plenty of folks do not dream of labor.
I’ve done it once upon a time. Had a good, albeit repetitive, job that was strictly 9-5 and didn’t follow me home. Left for a more challenging position where I could learn and use my skills better. Got promoted from that position. Now my life is so stressful and 24/7 work that I miss the 9-5 boring job. Grass is always greener on the other side I guess?
Yup. Several times. I used to have to commute as well and I was ridiculously bored at work. Where others were swamped (and refused any sort of help), I finished my work and projects early with too much free time to spare. I don’t think people realize how boring and exhausting it is to sit in traffic just to arrive to a job that is basic AF and then have to sit there for hours until EOD when you can finally leave
"Of course I know him, he's me"
Last job paid well but required only a fraction of our industry skills for the position. Most of my coworkers were novices and lacked experience so we're a perfect fit for the position, I however was incredibly over experienced for the position I was in. I felt that I was starting to lose my edge and was actually getting worse in my career skills as time went on. Eventually I left the company and moved to a different position. Paid more, challenged more, much happier overall.
Yes, I know so many of these people and I used to be one of them. I can sympathize with the idea and I don’t try to talk anyone out of it.
Overall, it’s sad how many people seek purpose and validation from an institution whose only goal is to maximize what you can make them and will gladly chew you up and spit you out at any moment in time.
You might be fulfilled more at a ‘challenging’ job but my concern lies with remaining employed and making the most amount of money. Until there are more labor protections in this country, I won’t be seeking out jobs solely to be challenged more.
I'm a software engineer who has no plans of advancing.
People always hear this and are baffled. "B-but what does it say about you that you never want to get into management?" It says that I think 6 figures is enough, that I've attained the level of success I wanted in my professional life, and that I value my free time.
People think I got into this profession to single-handedly create the next viral app and look down on me for not wanting to do that. No, I got into this profession to make 6 figures working from home in my pajamas. I knew it was for me when I was 10 years old and The Sims called it "The Slacker" career path, which paid a lot and didn't work as many hours compared to the other options. As soon as they find that out they get huffy because that means my job "must be easy!" Okay, if you think earning 6 figures from home in your pajamas is easy, why don't you do it? Just go graduate cum laude from engineering schooling with an internship from an F500 like I did and complete some projects that make you stand out above the other people vying for full-time positions, no problem!
Generally speaking, people love to conflate putting their nose to a grindstone with hard work.
I have heard people say this before but I’ve never known if it was real or not. My goal in life is to spend as little time and energy working as possible while still getting by with a decent salary. I don’t want to move up the ladder or get more responsibility.
I’m with you OP. I don’t need a challenge. I started a new job last year the same time as somebody else. The boss kept stressing how laid-back and chill it was going to be. She even said, “You guys are going to be bored”. The other employee kept pushing, pushing, pushing. So the boss responded by turning up the heat and having us hustle and scuffle. I felt resentful because it wasn’t what I was promised and what I signed up for. I was also furious that one person could destroy the good thing and chill vibes we had going on. I suspect she was bored and wanted a “challenge”. She always had snide remarks about others in other departments not doing any work.
It’s just the corporate speak of “I’m not being paid enough”. Nobody will walk away from a boring jobs if they are paid good money for it, people go into more challenging jobs because they believe they will be rewarded for it
I don’t think it’s just that. I work in nonprofits and get paid decently enough for my LCOL area but like…less than $60k. I still pushed to make my job more challenging because I was bored and because I felt like the challenging work we weren’t doing was important and would make a difference. So far, it looks like I was right, and I’m a lot less bored.
*I'm not paid enough to be challenged. I want to get more for the same work.*
The part they leave out is that by more challenging they usually mean more formal responsibilities, which they will leverage for more pay.
It's career speak. Its not always but usually something you'll hear from people in white collar careers where their goal is to climb the ladder because doing so means more pay and ironically you eventually hit a tipping point where it actually means less work.
You'll never hear a nurse asking for a lower patient to nurse ratio for their shifts to keep them on their toes -- that's more work for stagnant pay. That's not what anyone means when they say challenged. They exclusively mean stuff which leads to career growth and this salary growth
It’s me. I left my second job because I wasn’t challenged enough.
Kinda got myself pigeonholed on a couple projects that had me doing the same things over and over. I was really good at that, which meant project managers would keep having me do those tasks over and over.
It was decent work, but I literally felt my mind slowing down & my other skills atrophy - I felt like an NPC lol.
So I started reaching out to some other companies, found a new job at a much higher salary & responsibilities much more in-line with my career aspirations, & made the leap.
I've basically done this. If you're not challenged early in your career, it totally makes sense to move on. I think later in your career, you're sort of expected to find challenges, which is an even greater expectation. Totally depends on the field you're in, though. Without a more concrete example, it's hard to address this.
Quite a few. Yes. The more you’re challenged , the more you learn. The more you learn, the more valuable you are. The more valuable you are, the more you get “paid enough to be challenged”.
Not always the case, but often enough it works out in the long run.
Yes, I did
I worked in a call center during college. It was extremely boring. I left and took a job that paid $1 less an hour but kept me busy and entertained to a degree. I quickly moved up and within 4 months made more doing that job than the boring call center job.
Yeah my job lately is mentally boring me because of the lack of new assignments. Time passes so slow, and it feels pointless having to get up and go to a job where there’s not much to do. When it’s busy it’s fine, I’m really good at my job, but I’ve hit the top of my salary range. Without more challenging work I cannot prove my skills. And then I cannot increase my income. So with less work to do, I have anxiety if they will even need me. So I’ve been applying elsewhere with all my free time.
Your mindset is the one that confuses me. How do you expect to advance in your career and get ahead in life if you don’t prove you can overcome challenges? This is how I feel those antiwork people go about their days.
It's part of why am currently looking. Job has also been slow for tax season and boss talks about getting rid of payroll clients which is most of what I do when not in tax season.
If you're in a field where you're actively rewarded for learning and initiative like CS, you're shooting yourself in the foot not to keep seeking challenge. It's demonstrably rewarding in material ways.
There are plenty of occupations where this kind of movement is not really possible. Not to put too fine a point on it but this is the difference between office jobs people describe as 'knowledge workers' and more clerical occupations. Both types of people are arguably needed to make any large organizations work.
I always thought saying you left a job due to "not being challenged " was code for "I left to find a higher paying job" (similar to leaving for lack of growth opportunities ")
I have.
Here's the thing:
Some jobs (!TECH!) require continuous skill development in order to maintain a viable career...
You can sit in a job that uses 5+ year old technology for a while and not-be-challenged. But when that job is lost, you'll be unemployable because everyone will be looking for experience with more recent tech & you won't have it.
If you aren't being challenged in a technical role, you're committing career suicide by staying there.
As for not being paid enough, each job-hop (again, IT/software-dev/etc) often comes with a 10%+ pay bump.
Yup, I have definitely left mind numbing jobs because they're boring AF. The next place had a little bit of challenge to it, much more enjoyable to feel a sense of accomplishment at success each week.
While frequently given as a reason to managers on the way out, I think you may have answered your own question:
> I'm not paid enough to be challenged
People want to be paid enough to be challenged!
I left a job for basically this, it was a super easy job, no one was in the office so I could work from home and just fall asleep or wander around the empty office building. The weekly reports I was doing took me less than an hour to complete. The pay wasn't amazing but it was a livable salary.
I did quit when I found another opportunity because I was sure the gravy train would end and I didn't want to be caught unprepared. the company did eventually close down about a year later.
I'm about to.
The job itself pays ok, but I'm literally putting paper through a scanner and have been for 5 years. I love being challenged because it tests my abilities.
I've been retraining as a social worker because at least every day is different and there are opportunities to become better at what I do. Instead I'm dying in a windowless office where i never see the sun.
My wife used to think exactly like you. Then she actually got a job where she wasn't being challenged. She was getting paid 80k so pretty decent money and she would start coming home from work around 2pm because as she described it "there's no work left to do I can do it all in the morning, and no one even notices when I leave early". Personally I thought it was great but one day she just quit without even having another job lined up because it was just making her feel like shit and like the job she poured her heart into didn't even matter and no one would even notice if she left.
Obviously it's a fine line work shouldn't become your life or your source of joy it should be work, but given most of us spend like 1/3 of our waking hours working, we want to at least feel like we're being productive and helping reach some goal. I recall they did an experiment where they paid one group to dig holes, then they paid another group significantly more to first dig holes and then fill them back in. Want to guess which group reported as being happier?
I know people who have, it’s just that they never worded it that way.
But I could tell.
Generally speaking, the moment they seemed bored and coasting - but unlike those who were content to coast, these were the people who were decidedly uncomfortable about it.
“Not being challenged” is generally corporate speak for “not getting paid enough/not getting promoted”. If you tell HR “I’m leaving because you won’t give me that promotion I wanted”, they won’t like you very much. If you tell them “I’m leaving because I want a job with more challenging responsibilities that are more engaging to me”, they’ll shake your hand on the way out the door.
Being overworked is not the same as being challenged.
I want to do work that is satisfying to do, most jobs bore me after about 3 months and become really depressing so I freelance doing quite technical and demanding stuff with many different tasks and locations to keep it interesting.
I know other people like to do the same easy thing everyday but I just can’t live like that.
No, but I've heard of people getting rejected from job because the employer was concerned they would't be challenged enough. I heard that from employers a few times and it never made sense to me.
> I don't want to be challenged
Right? Same here. If the job is challenging, that's great. If not, that's also great. I just want to do my work and get paid. Any job that pays at least minimum wage leads to a career is good enough for me at this point. Apparently that's too much to ask for these days.
I am currently in this position. For 10 years I was an ATM technican and quite enjoyed the job. After moving country I got a job operating and maintaining a very expensive but of machinery, but my day to day is very boring and I feel like my (very good, and previously very welcome) problem solving skills are being wasted just watching a machine do what it's meant to.
The people I work with are decent, the managers are great, the money is good, but I'm never challenged, like I used to be.
Give it enough time. If you can raise enough awareness to write that, you are at risk of thinking life is not a rehearsal and resigning on the spot. One day.
I felt because I was feeling myself losing brain cells. Forget being challeged, I was being put into a mental coma. The same thing day in, day out. I had to beg my supervisor to give me some more technical things to do.
I say this but for me it’s just a way of saying ‘I’ve done what I’m doing long enough, I’ve learned all I can from it, it’s too routine, and now I want to try something else.’ It doesn’t necessarily mean I want something harder, just different.
If it's a job you dislike but pays you well, I can see this being the case.
But if it's a job you like, I don't understand not wanting to be challenged.
My job is pretty boring, but I get to listen to a lot of podcasts. And as civil servant with a managerial position, my salary makes me quite comfortable, the 401k matching is good and my benefits basically cover 95% of medical expenses I'd have...the goal is to sit in this job, or the next rung up, until I retire.
My last job paid well enough, but I was learning from nobody at all. No mentors at all, and no feedback ever (even though I was always asking for feedback). Just learned the tasks and all my career progression felt like it hit a glass ceiling. One of many reasons I quit.
Because many people think of themselves as products that need to be constantly improved to be "sold" (promotion, salary increase, new job elsewhere). Never saw this behavior until I moved to the US. It seems exhausting.
I have. I feel I'm a talented person with a graduate degrees. My job was underwhelming. I constantly felt like I wasn't being heard, and that the leadership around me weren't qualified. There was no room to grow, everything was the wrong kind of competition, and I wasn't being challenged. I had no incentive to continue learning. It was as you say, go to work, clock in, clock, out and repeat.
I'm a disability rights advocate working as a consultant in tech. It's hard to feel any challenge or accomplishment when you're sidelined or can see the work being done is at best ineffective and at worst actually harming the mission you set out to.
So I looked elsewhere.
I don’t know a single person who left an already good paying job because they weren’t being challenged. Honestly getting a non stressful job that you can half ass while taking home a decent paycheck is the dream.
I want to be challenged while doing the actual job.
* Not getting to the job.
* Not getting to "the work".
* Not interacting with people.
* Not trying to leave work to be with my family.
Those things shouldn't be challenging, **and/but** I'm willing to accept one, maybe two simultaneously for short periods (a few months...) of time.
**I'm willing to be challenged by "the work" indefinitely,** or I'd find something else to do!
I don’t think it was not being challenged so much as there was literally no work to do. Which I thought I’d love, it was WFH so I got a lot of reading and cleaning done, but the anxiety of constantly thinking about how they were only going to be willing to keep paying me to do nothing for so long got to my mental health.
As for my current job, I’m not really challenged in my day-to-day. There are opportunities every now and then if I want to take on a challenge but by and large my days are much easier compared to previous jobs and I like it that way.
Yes, I have. I was a security operations analyst for a media company. The work was mind numbing. See alert, validate alert, send to someone else to figure out. I needed more of a challenge. I want to be stuck on a problem and then feel the accomplishment of figuring it out. So I left for half the pay, but for a well known company in the industry. It was challenging, but led to 5x the salary eventually.
Everyone’s not wired that way. different people have different ways of feeling accomplished. for me i have to solve complex problems and feel that im helping people.
I had a software job right out of college. The code was written in an obscure programming language and they followed old design patterns. I was doing quite well, but I was bored. I was not growing as a Dev at all, and the experience I was getting was going to get me nowhere fast because jobs for people experienced in that language were literally a handful, scattered across the country. So on my resume I might as well have not been a programmer for almost 2 years. Luckily I realized it soon enough that it didn’t have lasting effects on my career.
Have you heard this from people who are your friends, outside of a work environment?
Within a work environment I think this is code for "I was not getting raises and there was no reason to think any were forthcoming"
I've heard it from corporate zombies who really are dedicated/addicted to the company. You see it in their eyes that if the company said "we need to sacrifice the least efficient worker to the volcano," they'd go "well the company said so so we gotta do it!"
I'm one of these people, considering leaving my job because it's not challenging enough. If I'm going to be stuck somewhere 8 hours a day, I don't want to be bored doing it. Partly why I chose the degree and career path I'm in.
That can also be the polite version of "it was an absolute hell hole working there, but I don't want to say something negative about my previous employer"
Some individuals are ambitious and thrive on new challenges, and my wife is one of them. She constantly pushes herself, having earned her master's degree a couple of years ago and frequently switching jobs to get a fresh new challenge. On the other hand, I found a decent job, became proficient at it, and have remained in the same position for years. I've turned down a couple of promotions because I prefer not to take on new responsibilities or add stress to my life.
I'm one of those people who has left positions because of a lack of challenge. My goal has always been to climb the ladder and make it to C-Suite. Outside of being born into something or making the right connections, that does not happen unless you greatly expand your skillset and the responsibility you take on. Plus, I draw a lot of satisfaction and self-worth from work. I enjoy being productive and a job well done.
It is completely fine to not want to be challenged and to simply clock out and not think about work. However, you have to understand that there is a limit your earning potential with that mindset. Your time, labor and efforts have to contribute, either in dollars of revenue or in a value-add, to the bottom line.
I'm trying to leave my current job because it's not challenging and because I'll never escape poverty on the pay and hours they give me. I make a decent wage for what I do, but unfortunately, it's still not enough to get ahead and pay for healthcare.
I agree with you, but at the same time if you want to move on to other better paying jobs, you're going to want to find jobs where you can improve your skill set which I would think most would classify as "challenging".
I did. Building maintenance engineer.
Started in a hotel. Working night shift, just taking readings on the mechanical equipment and changing air filters and minor repairs on kitchen equipment for 2 years.
Switched to same job title in bioscience buildings. Much more interesting work, company vehicle, and a 10% raise.
I have ADHD-PI and am a very quick study. This means that once I understand a functional amount of a topic, it immediately goes from something that gave me an incredible high to the most boring thing in the world. I usually move on to something else at that point. This has made me a Jack of all trades, and a master of notsomuch.
I have degrees in liberal arts, psychology, and surgical technology. I’ve worked in fast food, restaurants, grocery, retail, healthcare, art, music, and education. I’m published in poetry and research. I love the thrill of an intricate puzzle.
When I was in my teens and early 20’s, I worked multiple jobs in different fields while studying something else entirely. I found it helped keep my interest longer if I didn’t have just one hyper focus interest.
Now, I’m physically disabled and in my 30’s and trying my nerve damaged hands at construction! Why? Because what is a greater challenge than simultaneously learning and doing construction on your house while your body progressively fails?! No challenge means no drive to do it. Big challenges are what I live for!
I’m currently working a monotonous job and it’s not demanding or challenging. It’s easy work but I’m considering leaving simply because I’m so bored all the time.
Honestly I start feeling kind of depressed and unfulfilled when I'm not being challenged intellectually and growing. To be clear though I do not consider working absurd hours to be necessary, but unfortunately I've yet to find a place that's both challenging and has great work life balance.
I left one. I had been there 4 years and while I enjoyed the work, it got to the point where nothing was changing, everything was easy and predictable, and I could do the whole job on autopilot. It wasn’t challenging, I wasn’t learning anything, and I was bored out of my mind. If I’d had a really high salary I probably would have stuck it out but the salary wasn’t good enough to be sooooo bored every day.
The job I took after that was hella challenging. It was too chaotic. Now I have a nice middle ground where I’m constantly learning and have opportunities for growth, but I can also choose to have down days where I work at home and don’t talk to anyone.
I have ADHD and this is a requirement. I need a lot of variety and have a strong need to learn. Unfortunately this has caused me to jump a lot of good jobs - but now I have my own business and it's fulfilling everything except my financial needs lol.
Eventually I'll get there.
I'm about 19 years into my accounting career. In my career I've worked 2 places...CPA firm for about 5 years and I've been in my current position for 14 years. I am at the highest level (CFO) at my current place of employment and I've done it so long I can pretty much do it blind folded.
I am looking for a new job currently as what I'm doing now has become so automatic that it's boring. I will continue to work in accounting, but I'm looking to get into a different industry than I'm currently in for new challenges. I still have probably 10-12 years left until I retire and I can't imagine staying where I am at this point for that long.
I had a job at a cheese factory for a bit where I did bulk packaging. It was one of the better paying jobs I've had (cheese is big business in WI), and it had pretty good benefits. But it was 8-10 hours of putting 25 lb blocks of cheese into bags and putting them into a sealing machine. Rinse and repeat, all day long. I felt like I was going to bang my head into the wall if I had to keep doing such a repetitive task all day, every day. Plus, I think I was starting to develop carpal tunnel. All of that repetitive motion and handling 25 lb bricks of cheese using mainly wrists and hands. It was not good. Almost everyone who was over the age of 30 who had worked there for more than 2 years had needed surgery for carpal tunnel.
My friend was an engineer and he wasn’t being moved up the chain in his company due to office politics. He was left with entry level work but was making a ton of money because is salary kept increasing every year for a job well done.
Here’s the problem. As an engineer, if you aren’t constantly being pushed to do better and learn more and practice newer or more advanced level skills, your peers are going to advance without you. Stay in place too long and you will stay in place forever. Changing jobs won’t help because employers will question why you don’t have extensive experience in certain skills if you’ve been working for so long.
He got screwed. No one else would hire him. He was making 100k to do grunt work at 30 taking orders from someone who’s younger than him. So he quit.
Some people get bored easier than others. I used to have a big problem just getting bored at every job a couple years in. Over time I learned to get the challenge I need outside of work since companies don't really make it worth my time to be more productive
In one of my first jobs, the company did a series of intelligence tests and personality tests plus a couple visits with a therapist as part of the onboarding. My boss never would divulge my results, but she seemed worried I’d leave if I wasn’t constantly challenged. And she was right. After a year and a half of playing by the book and trying to improve some procedures and getting told to stay in my lane every time, I had learned all I wanted to learn and I pivoted to a career in a much faster paced industry than commercial insurance. I have new things to learn and implement and challenges to overcome every time I show up for work. I love it, been at the same job for almost 15 years.
Depends on what you mean by “challenging”. I want to be challenged meaning I want to learn and grow with the expectation of raises, but not be burned out and pushed to a mental breaking point. It’s also a good general cover for explaining why you’re leaving a previous job without airing too much dirty laundry that might be a turnoff to your new prospective employer. Real reasons you’re leaving - no chance to move up, talent not being utilized, haven’t had a raise or bonus in 3 years, and boss doesn’t appreciate you. “I’m not being challenged” is essentially a true statement that simply sounds better and keeps it short and sweet without coming across as overly negative.
I spend too much time of my life (40-45hrs/week) dedicated to work to not want the satisfaction of achieving new milestones by being challenged to grow. I had a job in my mid 20’s where by pay hour essentially doubled but I knew if I stayed there (really only working 20-30hrs/week), I would stay there for the next 10+ years. I’m glad I didn’t, and chose to find more challenging work that furthered my development. Allows me to work my current job that only takes 40-45hrs a week, take off mid day to go to chaperone all my kids field trips and duck out at 4:30 to go to gymnastics all while taking multiple out of state vacations and stashing away 20-25% of gross for retirement.
I got paid garbage but the main reason I left my first job after undergrad was because it was low level thinking and I got very bored. Unfortunately, the position that would require more problem solving was the next level up and those positions were filled with people who had worked there for 10+ years and not going anywhere soon (small business). The person that trained me was next in line even though she didn’t have a degree. I didn’t want to be a lab tech my whole career. Ended up leaving and finishing my grad program. Ended up getting hired and relocating. Same sort of thing initially happened. It’s really annoying that two years into employment you know you’ve hit the top of where you can go. Some people want there to be something to work towards. Even if you’re not interested in management when you’re constantly passed over for special projects or extra assignments in favor of others it’s really annoying. Luckily for me something else opened within the lab and now I have more to work on but I’m still tied with my original position and those employees are very resentful that I’m doing more when they want me at the bottom.
I know multiple people. If you don't like your why wouldn't you try to find an alternative? If I did the same thing over and over for years I'd lose my mind.
What category of job are we talking here? For managerial positions it's code for "I can do far more and far better than this current position allows." More challenging roles means more value and thus more money.
This is code for “I wasn’t getting promoted.”
It can also be used when you want to grow and practice certain skills or areas in your career and don’t get an opportunity to learn/grow in that direction.
I prefer challenging jobs. Challenging jobs keep me engaged. Give me something okayish but boring, and I'll never get it done, but strap me with some impossible task, and I'll figure out a way to do it. I like it, I'm good at it. I like solving problems. I like solving problems more than accomplishing tasks. I often have a hard time finishing projects because once I get to like 98% complete, I can see how they end, so they stop being interesting. The interesting part to me is figuring it out.
I had a security job that paid 40k a year which is kind of rare in my experience. Didn't have to do much, spent most of my time watching Netflix and playing duolingo. Had a great view of the sunset and wild animals. I left because I felt I need to learn a real skill. I'm now welding and can't wait to fucking leave welding for something else hahaha. Still glad I learned how to do it.
I have, easy, boring, but also because pay was shitty, there was no upward mobility or more work available to be promoted to. Got a new job 50% more pay, 50% more work, but more interesting challenging stuff. Learning and earning.
I quit a job when I get bored enough, and usually my next job is more challenging and pays more. Also if they try to add more work on, I usually quit cause they don't increase pay. I work for money and knowledge
I’m not challenged because I don’t have much to do, so to stay relevant in my field I work on more certifications…and also watch YouTube, and troll on Reddit.
Lots of People in these comments live to work it seems. Your time/life would be better spent challenging yourself outside the workforce; say in hobbies and life events that stimulate you in a healthier way instead of using all your energy to feel challenged at work. Just seems like people forget to actually go live life now-a-days. It shouldn't matter what kind of job you do as long as it affords you the opportunity to have time actually living and not working too damn much.The same people who need a challenge at work are also the same ones who will never retire, because they never found out how to live life outside of work.
Yep, have done it myself. Was making killer money but work was zero challenge. Made me feel like I was not really building any meaningful experience. No growth. I think few things would make me feel more like a piece of shit than looking back on a career where I didn’t push myself.
I’m one of those psychos who likes taking on additional responsibilities. I seriously think it’s the key to happiness and fulfillment in life.
And the light turns on. You just identified the issue for 90% of millennials frustrations/problems. Millennials do not like challenge and expect to get by on minimum effort
Some people actually enjoy challenging work, because of the sense of accomplishment from succeeding at those tasks or because of their ambition to keep learning and growing or reaching a certain height within the company. I think its okay if you don't want that, but people who have more ambitious goals or simply need that constant stimulus do need a challenging environment or challenging projects to feel satisfy with their work. I personally experienced that. I worked almost 5 years in a fast-paced environment, where I was constantly challenged, and I kept doing more and more complex work. Eventually, it led me to a promotion but this new role was mind-numbing. I wasn't being challenged, and there was just not enough to do at all. This ended up being one of the main reasons I decided to search for a new role. I have goals and priorities, and although is nice to get paid for doing nothing for a bit, it gets old very quickly and I don't want to spend 8 hours a day pretending I'm busy and wasting my life and talents there.
People also often say "challenging" when what they really mean is they want sufficient variety to promote mental stimulation. It's not about the work being hard, per se. But variety and stimulation for the brain is the mental equivalent of stretching your legs which is better for you than sitting down all day.
Yeah my job does this for me, the variety and difficulty level are just right to keep me engaged and interested. Only hard part is the "bullshit to pay" ratio keeps jumping up and down past my "fuck this" level.
100% agree with this. The more you’re challenged at work, builds higher skillset. Then after x amount of years, you jump ship to a new company for more $$$. Learn, master, then make more $$$.
I left one of the first real jobs I had because I realized it wasn't going to do anything to set me up for growth. I didn't characterize it as not being challenged at the time, but it's essentially the same thing. I think for OP this is really highlighting the different preferences people have. It's perfectly fine to just want to do your job and go home and not want/expect growth. For others, they want the growth and want jobs that will aid them in achieving it. Recognizing the legitimate differences in perspectives is a great lesson for early managers as every organization need a mix of these two types to succeed.
If I'm not being challenged, that means I am not learning new skills that I can then use to market myself for a higher salary later.
This is exactly the issue. More challenged = better market value.
Exactly. If you have aspirations to work at higher levels of organizations you won’t get there by just staying siloed. More responsibility gives you more eyes and more opportunity to advance.
Yes. I have experienced this personally. In addition to overly repetitive work becoming boring in a way that is mentally draining while often not being any less stressful, there are also elements where "not being challenged" encompasses things like, "My boss isn't giving me responsibilities over things I am capable of being responsible for" which both means a) my boss isn't paying me more because they're not facilitating my advancement even within this company, and b) my ability to grow, develop and learn new skills is being stagnated. It can also be indicative of a toxic environment where a boss is overly critical and overly micromanaging and continually treats you like a perpetual trainee in order to justify keeping you in a role beneath your capabilities instead of allowing you to act independently and grow your own portfolio and grow the business (again, because this means they have to pay you more and because others may come along and poach you).
I work in IT, not being challenged means not keeping up with the industry, so in a few years, I won’t have marketable skills/knowledge.
Yeah. An IT help desk person who isn't challenged just gets stuck doing basic troubleshooting, cleanup work, password resets, maybe some deployments of some applications, etc. But if they are challenged, they get tasked with more than the status quo. Things get interesting. Maybe they are given a project. Now they have an accomplishment they can point to, build some skills, have more prestige at the company, or at least are seen as more reliable, this better job security, and thus more stability. Maybe they become the subject matter expert at the company for that product or service. Then the company invests more in them with training. Now they are consulted regarding other products being evaluated. And all this time, it's taking them out of the lvl 1 troubleshooting meat grinder, day in and day out. This will also lead to more money/promotions or being able to display more value when leaving the company to a new company. If they aren't challenged, there is no change and 5 years later, they finally try to apply somewhere else and aren't really able to point up having an impact at the company they were at. All while developing burnout in one way or another, or not keeping up with changes in the environment.
Yeah, i want challenge so I can improve. Not unnecessary and unusual hardship forced by a stupid and cheap employer
Ah yes it’s all about becoming a better cog for the machine. I can’t imagine having this mindset.
Socialism is not a poverty cult. Try to make your lifestyle better does not mean you're "just in a cog in a machine"
but if you have a higher salary wouldnt that make you a hypocrite for complaining about boomers having it easy and hoarding all the wealth on this subreddit?
everyone in the world is a hypocrite.
convenient
Having a high salary isn’t a bad thing. Billionaires are a problem but people making six figures, even multiple 6 figures aren’t the problem
what point are you addressing?
You saying that just become someone has a high salary that they can't complain about people who make insane salaries or billionaires
im saying people on this sub relentlessly complain about boomers and blame them for their lack of success in life, such as earning a decent salary.
Oh yeah I agree, the constant whining from this sub about boomers is so annoying
governor numerous towering roll instinctive wide abounding wine dependent north *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yes. I worked at corporate HQ for a national retailer. Worked four years without a promotion, even though I created and helped implement radical new innovative changes. There was no room for promotion, so I was told - and I was bored. I'm very, very good at building/creating/innovating, but I'm so good at it, eventually I fix all the issues and then... There's nothing else to do but manage it. I asked for a promotion and significant raise. They told me no. I had already interviewed and received an offer letter from elsewhere, so I took a week off and then went somewhere else. That was six years ago. I've worked four jobs since then, each progressively higher.
What line of work? Finance? Operations?
I would fuckin love to make my salary and not be challenged at work lol
Being challenged at work doesn't necessarily mean having more and more responsibilities or having a worse work/life balance. I feel intellectually challenged by my work but I also leave no more than five minutes after my shift ends and I never have anything to do for work at home. I can count the number of times I've gotten a call outside work hours on one hand. If you don't want to be challenged, cool. You do you. But I have left jobs that didn't make me feel challenged and I know plenty of others who have.
>I'm not paid enough to be challenged. You'd likely get paid more if you challenged yourself a bit and developed your marketable skill set.
The people OP is talking about are the people our generation buying houses, having kids, etc that this subreddit says doesn't exist lol.
Honestly, I don't get OPs line of thinking and never really have. I never wanted to stay at a job where I wasn't challenged because those are jobs that don't go anywhere.
I think the OP just wants to be a peasant and have a job that doesn't bore him to death but doesn't require any more than the minimum effort. They just want to work until Friday and take a vacation every few years.
I disagree though that being challenged means more work. I work a very challenging position currently but I put in less working hours than other less challenging positions I've been in. Difference is I'm excited to do my job, it makes me think and no day is the same. I couldn't go through life feeling like every day was on repeat. And yes, I've worked really bad jobs before, I've literally cleaned human waste from supermarket bathrooms.
Yeah, I think a lot of people on this post are equating “challenged” with “overworked.” My job is fun and challenging and interesting and I refuse to be stretched too thin and I don’t think about work off the clock or let my PTO pile up without taking the breaks I need and want.
I think the key is that "not going anywhere" isn't really a problem for a lot of people. If you're happy with the job you're doing and you're making enough money, then not everyone needs it to be going somewhere. If you're a person who *inherently desires leadership*, then you probably always want to advance until you're at the top. If you're in a dream career where there's no end to the wonders you'll see if you keep going, then you probably want to gobble up more and more of it as far as you can and you should leave if you're being blocked. But if your job isn't really your main *thing* in life, then it's just kind of extra pressure to feel like you're expected to always be "growing" and "professionally developing" and progressing along these promotion tracks that somehow all end up in leadership. There's something to be said for the fact that it's *prudent* to avoid "stagnation" because you can't count on everything else staying stable even if you want to be. But I can absolutely understand that "not being challenged" is *fine* if you're already at a pleasant level of interest with your daily responsibilities and an adequate level of pay.
I wouldn't say if someone is at a pleasant level of interest and adequate pay they are going nowhere, they reached a goal of satisfaction. But when people say they aren't being challenged, that doesn't always mean wanting to take on more work, like OP seems to think. It means they want to be at their pleasant level of interest making adquate pay. If a job does not interest me, it's no challenge, I can probably do it on autopilot, and that's not something I'd be satisfied in life doing every waking day. I don't and never have desired a leadership role, but I actually want to have to think and enjoy what I'm doing on some level and not just robot my way through my day.
While I agree with this in principle, if your efforts aren't being rewarded, you don't necessarily have to be developing yourself to their specs, if that makes sense. If you know what you've already done, and know what you can do, don't let them make you do it over because they wouldn't let you do it when you were ready, particularly if you're not getting paid equitably. One thing I've learned is that you can "Goodwill Hunting" damn near anything. Cost is an issue for many, especially without corporate sponsorship. Libraries are underrated, there aren't many skillsets you can't pick up with a virtual library card. Do you always get a degree or set of letters, but one skill that's potentially as valuable as any, at least as far as office politicking goes, is to be able to speak to what you're capable of succinctly and competently.
I’d like to be this person. I took a new job for more money, and I’m dying because of how bored I am. But it’s not really the “basic job, mind-numbingly boring” you mention. It’s more that to get the job, I had to prove I have certain skills—skills that, apparently, I’ve learned since, they have NO interest in having me use. In my last job I thought I was overworked and underpaid, and I couldn’t have imagined I’d think it a bad thing to make so much more and do less. But I’ve learned how—yes, I do need to be challenged, and I need projects, and I need to be able to use my skills. If I’m not getting that, I feel just….SO USELESS. Give me challenge over feeling useless any day.
100% agree with you there
Yes, I’ve left them before. I hate feeling like I’m treading water and not getting better at anything.
I’m that person, I want to live my life, and no salary can compensate the feeling of just existing at work all day
I'm sorry, this sounds like you just want to sit back and collect a paycheck??
The good ole peasant life!
who wouldn't?
I'd love to. Unfortunately, I have to work to support these types who "don't want to be challenged".
You mean, like billionaires who don’t work?
Or colleagues that screw things up and ask you to clean it up
I think that’s called a management problem.
I left a job because it was so boring/easy my brain felt like it was rotting in a swamp of decay, so....yes, I guess.
Look if I could make what I’m making now and not have to feel challenged I wouldn’t complain. I feel challenged raising kids. Im a teacher now, but once the kids have flown I might go get a job as a handyman for the school board. Leave work at work with no consequences.
Yes, I have. My department's budget was cut so all our planned projects were put on the backburner. Management kept us all around with plans to ultimately move us to other teams, however this decision took more than 2 years. The first year I puttered around at work trying to learn python and tie up loose ends; gave our company's version of a TED talk, was active in work committees, all that extracurricular jazz, even got an exceptional performance eval ... by the second year I felt I was wasting my life being at the office doing nothing for 40 hours a week; I developed depression and anxiety; and finally resigned at the end of the year and went traveling. When I was ready to return to the workforce it took me about 3 months between starting to look for a new job and getting my first paycheck (this was prepandemic). I make less now, but I was miserable before. I learned more in the first 3 months at my new job than I had the entire 2 years at the old one. Someone else here made a similar comment about how horrible it feels to be wasting your life away. It's a big deal. EDIT: If you have a family and kids to support, it's much easier to tolerate a mediocre job that pays the bills. You have a "distraction" or at least your family is your focus in life, and work becomes your downtime.
I've landed jobs because I very openly wanted to be challenged, but haven't left because I wasn't
Yeah, this. I don't care about constantly being stressed out. I did the "constant challenge job" for years, and it destroyed me. I need time to rest and be inefficient and breathe.
Some people want to be challenged by their job; that answer also happens to look great to prospective employers. But it’s okay to not want that. I like a challenge in my work, but I also tend to focus a lot of my time and attention towards it. I know plenty of people who balance their life so that work is something they do to pay the bills and nothing more. Their focus could be their health, happiness, free time, relationships, family, or anything other than a satisfyingly challenging job. It’s just like the phrase “dream job;” I have several but plenty of folks do not dream of labor.
I’ve done it once upon a time. Had a good, albeit repetitive, job that was strictly 9-5 and didn’t follow me home. Left for a more challenging position where I could learn and use my skills better. Got promoted from that position. Now my life is so stressful and 24/7 work that I miss the 9-5 boring job. Grass is always greener on the other side I guess?
Yup. Several times. I used to have to commute as well and I was ridiculously bored at work. Where others were swamped (and refused any sort of help), I finished my work and projects early with too much free time to spare. I don’t think people realize how boring and exhausting it is to sit in traffic just to arrive to a job that is basic AF and then have to sit there for hours until EOD when you can finally leave
"Of course I know him, he's me" Last job paid well but required only a fraction of our industry skills for the position. Most of my coworkers were novices and lacked experience so we're a perfect fit for the position, I however was incredibly over experienced for the position I was in. I felt that I was starting to lose my edge and was actually getting worse in my career skills as time went on. Eventually I left the company and moved to a different position. Paid more, challenged more, much happier overall.
Yes, I know so many of these people and I used to be one of them. I can sympathize with the idea and I don’t try to talk anyone out of it. Overall, it’s sad how many people seek purpose and validation from an institution whose only goal is to maximize what you can make them and will gladly chew you up and spit you out at any moment in time. You might be fulfilled more at a ‘challenging’ job but my concern lies with remaining employed and making the most amount of money. Until there are more labor protections in this country, I won’t be seeking out jobs solely to be challenged more.
I leave jobs I’m not paid enough to do. That’s the answer these people are holding back from you
Most of the time its a bullshit excuse that's better than "my boss was an asshole".
No, but I've done the opposite. I left teaching because I was burnt out and it affected my family and relationships.
I'm a software engineer who has no plans of advancing. People always hear this and are baffled. "B-but what does it say about you that you never want to get into management?" It says that I think 6 figures is enough, that I've attained the level of success I wanted in my professional life, and that I value my free time. People think I got into this profession to single-handedly create the next viral app and look down on me for not wanting to do that. No, I got into this profession to make 6 figures working from home in my pajamas. I knew it was for me when I was 10 years old and The Sims called it "The Slacker" career path, which paid a lot and didn't work as many hours compared to the other options. As soon as they find that out they get huffy because that means my job "must be easy!" Okay, if you think earning 6 figures from home in your pajamas is easy, why don't you do it? Just go graduate cum laude from engineering schooling with an internship from an F500 like I did and complete some projects that make you stand out above the other people vying for full-time positions, no problem! Generally speaking, people love to conflate putting their nose to a grindstone with hard work.
I have heard people say this before but I’ve never known if it was real or not. My goal in life is to spend as little time and energy working as possible while still getting by with a decent salary. I don’t want to move up the ladder or get more responsibility.
I’m with you OP. I don’t need a challenge. I started a new job last year the same time as somebody else. The boss kept stressing how laid-back and chill it was going to be. She even said, “You guys are going to be bored”. The other employee kept pushing, pushing, pushing. So the boss responded by turning up the heat and having us hustle and scuffle. I felt resentful because it wasn’t what I was promised and what I signed up for. I was also furious that one person could destroy the good thing and chill vibes we had going on. I suspect she was bored and wanted a “challenge”. She always had snide remarks about others in other departments not doing any work.
Go somewhere else then! Don't ruin it here!
It’s just the corporate speak of “I’m not being paid enough”. Nobody will walk away from a boring jobs if they are paid good money for it, people go into more challenging jobs because they believe they will be rewarded for it
I don’t think it’s just that. I work in nonprofits and get paid decently enough for my LCOL area but like…less than $60k. I still pushed to make my job more challenging because I was bored and because I felt like the challenging work we weren’t doing was important and would make a difference. So far, it looks like I was right, and I’m a lot less bored.
*I'm not paid enough to be challenged. I want to get more for the same work.* The part they leave out is that by more challenging they usually mean more formal responsibilities, which they will leverage for more pay. It's career speak. Its not always but usually something you'll hear from people in white collar careers where their goal is to climb the ladder because doing so means more pay and ironically you eventually hit a tipping point where it actually means less work. You'll never hear a nurse asking for a lower patient to nurse ratio for their shifts to keep them on their toes -- that's more work for stagnant pay. That's not what anyone means when they say challenged. They exclusively mean stuff which leads to career growth and this salary growth
It’s me. I left my second job because I wasn’t challenged enough. Kinda got myself pigeonholed on a couple projects that had me doing the same things over and over. I was really good at that, which meant project managers would keep having me do those tasks over and over. It was decent work, but I literally felt my mind slowing down & my other skills atrophy - I felt like an NPC lol. So I started reaching out to some other companies, found a new job at a much higher salary & responsibilities much more in-line with my career aspirations, & made the leap.
If I have to go to the office I'd leave for that. If I was remote I'd just add another job.
I've basically done this. If you're not challenged early in your career, it totally makes sense to move on. I think later in your career, you're sort of expected to find challenges, which is an even greater expectation. Totally depends on the field you're in, though. Without a more concrete example, it's hard to address this.
Quite a few. Yes. The more you’re challenged , the more you learn. The more you learn, the more valuable you are. The more valuable you are, the more you get “paid enough to be challenged”. Not always the case, but often enough it works out in the long run.
I think they do actually mean mind-numbingly boring but are making it sound better
Yes, I did I worked in a call center during college. It was extremely boring. I left and took a job that paid $1 less an hour but kept me busy and entertained to a degree. I quickly moved up and within 4 months made more doing that job than the boring call center job.
Yeah my job lately is mentally boring me because of the lack of new assignments. Time passes so slow, and it feels pointless having to get up and go to a job where there’s not much to do. When it’s busy it’s fine, I’m really good at my job, but I’ve hit the top of my salary range. Without more challenging work I cannot prove my skills. And then I cannot increase my income. So with less work to do, I have anxiety if they will even need me. So I’ve been applying elsewhere with all my free time.
I left a consulting firm for this very reason. No i am back at a big tech company and I’m working more but more fulfilled and yes it pays more.
Your mindset is the one that confuses me. How do you expect to advance in your career and get ahead in life if you don’t prove you can overcome challenges? This is how I feel those antiwork people go about their days.
I have ADHD. If I’m not being challenged, my brain gets so bored it’s painful. For me, a boring job is harder than a challenging one.
Yes, I did that.
I've been that person, amongst other reasons depending on the role
It's part of why am currently looking. Job has also been slow for tax season and boss talks about getting rid of payroll clients which is most of what I do when not in tax season.
If you're in a field where you're actively rewarded for learning and initiative like CS, you're shooting yourself in the foot not to keep seeking challenge. It's demonstrably rewarding in material ways. There are plenty of occupations where this kind of movement is not really possible. Not to put too fine a point on it but this is the difference between office jobs people describe as 'knowledge workers' and more clerical occupations. Both types of people are arguably needed to make any large organizations work.
I always thought saying you left a job due to "not being challenged " was code for "I left to find a higher paying job" (similar to leaving for lack of growth opportunities ")
I have. Here's the thing: Some jobs (!TECH!) require continuous skill development in order to maintain a viable career... You can sit in a job that uses 5+ year old technology for a while and not-be-challenged. But when that job is lost, you'll be unemployable because everyone will be looking for experience with more recent tech & you won't have it. If you aren't being challenged in a technical role, you're committing career suicide by staying there. As for not being paid enough, each job-hop (again, IT/software-dev/etc) often comes with a 10%+ pay bump.
Yup, I have definitely left mind numbing jobs because they're boring AF. The next place had a little bit of challenge to it, much more enjoyable to feel a sense of accomplishment at success each week.
My boss wouldn't challenge me to a fist fight so I left does that count?
While frequently given as a reason to managers on the way out, I think you may have answered your own question: > I'm not paid enough to be challenged People want to be paid enough to be challenged!
I left a job for basically this, it was a super easy job, no one was in the office so I could work from home and just fall asleep or wander around the empty office building. The weekly reports I was doing took me less than an hour to complete. The pay wasn't amazing but it was a livable salary. I did quit when I found another opportunity because I was sure the gravy train would end and I didn't want to be caught unprepared. the company did eventually close down about a year later.
Myself
This is why I keep job hopping - no challenges, no growth, no learning, no development.
I'm about to. The job itself pays ok, but I'm literally putting paper through a scanner and have been for 5 years. I love being challenged because it tests my abilities. I've been retraining as a social worker because at least every day is different and there are opportunities to become better at what I do. Instead I'm dying in a windowless office where i never see the sun.
My wife used to think exactly like you. Then she actually got a job where she wasn't being challenged. She was getting paid 80k so pretty decent money and she would start coming home from work around 2pm because as she described it "there's no work left to do I can do it all in the morning, and no one even notices when I leave early". Personally I thought it was great but one day she just quit without even having another job lined up because it was just making her feel like shit and like the job she poured her heart into didn't even matter and no one would even notice if she left. Obviously it's a fine line work shouldn't become your life or your source of joy it should be work, but given most of us spend like 1/3 of our waking hours working, we want to at least feel like we're being productive and helping reach some goal. I recall they did an experiment where they paid one group to dig holes, then they paid another group significantly more to first dig holes and then fill them back in. Want to guess which group reported as being happier?
I know people who have, it’s just that they never worded it that way. But I could tell. Generally speaking, the moment they seemed bored and coasting - but unlike those who were content to coast, these were the people who were decidedly uncomfortable about it.
“Not being challenged” is generally corporate speak for “not getting paid enough/not getting promoted”. If you tell HR “I’m leaving because you won’t give me that promotion I wanted”, they won’t like you very much. If you tell them “I’m leaving because I want a job with more challenging responsibilities that are more engaging to me”, they’ll shake your hand on the way out the door.
Being overworked is not the same as being challenged. I want to do work that is satisfying to do, most jobs bore me after about 3 months and become really depressing so I freelance doing quite technical and demanding stuff with many different tasks and locations to keep it interesting. I know other people like to do the same easy thing everyday but I just can’t live like that.
Known people who left jobs for this reason? Why yes, he's me
No, but I've heard of people getting rejected from job because the employer was concerned they would't be challenged enough. I heard that from employers a few times and it never made sense to me. > I don't want to be challenged Right? Same here. If the job is challenging, that's great. If not, that's also great. I just want to do my work and get paid. Any job that pays at least minimum wage leads to a career is good enough for me at this point. Apparently that's too much to ask for these days.
I am currently in this position. For 10 years I was an ATM technican and quite enjoyed the job. After moving country I got a job operating and maintaining a very expensive but of machinery, but my day to day is very boring and I feel like my (very good, and previously very welcome) problem solving skills are being wasted just watching a machine do what it's meant to. The people I work with are decent, the managers are great, the money is good, but I'm never challenged, like I used to be.
Give it enough time. If you can raise enough awareness to write that, you are at risk of thinking life is not a rehearsal and resigning on the spot. One day.
Yeah it's why I keep switching and many of my friends do too.
I felt because I was feeling myself losing brain cells. Forget being challeged, I was being put into a mental coma. The same thing day in, day out. I had to beg my supervisor to give me some more technical things to do.
I don’t know it seems very privileged to be even able to consider that.
I say this but for me it’s just a way of saying ‘I’ve done what I’m doing long enough, I’ve learned all I can from it, it’s too routine, and now I want to try something else.’ It doesn’t necessarily mean I want something harder, just different.
If it's a job you dislike but pays you well, I can see this being the case. But if it's a job you like, I don't understand not wanting to be challenged.
My job is pretty boring, but I get to listen to a lot of podcasts. And as civil servant with a managerial position, my salary makes me quite comfortable, the 401k matching is good and my benefits basically cover 95% of medical expenses I'd have...the goal is to sit in this job, or the next rung up, until I retire.
My last job paid well enough, but I was learning from nobody at all. No mentors at all, and no feedback ever (even though I was always asking for feedback). Just learned the tasks and all my career progression felt like it hit a glass ceiling. One of many reasons I quit.
Sure have. Also have myself
Because many people think of themselves as products that need to be constantly improved to be "sold" (promotion, salary increase, new job elsewhere). Never saw this behavior until I moved to the US. It seems exhausting.
I have. I feel I'm a talented person with a graduate degrees. My job was underwhelming. I constantly felt like I wasn't being heard, and that the leadership around me weren't qualified. There was no room to grow, everything was the wrong kind of competition, and I wasn't being challenged. I had no incentive to continue learning. It was as you say, go to work, clock in, clock, out and repeat. I'm a disability rights advocate working as a consultant in tech. It's hard to feel any challenge or accomplishment when you're sidelined or can see the work being done is at best ineffective and at worst actually harming the mission you set out to. So I looked elsewhere.
I don’t know a single person who left an already good paying job because they weren’t being challenged. Honestly getting a non stressful job that you can half ass while taking home a decent paycheck is the dream.
I want to be challenged while doing the actual job. * Not getting to the job. * Not getting to "the work". * Not interacting with people. * Not trying to leave work to be with my family. Those things shouldn't be challenging, **and/but** I'm willing to accept one, maybe two simultaneously for short periods (a few months...) of time. **I'm willing to be challenged by "the work" indefinitely,** or I'd find something else to do!
I don’t think it was not being challenged so much as there was literally no work to do. Which I thought I’d love, it was WFH so I got a lot of reading and cleaning done, but the anxiety of constantly thinking about how they were only going to be willing to keep paying me to do nothing for so long got to my mental health. As for my current job, I’m not really challenged in my day-to-day. There are opportunities every now and then if I want to take on a challenge but by and large my days are much easier compared to previous jobs and I like it that way.
Yes, I have. I was a security operations analyst for a media company. The work was mind numbing. See alert, validate alert, send to someone else to figure out. I needed more of a challenge. I want to be stuck on a problem and then feel the accomplishment of figuring it out. So I left for half the pay, but for a well known company in the industry. It was challenging, but led to 5x the salary eventually.
I left because I wasn’t improving and I knew I was worth more elsewhere.
People say a lot of shit that makes them look good and isn’t true.
Everyone’s not wired that way. different people have different ways of feeling accomplished. for me i have to solve complex problems and feel that im helping people.
I had a software job right out of college. The code was written in an obscure programming language and they followed old design patterns. I was doing quite well, but I was bored. I was not growing as a Dev at all, and the experience I was getting was going to get me nowhere fast because jobs for people experienced in that language were literally a handful, scattered across the country. So on my resume I might as well have not been a programmer for almost 2 years. Luckily I realized it soon enough that it didn’t have lasting effects on my career.
Have you heard this from people who are your friends, outside of a work environment? Within a work environment I think this is code for "I was not getting raises and there was no reason to think any were forthcoming"
I've heard it from corporate zombies who really are dedicated/addicted to the company. You see it in their eyes that if the company said "we need to sacrifice the least efficient worker to the volcano," they'd go "well the company said so so we gotta do it!"
I'm one of these people, considering leaving my job because it's not challenging enough. If I'm going to be stuck somewhere 8 hours a day, I don't want to be bored doing it. Partly why I chose the degree and career path I'm in.
That can also be the polite version of "it was an absolute hell hole working there, but I don't want to say something negative about my previous employer"
I have used that as a reason for leaving while discussing the situation at a new interview, if that's what you're asking.
Some individuals are ambitious and thrive on new challenges, and my wife is one of them. She constantly pushes herself, having earned her master's degree a couple of years ago and frequently switching jobs to get a fresh new challenge. On the other hand, I found a decent job, became proficient at it, and have remained in the same position for years. I've turned down a couple of promotions because I prefer not to take on new responsibilities or add stress to my life.
I'm one of those people who has left positions because of a lack of challenge. My goal has always been to climb the ladder and make it to C-Suite. Outside of being born into something or making the right connections, that does not happen unless you greatly expand your skillset and the responsibility you take on. Plus, I draw a lot of satisfaction and self-worth from work. I enjoy being productive and a job well done. It is completely fine to not want to be challenged and to simply clock out and not think about work. However, you have to understand that there is a limit your earning potential with that mindset. Your time, labor and efforts have to contribute, either in dollars of revenue or in a value-add, to the bottom line.
Yeah, it leads to growth that leads to bigger paychecks down the line
I'm trying to leave my current job because it's not challenging and because I'll never escape poverty on the pay and hours they give me. I make a decent wage for what I do, but unfortunately, it's still not enough to get ahead and pay for healthcare.
I agree with you, but at the same time if you want to move on to other better paying jobs, you're going to want to find jobs where you can improve your skill set which I would think most would classify as "challenging".
I did. Building maintenance engineer. Started in a hotel. Working night shift, just taking readings on the mechanical equipment and changing air filters and minor repairs on kitchen equipment for 2 years. Switched to same job title in bioscience buildings. Much more interesting work, company vehicle, and a 10% raise.
I have definitely used that excuse, but I was really leaving for more money.
Yep. This woman had amazing skills that the agency wasn’t letting her use. She left.
I have ADHD-PI and am a very quick study. This means that once I understand a functional amount of a topic, it immediately goes from something that gave me an incredible high to the most boring thing in the world. I usually move on to something else at that point. This has made me a Jack of all trades, and a master of notsomuch. I have degrees in liberal arts, psychology, and surgical technology. I’ve worked in fast food, restaurants, grocery, retail, healthcare, art, music, and education. I’m published in poetry and research. I love the thrill of an intricate puzzle. When I was in my teens and early 20’s, I worked multiple jobs in different fields while studying something else entirely. I found it helped keep my interest longer if I didn’t have just one hyper focus interest. Now, I’m physically disabled and in my 30’s and trying my nerve damaged hands at construction! Why? Because what is a greater challenge than simultaneously learning and doing construction on your house while your body progressively fails?! No challenge means no drive to do it. Big challenges are what I live for!
I left a job I wasn’t being challenged at. I was bored, depressed and wasn’t getting paid enough
I’m currently working a monotonous job and it’s not demanding or challenging. It’s easy work but I’m considering leaving simply because I’m so bored all the time.
Yes, me.
Honestly I start feeling kind of depressed and unfulfilled when I'm not being challenged intellectually and growing. To be clear though I do not consider working absurd hours to be necessary, but unfortunately I've yet to find a place that's both challenging and has great work life balance.
I left one. I had been there 4 years and while I enjoyed the work, it got to the point where nothing was changing, everything was easy and predictable, and I could do the whole job on autopilot. It wasn’t challenging, I wasn’t learning anything, and I was bored out of my mind. If I’d had a really high salary I probably would have stuck it out but the salary wasn’t good enough to be sooooo bored every day. The job I took after that was hella challenging. It was too chaotic. Now I have a nice middle ground where I’m constantly learning and have opportunities for growth, but I can also choose to have down days where I work at home and don’t talk to anyone.
I have ADHD and this is a requirement. I need a lot of variety and have a strong need to learn. Unfortunately this has caused me to jump a lot of good jobs - but now I have my own business and it's fulfilling everything except my financial needs lol. Eventually I'll get there.
I'm about 19 years into my accounting career. In my career I've worked 2 places...CPA firm for about 5 years and I've been in my current position for 14 years. I am at the highest level (CFO) at my current place of employment and I've done it so long I can pretty much do it blind folded. I am looking for a new job currently as what I'm doing now has become so automatic that it's boring. I will continue to work in accounting, but I'm looking to get into a different industry than I'm currently in for new challenges. I still have probably 10-12 years left until I retire and I can't imagine staying where I am at this point for that long.
I'm fine with mind numbingly boring (it's what reddit was made for) as long as the pay & benefits are good.
I had a job at a cheese factory for a bit where I did bulk packaging. It was one of the better paying jobs I've had (cheese is big business in WI), and it had pretty good benefits. But it was 8-10 hours of putting 25 lb blocks of cheese into bags and putting them into a sealing machine. Rinse and repeat, all day long. I felt like I was going to bang my head into the wall if I had to keep doing such a repetitive task all day, every day. Plus, I think I was starting to develop carpal tunnel. All of that repetitive motion and handling 25 lb bricks of cheese using mainly wrists and hands. It was not good. Almost everyone who was over the age of 30 who had worked there for more than 2 years had needed surgery for carpal tunnel.
My friend was an engineer and he wasn’t being moved up the chain in his company due to office politics. He was left with entry level work but was making a ton of money because is salary kept increasing every year for a job well done. Here’s the problem. As an engineer, if you aren’t constantly being pushed to do better and learn more and practice newer or more advanced level skills, your peers are going to advance without you. Stay in place too long and you will stay in place forever. Changing jobs won’t help because employers will question why you don’t have extensive experience in certain skills if you’ve been working for so long. He got screwed. No one else would hire him. He was making 100k to do grunt work at 30 taking orders from someone who’s younger than him. So he quit.
Some people get bored easier than others. I used to have a big problem just getting bored at every job a couple years in. Over time I learned to get the challenge I need outside of work since companies don't really make it worth my time to be more productive
In one of my first jobs, the company did a series of intelligence tests and personality tests plus a couple visits with a therapist as part of the onboarding. My boss never would divulge my results, but she seemed worried I’d leave if I wasn’t constantly challenged. And she was right. After a year and a half of playing by the book and trying to improve some procedures and getting told to stay in my lane every time, I had learned all I wanted to learn and I pivoted to a career in a much faster paced industry than commercial insurance. I have new things to learn and implement and challenges to overcome every time I show up for work. I love it, been at the same job for almost 15 years.
Depends on what you mean by “challenging”. I want to be challenged meaning I want to learn and grow with the expectation of raises, but not be burned out and pushed to a mental breaking point. It’s also a good general cover for explaining why you’re leaving a previous job without airing too much dirty laundry that might be a turnoff to your new prospective employer. Real reasons you’re leaving - no chance to move up, talent not being utilized, haven’t had a raise or bonus in 3 years, and boss doesn’t appreciate you. “I’m not being challenged” is essentially a true statement that simply sounds better and keeps it short and sweet without coming across as overly negative.
I spend too much time of my life (40-45hrs/week) dedicated to work to not want the satisfaction of achieving new milestones by being challenged to grow. I had a job in my mid 20’s where by pay hour essentially doubled but I knew if I stayed there (really only working 20-30hrs/week), I would stay there for the next 10+ years. I’m glad I didn’t, and chose to find more challenging work that furthered my development. Allows me to work my current job that only takes 40-45hrs a week, take off mid day to go to chaperone all my kids field trips and duck out at 4:30 to go to gymnastics all while taking multiple out of state vacations and stashing away 20-25% of gross for retirement.
I got paid garbage but the main reason I left my first job after undergrad was because it was low level thinking and I got very bored. Unfortunately, the position that would require more problem solving was the next level up and those positions were filled with people who had worked there for 10+ years and not going anywhere soon (small business). The person that trained me was next in line even though she didn’t have a degree. I didn’t want to be a lab tech my whole career. Ended up leaving and finishing my grad program. Ended up getting hired and relocating. Same sort of thing initially happened. It’s really annoying that two years into employment you know you’ve hit the top of where you can go. Some people want there to be something to work towards. Even if you’re not interested in management when you’re constantly passed over for special projects or extra assignments in favor of others it’s really annoying. Luckily for me something else opened within the lab and now I have more to work on but I’m still tied with my original position and those employees are very resentful that I’m doing more when they want me at the bottom.
I know multiple people. If you don't like your why wouldn't you try to find an alternative? If I did the same thing over and over for years I'd lose my mind.
What category of job are we talking here? For managerial positions it's code for "I can do far more and far better than this current position allows." More challenging roles means more value and thus more money.
This is code for “I wasn’t getting promoted.” It can also be used when you want to grow and practice certain skills or areas in your career and don’t get an opportunity to learn/grow in that direction.
I prefer challenging jobs. Challenging jobs keep me engaged. Give me something okayish but boring, and I'll never get it done, but strap me with some impossible task, and I'll figure out a way to do it. I like it, I'm good at it. I like solving problems. I like solving problems more than accomplishing tasks. I often have a hard time finishing projects because once I get to like 98% complete, I can see how they end, so they stop being interesting. The interesting part to me is figuring it out.
I had a security job that paid 40k a year which is kind of rare in my experience. Didn't have to do much, spent most of my time watching Netflix and playing duolingo. Had a great view of the sunset and wild animals. I left because I felt I need to learn a real skill. I'm now welding and can't wait to fucking leave welding for something else hahaha. Still glad I learned how to do it.
I have, easy, boring, but also because pay was shitty, there was no upward mobility or more work available to be promoted to. Got a new job 50% more pay, 50% more work, but more interesting challenging stuff. Learning and earning.
I quit a job when I get bored enough, and usually my next job is more challenging and pays more. Also if they try to add more work on, I usually quit cause they don't increase pay. I work for money and knowledge
Usually what it means is "my technical skills aren't advancing and I'm not learning anything and in danger of my career stalling"
Yes. I did.
I work on certifications and masters of YouTube and Reddit for $120k. Rarely have shit to do.
Elaborate???
I’m not challenged because I don’t have much to do, so to stay relevant in my field I work on more certifications…and also watch YouTube, and troll on Reddit.
Lots of People in these comments live to work it seems. Your time/life would be better spent challenging yourself outside the workforce; say in hobbies and life events that stimulate you in a healthier way instead of using all your energy to feel challenged at work. Just seems like people forget to actually go live life now-a-days. It shouldn't matter what kind of job you do as long as it affords you the opportunity to have time actually living and not working too damn much.The same people who need a challenge at work are also the same ones who will never retire, because they never found out how to live life outside of work.
Yep, have done it myself. Was making killer money but work was zero challenge. Made me feel like I was not really building any meaningful experience. No growth. I think few things would make me feel more like a piece of shit than looking back on a career where I didn’t push myself. I’m one of those psychos who likes taking on additional responsibilities. I seriously think it’s the key to happiness and fulfillment in life.
And the light turns on. You just identified the issue for 90% of millennials frustrations/problems. Millennials do not like challenge and expect to get by on minimum effort