For those, who dont know, boreout is:
"lack of work, boredom, and consequent lack of satisfaction are a common malaise affecting individuals working in modern organizations, especially in office-based white collar jobs."
I had boreout before. I was working at my previous employer. We finished a project, it was semi-challenging. I did most of the busywork in a week or two, and then I did the PCB design.. That was the last challenging task I did in my life. It was in beginning of 2015. For the rest of the year, I sit at my workplace doing nothing.
Well, I wasn’t doing anything. I redesigned the main product of the company. It was supposed to be about 15% cheaper with the same specifications, and easier to manufacture and assemble. Never went into production. I also had potential a big project coming up, very challenging, I was very excited. Last month I've met someone from the company, they still did not do it.
For about 8 or 9 months, I did nothing. I got a mail or call or meeting, worked on it for an hour or so, sent a reply. I was really really bored.
When someone offered me a new job, I quit. When I look back, I would have been bored until now, and the salary is better. But I've hit rock bottom again. There is nothing meaningful to do at this company. All we have is a small linux computer, running the 100 lines of code, which we might sell.
I'm not even kidding. I'm the engineering at the company, with a boss, who is interested in 3D printing, open source and I guess fairy tales. They need me, because if they need a new value resistor on the board, I have to do that. Otherwise, nothing. And it's not like the board is selling like crazy, we are looking at installing 3 demo units this month. Woo-hoo. Other incomes for the company keeps me afloat, until the MBA changes his mind and sacks me. Probably. But maybe not, because he needs my boss, because he is the only one keeping the main income source working. End of story. I have a job, where they will not fire me, but I have nothing meaningful to do. I became Wally (from Dilbert).
Literally, I do nothing at work for days. I go to work, sit at my PC, open web browser, start looking at daily news, look at it 20x the day, write for the eevblog forum and other 2 forums. In the meantime, I keep the appearance, like I'm working. I hate that. Alt tabbing and leaving one of my screens for continuously scrolling linux bullshit, having two or three SSH window open...
Sometimes I desing a PCB just for the fun. I have a folder with 11 PCB projects, that are completely useless, like 12V DC input hat for raspberry PI zero. Nobody needs that. I designed it, because I don’t want my abilities to completely go to waste.
And then there are the dreams. I am talking about the time, just after going to bed, when you think. Brain free roaming. I have ideas. They tend to go in the "Lets kickstarter this PCB". I've tried engineering consulting. I had one job. That was fun. Since I have infinite time at work, I did the bulk of it, doing two jobs at the same time! This is probably unethical, feel free to judge me. When I see a new EEVBlog video uploaded at home, I don’t watch it. I can do that at work.
The situation is bad. Effecting my health. I cough every morning after waking up. It's philological. And I'm tired in the evening. After doing 8 hours of nothing. I have low self-esteem, and I feel depressed. My fuse is shorter. I drive above the speed limit for the commute, because going 50-70 is just boring, the car feels like not moving at all. And it is just meaningless.
Should I quit again? Should I move? I moved to Belgium 5 years ago, it was exciting and everything. I am learning French, its the 4th language for me. The 3.5 hours I'm spending at the language school (replacing 2.5 hours of work) is my top moments of the week. Should I just go to my boss, and tell him that: “hey, I need to work on something, otherwise I will move on and work somewhere else.” And it has to be something I choose, because the last ‘huge issue’ we had that a 5m long USB cable had too much resistance, and the marvelous engineering solution was to order another type.