
Boreout - razerbeans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreout
======
jerf
I realized a while ago that the reason why I love programming even after doing
it for 13 years professionally is that I never have to do the same thing
twice. Automate, automate, automate. The most trivial HR application when
approached with good software design methodology is an opportunity to learn,
to refine one's abstraction methodology, and to automate things away that
don't just bore you, but bore other people. In fact, the most trivial HR
application can be way more fun to work on than the far more superficially-
glamorous game programming.

(Though I wouldn't _dream_ of arguing that the end result of the HR system is
more fun.)

Later on I've started to notice that those who never develop their skills this
far tend to boreout of the career earlier. I hypothesize that at about the ten
year mark, programmers fall reasonably cleanly into one of three categories:
1. approaching the job the way I do 2. boredout of the career or 3. immune to
boredom, the traditional old fogey who doesn't keep up and only knows COBOL
(or whatever fills the niche for when the programmer started), and the ones
who give us #1s a bad name. I plan on keeping my eye out for this in the
future. (That is, when I say "I hypothesize" I mean it's a new hypothesis I
mean to test, but do not have any immediate counterexamples.)

~~~
barrkel
It's hard to automate e.g. fixing bugs in an ancient C codebase. And some
things, such as various elements in a build tree that need to stay in sync,
such that when you modify one bit you have to modify other bits, cannot be
easily automated because of the brittleness such automation can introduce.
Instead of simply making sure that files are in the right place and following
(human) scripts annotated directly in the source code, you end up down in a
maze of twisty auto-generating scripts, all not quite alike, trying to figure
out what wrote what, where when and why, and route all the right configuration
elements from one place to the next, adding complexity and coupling, etc.

So yes, ostensibly everything can be automated, but many things are boring and
repetitive yet resist automation, while for others, introducing automation is
either too much work to be worth it in the first place, or just introduces
more code you need to maintain.

~~~
jerf
In that situation, you have two choices: Aggressively refactor until it is
actually manageable, which I find fun as long as it's not the only thing I'm
doing all the time, or find a new job. I am serious about both choices and am
not surreptitiously claiming one or the other is the only choice.

~~~
barrkel
Re C codebases: time spent fixing bugs and refactoring is time not spent
putting in new features and selling new releases. It's a trade-off, and
perfectly manageable code is at one end, unfortunately. Re builds: such things
as I described aren't really refactorable without introducing the coupling /
brittleness thing I talked about, as linkages need to be maintained between
source-code level constructs in a handful of different languages.

But these kinds of jobs can have their upsides...

------
ZeroGravitas
I've read the book "The Living Dead", mentioned at the bottom, that makes a
similar convincing case that there are plenty of people doing basically
nothing within most large organisations.

~~~
cma
When you look at the positional externalities imposed by various products, the
case can be made that there are plenty of _organisations_ that are doing
basically nothing within most societies.

~~~
ratsbane
Trying to wrap my head around that one - though I think you made a good point.
Do you mean like super-luxury goods, haut couture, things like that?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I personally think that there are plenty of people, and organizations, that
are doing less than nothing by sabotaging the work of others. Nathan
Myhrvold's latest venture qualifies, as do many game playing executives
killing internal innovation that threatens their area.

------
Towle_
"Boreout is a management theory that posits that 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.
_This theory was first expounded in 2008_..." (emphasis mine)

2008? We've had a generation of movies, books, etc. in which this idea is one
of the main themes at the very least. Office Space, anyone? Fight Club, even?

------
jodrellblank
"The authors disagree with the common perceptions that a demotivated employee
is lazy"

I was wondering about this the other day - does lazy have a real meaning? I
thought through some options and came to the conclusion that it's a
nondescription used to close off any further enquiry and also used as an
insult.

It doesn't explain anything, it's a proper phlogiston answer.

Not doing something could be lack of motivation (that doesn't matter), lack of
interest (I don't want to paraglide), other priorities (I would but can't
right now), lack of skill (I want to but can't), fear of various things (if I
start I will only draw attention to this, what will people think, what if I
fail), but lazy? A nonsense word which I should stop using.

~~~
AmericanOP
To me, it's a generational thing. Boomers see an underling maintaining their
e-bay account on company time as theft. For my generation, 10 minutes of web
browsing every hour is just our way of coping with being strapped to a chair
all day.

