Your most boring job?

[soolazy]

Sitting in online training and it's taken an hour for someone to read through the how to make an appointment procedure.

Please share your stories of extreme work boredom to save me from falling asleep.

I spent several months one summer stuffing envelopes - I can still see all of the now rare tools we used - rubber tumbles, wooden letter opener to flatten the fold/ rubber sponge roller wetter that you rolled the envelope over (rather than licking it). Good atmosphere. Radio on loads of chat central london (bbc) so loads of out and about afterwards. I’m still good at repetitive mindless type tasks

I was recruited as an admin person in a company making dull products from a dull industrial estate. Except there was already an admin person in post who was ferociously efficient, took against me at first sight and never trained me in anything so I had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do. Couldn't even go for a nice walk on my break as it was dull grey buildings for miles around.

When I got pregnant and was taken off my very exciting public facing role to an inside post taking the odd phone report. I used to fall asleep at my desk on late shifts. Luckily they were very understanding. That was on a miserable industrial estate too. I put on so much weight boredom snacking from the vending machine.

My former job in an accountancy practice was to go through envelopes sent in by their clients. The envelopes contained all their credit card and debit card slips, supermarket receipts, bank and card statements and God knows what else and I had to match every card slip up to the right statement. Some customers had half a dozen bank accounts and even more credit cards.

They would stuff everything into the envelopes willy-nilly and all screwed up so before I could even start, I had to smooth them all out. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Every day.

And then go through every single thing and decide whether they were allowed to claim it as expenses or not.

I'm falling asleep just remembering it. The only saving grace is that I know which celebrities shop at Waitrose and which at Asda

Oh myfloor I really feel for you.
Once worked in an awful empty small market cafe. No one ever came in. Made to weak the most hideous uniform which I honestly think included a bonnet type hat thing - bonnet. Floppy.

I'm a civil servant

When I first started in audit (20 years ago) at a then Big Six firm, the client used to print off their trial balance on that green and white printer paper with holes down the side. It was about 40 pages long and I'd estimate had about 6,000 numbers on it.

I had to manually add up the 6,000 numbers on my calculator to check it matched the total at the bottom. Honestly, it rarely did, even when I did a sub-total for each page. Appreciate that fraudulent accounts are not unheard of (and indeed the fraud at Enron brought down my company) but I doubt many clients manipulated the sum function on their accounting package of the trial balance to do it.

When the DHSS (as it was) would bully people in to taking shitty badly paid jobs - I got a job in a factory. What to do? Cut the loose threads off Mothercare clothing. We went onto piecemeal and I realised if the vans kept breaking down with our work then we would be out of pocket! Plus I had an exam coming up and was told they would never have employed me if they had known!

I was used to working in an office and having to go through a number of people and NEVER speak to management was strange to me.

The work was so mind numbing. I would get home ad be in bed by 8.30 and my poor brain was done in by not working! My mum was so glad when I gave it up as she said I was like a zombie.

Ordering protective clothing for people who were too lazy to look up the type they wanted on the internet. So you had to say, do you want this one, or that one, umpteen times.

I had a horrible bully of a boss once who used boredom as a sort of psychological torture. She gradually took away most of my responsibilities so that I was left with a single task that could be completed in about 30 minutes, but then insisted that I had to stay at my computer for the whole day with nothing to do. I wasn't allowed to go online or look at my phone, or bring in a book or something to read. Then I got told off for not showing initiative and "finding something to occupy myself with". There was literally nothing because she had taken all my jobs away and given them to the one other person in the office, and when I asked if there was anything could help with, she would just say "No, not really". I left as soon as I feasibly could but it took me three months to secure another job and work out my very awkward notice period. It was the longest three months I've ever experienced.

Cutting strawberries in half and putting them on M&S cheesecakes. I was working in a conveyor belt IN A FRIDGE with layers upon layers of clothing. It was hideous.

Sticking size labels on C&A bra hangers.

Summer of 99 was tedious as hell.

My current job online training which is 34 modules and assessments at the end. Then manual handling and other zoom meetings. Bit ridiculous now

rubber tumbles, wooden letter opener to flatten the fold/ rubber sponge roller wetter that you rolled the envelope over

See my previous post, rubber thumb tumbles would have been luxury.

sashh bloody hell yes ! There was so much sticking and folding and stuffing going on. I seem to remember the rubber thimbles (not tumble?!) were jealously guarded if they fit well.

Anyone else given the monthly ish job of licking and sticking green shield stamps and the coop blue stamps into the books which could then be swapped for garden furniture (or similar?). Although not a ‘job’ it bloody felt like one - remember so well the box if stamps and the time taken to make sure each page was properly full and then how thick and crinkly the books were. Blast from the past.

@verybusyknitter

Many years ago I had a summer job as a lifeguard, which involved sitting in a chair for hours at a time watching the pool in case anyone got into difficulties. No-one ever did. Once every hour I was allowed to walk around a bit, but NOT stop and chat to my friend who worked there at the same time. Did that for six long weeks.

I do sometimes wonder whether lifeguards like it when there's a bit of excitement and they can actually do something. When I was a kid I used to float on my front for as long as I could hold my breath, to see if anyone would notice I was 'dead' and rescue me. They never did

My most boring job: 3 days work experience in the music department at my local ASDA. They put me there because they assumed that a 15yo would like music. I didn't. And even if I did, there was nothing to do. The CD racks were sparkling clean by the time they finally rotated me onto fresh produce. That was my favourite department; always busy lumping crates around and finding things for customers.