Employee has to pretend to be working because of the lack of real work he receives, he spends the shift checking emails, but now he’s bored: ‘I spent 6 hours doing absolutely nothing.’

Working is hard, but having to pretend you are being productive when there is absolutely nothing to do is insanely hard.

Corporate life is a strange place where completing your shift is more important than achieving your goals. Employees are paid hourly to sit at a desk, then sometimes they have to actually work, like entering data, sending emails, or talking to clients. It's kinda funny how these companies prefer having to pay people for 8 or 12 hours of work when they actually work 2. Working by goals is still something really new that only some companies are starting to do. In the meantime, we have some employees thinking about what they can do to seem busy.

That problem seems to be the one that the user in this Reddit story is going through. He has A LOT of spare time. He sits from 8:30 to 5 o'clock doing almost nothing. He has achieved almost 6 hours without anything to do. The problem is he can't just go home, or watch a movie, or even be on his phone. So he has to pretend to be busy, which can be as hard as working —if not more. He navigates the system, trying to learn new things and sift through his emails, looking to find something interesting. He gets so bored that his day starts to feel like 3, and the hours never seem to pass.

All of this made me think, isn't it easier to simply have him two hours a day to check for any work and do what he has? Instead of a shift of several hours, have a shift of goals. He has to respond to every work that comes by, but in his free time, he can be at home. There is no need to have someone for 8 and a half hours each day just so they can work for an hour. Maybe all these corporate ways are outdated and need to change, or maybe he just needs to start playing solitaire on the computer while he waits for work.