To Fudgel or Not To Fudgel
There are a seemingly endless multitude of studies into work-life balance and happiness, however, most seem to agree on a consensus- people who enjoy their jobs are generally happier. However, how many of us have ever been bored in a job? Chances are, most of us, at some point, have experienced boredom at work or at school-that feeling of dissatisfaction, un-fulfilment and being unchallenged. These feelings that make us stare aimlessly at a blank computer screen and scroll sadly through the facebook profiles of people we barely know, not necessarily from the fact that there is nothing to do, but more from the perception that nothing is stimulating enough to entertain our minds.
For me, boredom is hard to avoid as some days I will be happy folding paper into envelopes for eight hours straight, whilst other days twenty minutes is enough to make me consider suicide by papercut. Similarly, I have been known to become bored in some of the best jobs available and have noticed that even when I am happy, I may not necessarily be content. Whilst I clearly have things to work on regarding my own life-satisfaction, I can control what I do with my time when boredom strikes.
'To Fudgel' is to pretend to work when you are in fact not doing any at all. You'd unlikely hear it in general conversation today (or ever, as nobody knows where this word comes from and, indeed, whether it is a real word at all, or whether it was created by a fudgeller) although many find themselves fudgelling through work until finally deciding to search for a new fulfilling job. I sit here, taking three times longer than average to write one blog post about boredom because I am distracted by the thought of stealing a dinosaur from the museum, rather than searching for a job-a real money-paying job- because searching for a job is not only a full time work but also hellishly boring.
Last week, after a record 26 days, I was fired from my job as a chalet host in an exclusive resort in the French Alps. I had just learnt to snowboard, was out on the slopes everyday that allowed for it, and, shockingly, did not Fudgel once. I am not a huge consumer of social media and had little phone signal out there anyway so was not distracted by my phone, unlike the other colleagues, and I was determined to finish my work correctly first time to allow for my snow time. My work was great, and the management, in the very meeting where they told me to pack my bags and go, admitted that my work outperformed that of the others. Nonetheless, I was sacked (I will be writing about unfair dismissal in a future blog post) and thrown into the confusing turmoil of not knowing what to do, and then, in realising that my happiness is more important than any job, no matter how well I perform my duties, I realised that Fudgelling may be serious problem for employers and workplace productivity, but an awakening event for the rest of us. How had my colleagues that wasted time on snapchat and couldn't put down facebook long enough to hold a decent face-to-face conversation keep their jobs when I was sacked? Why should being bored be synonymous with being at work? And so like dolphins that jump out of the water just for the pure fun of it, I have set myself the task of finding a job that I am happy in. Who says that I am not doing anything when I am merely protecting myself from further unsatisfaction? For now, I salute to unemployment and poverty!
For me, boredom is hard to avoid as some days I will be happy folding paper into envelopes for eight hours straight, whilst other days twenty minutes is enough to make me consider suicide by papercut. Similarly, I have been known to become bored in some of the best jobs available and have noticed that even when I am happy, I may not necessarily be content. Whilst I clearly have things to work on regarding my own life-satisfaction, I can control what I do with my time when boredom strikes.
'To Fudgel' is to pretend to work when you are in fact not doing any at all. You'd unlikely hear it in general conversation today (or ever, as nobody knows where this word comes from and, indeed, whether it is a real word at all, or whether it was created by a fudgeller) although many find themselves fudgelling through work until finally deciding to search for a new fulfilling job. I sit here, taking three times longer than average to write one blog post about boredom because I am distracted by the thought of stealing a dinosaur from the museum, rather than searching for a job-a real money-paying job- because searching for a job is not only a full time work but also hellishly boring.
Last week, after a record 26 days, I was fired from my job as a chalet host in an exclusive resort in the French Alps. I had just learnt to snowboard, was out on the slopes everyday that allowed for it, and, shockingly, did not Fudgel once. I am not a huge consumer of social media and had little phone signal out there anyway so was not distracted by my phone, unlike the other colleagues, and I was determined to finish my work correctly first time to allow for my snow time. My work was great, and the management, in the very meeting where they told me to pack my bags and go, admitted that my work outperformed that of the others. Nonetheless, I was sacked (I will be writing about unfair dismissal in a future blog post) and thrown into the confusing turmoil of not knowing what to do, and then, in realising that my happiness is more important than any job, no matter how well I perform my duties, I realised that Fudgelling may be serious problem for employers and workplace productivity, but an awakening event for the rest of us. How had my colleagues that wasted time on snapchat and couldn't put down facebook long enough to hold a decent face-to-face conversation keep their jobs when I was sacked? Why should being bored be synonymous with being at work? And so like dolphins that jump out of the water just for the pure fun of it, I have set myself the task of finding a job that I am happy in. Who says that I am not doing anything when I am merely protecting myself from further unsatisfaction? For now, I salute to unemployment and poverty!