So as not to belabor the point, first off, the quote in the title is from a Bo Burnham song off his last special (which is good). As for the “boredom is a crime” part, he’s describing the Internet in the song he sings, but it could just as easily be about offices, where busy is a form of currency and the most common response to “How are you?” or “How are things?” is “Slammed!”
This is all paradoxical as hell, of course, because businesses are supposed to be about productivity, innovation, and returns, right? In reality businesses are mostly about cost containment, quests for relevance, self-flagellation, and the like, but let’s ignore that for now. Busy has never meant productive. We all know that. It’s just a question of how much we can admit it.
Most people honestly aren’t that busy, but they hide behind it for a variety of different reasons. Typically it’s because always projecting yourself as busy keeps new shit from flying onto your plate (“Jeff’s too busy to take that on”) and constantly thinking of yourself as busy is akin to being high.
The weird thing that seeps into organizations, though, is this “busy vs. strategic” dynamic, whereby someone can just claim how busy they are, sit in meetings all week — maybe 40% of which have any value, if even that high — and get to Friday and bounce early. They’ve essentially done nothing all week except project how busy they are and sit and listen to others discuss work, but those types of people are often protected in organizations, because they’re seen as real go-getters and the people you want. Toe the line, constantly reference your busyness, and be on time for meetings. It’s beautiful, and you don’t have to get a single f’n thing done.
So, boredom is a crime. Don’t be bored. Many of us are hideously bored by our jobs, of course, but don’t be. You can’t be. Boredom is a crime.
As for “apathy’s a tragedy,” well, you’re seeing that a bit with the rise of the woke cultures inside organizational walls. In reality woke is a suppressed element of companies, despite what Tucker Carlson may tell you, and usually woke just yells the loudest. In terms of true hierarchy, they are typically relegated to working on decks and projects that no executive will ever see — but because they have dynamic social platforms, the executives get nervous about them, and because the market seems to be woke (“We stand with…”), executives get nervous and want to put a statement on those platforms they see their daughters on. That’s all it is. No one really cares in the true sense of the word “cares,” but we need to keep up the performances because apathy is a tragedy.
So yea, a description of the Internet is also a description of work. Who would have guessed, right? I guess that’s a good case for more digitally-driven WFH, no?
