Here's Why You Want A Really Boring Job - How Money Works - YouTube

i was watching the 1999 movie office space the  other day a comedy set at the peak of the 1990s  

corporate culture it is one of my all-time  favorite movies but the more i watch it the  

more i notice something the core of this comedy  is its cynical commentary on working a boring job  

at a boring company but the more i watch it the  better the jobs of peter and his co-workers look  

because it's a comedy the writers took a  lot of creative liberties to make peter's  

working environment especially terrible but even  still 20 years later it doesn't look that bad  

his office cubicle would be a luxury to most  workers today in an open plan office with no walls  

in sight he is allowed to go on extended lunches  with his colleagues and even his over dramatized  

shitty boss knows that working on a weekend is  a big ask rather than an expectation this made  

me think of the classic anecdote find a job you  love and you will never work a day in your life  

most of us go to work because we have to not  because we want to and that means a lot of us  

are stuck spending a good portion of our waking  hours doing things that aren't very enjoyable  

a cunning strategy that school career planners  and linkedin gurus will promote to get around this  

unfortunate predicament is to find a job that you  love doing so that you are excited to go to work  

every day and you don't feel like you are working  at all on the surface this sounds sensible now  

more than ever with new technologies there are  millions of different job titles out there with  

new professions and career paths being made every  single day my job as a now full-time youtuber  

didn't exist 15 years ago but now it's the career  that children want most beating out traditionally  

popular options like astronaut but i want to  do what i do best which is to rein in on this  

parade of finding fulfillment through your work  instead i want to try and convince you that what  

you want instead is a really boring job a job  that doesn't make you or anybody else excited  

a job that nobody would dream of so it's time  to learn how money works which was made possible  

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there are lots of very attractive jobs out there  that for a number of factors would appear to be  

preferable over other jobs there is being a doctor  lawyer or high-level corporate executive which is  

enticing because these roles are traditionally  very well paid and are very well respected by  

society at large if you tell someone that you  are a c-suite executive at a fortune 500 company  

you are instantly going to get more respect  than if you told them that you work in retail  

is this how it should be of course not but it is  and people are willing to sacrifice a lot for that  

respect these roles come with the expectation  of very long and irregular hours to say nothing  

of the years of grueling study or corporate butt  kissing needed to get the jobs in the first place  

now there's actually nothing wrong with these jobs  most people know what they are getting themselves  

in for when they pursue these kinds of careers and  the trade-offs are clear most people do these jobs  

because of prestige not because they love them so  what about jobs that people are more passionate  

about the jobs that people would supposedly love  to do i am talking about jobs in the fields that  

people get excited about like gaming fashion  travel and sports imagine getting paid to make  

video games or attend fashion events around  the world sounds like a dream right well no  

big name companies in aspirational industries  are more often than not terrible places to work  

the reason for this is simple they know that  people want to work for them so if you as a worker  

aren't willing to put in unpaid overtime deal  with abusive management and accept comparatively  

low pay then there are dozens or sometimes even  hundreds of equally qualified candidates who are  

willing to put up with these issues because they  get to work what they thought would be their dream  

job turnover in these companies is extremely  high especially when it is considered that  

these businesses are attracting skilled career  driven workers the type of worker that you might  

normally expect to stick around for longer than  a regular employee now of course changing jobs  

regularly is actually a good idea employees that  change companies on average every two years are  

paid significantly better than their peers who  attempt to work for internal promotions but you  

need to be quitting for the right reasons quitting  your current job to start a new more senior role  

at a company offering double your current salary  as a great career move quitting your current job  

because you can't mentally handle another week of  a coding crunch is probably going to stall your  

career development another reason it's best to  avoid doing what you love for work is that you  

won't love it forever even the most exciting jobs  you can imagine have a lot of boring work that  

comes with them a video game tester will spend  most of their time doing the same mission over and  

over again to make sure there are no bugs and most  people that work for nfl teams spend their days in  

an office answering emails just like everybody  else even if a dream job does manage to live up  

to its type initially there is one surefire way  to end up hating something you originally loved  

and that is being forced to do it for 40 hours  a week with the threat of homelessness hanging  

over you if you don't really you are much better  off working for money and then using that money  

to enjoy things you love in your own time in  your own way hopefully i have convinced you  

that exciting jobs are not all that they seem but  surely that doesn't mean that a boring job is the  

best alternative right well they have a few big  perks that a lot of people don't really consider  

a boring job at a boring company will on average  be easier to get than the rare more prized  

jobs at exciting companies having more options  available to you especially early in your career  

can be a big head start over your peers who waited  out or go through extended internships to get a  

traditional dream job boring jobs will also on  average pay better ford's median employee made 64  

316 dollars in 2018 including bonuses overtime and  stock awards gm's media and employee made slightly  

more than 77 849 dollars tesla a far more exciting  business paid its median employee just 56 163  

this of course will not be true for every company  but again if there are more people that want to  

work at a company then generally that company  can get away with paying their workers less  

this is even more apparent when we  zoom out to look at entire industries  

on average web developers will earn more than  game developers a marketing manager for exxon  

will learn more than a marketing manager  for the patriots and an administrative  

assistant at a bank will earn more than  an administrative assistant at vanity fair  

if you are doing a job to make money you should  maximize the amount of money you can get for  

doing that job you won't see the name on the  side of your building from your desk anyway  

now if making money isn't the most important thing  for you when considering a career a boring job  

still has its perks boring jobs are just genuinely  more enjoyable a boring company is more likely to  

be filled with employees and managers who realize  that a job is something people do to put food on  

the table this type of corporate attitude tends to  result in more productive workplace relationships  

a manager at a generic boring company that has  been in their job for decades and has no ambitions  

of moving up the corporate ladder is not going  to take it personally when you ask for a raise  

a promotion or a reference letter contrast  that with a company where the management has  

drunk though we are changing the world kool-aid  and you are much more likely to face opposition  

when doing these things that all employees  should really be doing as regularly as possible  

time and time again we hear stories about high  staff turnover and toxic workplace culture in  

companies that sound exciting from the outside  this is because when managers believe what they  

are doing is more important than just working a  job to make a living they naturally expect their  

colleagues to work harder than should reasonably  be expected to toxic workplace cultures are almost  

inevitable in environments where managers will  think to themselves that straight-up verbal abuse  

is really just a heated disagreement amongst  peers who are too passionate about what they do  

these types of managers are also much more likely  to go unchecked in exciting fields because again  

staff turnover is not a big deal when there is an  endless line of new candidates now before anybody  

says it in the comments yes you're absolutely  right there are great managers and there are  

terrible managers in every kind of company but  you are much more likely to run into one in a  

job that you thought was going to be exciting and  that's the biggest bonus of a boring job better  

management on average that boring company manager  from earlier that has been at the job for a decade  

will have one big advantage over the manager  from an exciting company with high staff turnover  

they will have more experience at their job  working for a manager that has seen every possible  

problem the job can throw at them is going to be  a much more pleasant experience than working for  

a manager who is figuring it out as they go along  a more experienced manager also has less to prove  

if they feel secure in their own position then  they won't feel the need to work their employees  

to the bone to avoid becoming one of those  turnover statistics themselves last month i made  

a video about why management is always terrible  and the reason that video was so important is  

because people don't quit jobs they quit managers  even the best most exciting job in the world would  

quickly become unbearable with a useless manager  that takes their shortcomings out on their workers  

working a boring job gives you a better chance  of finding a good manager who will make your  

time at work not totally miserable and also help  to progress your career so that you can make more  

money and use that to enjoy the hobbies that other  people were dumb enough to try and build a career  

around i have a theory about why we all love  movies like office space or tv shows like parks  

and rec and the office so much these shows all  highlight the realities of a boring workplace to  

a comically ridiculous degree but at the same time  they are also very comfortable places to work the  

people stick around and even the bad guy bosses  are not abusive towards their employees maybe  

this is an indictment on how low the bar is for  what we consider comfortable working arrangements  

in america but i think it's something more we turn  to these kinds of shows for comfort binge watching  

we wouldn't do that if we didn't secretly think  that maybe working alongside these people in these  

boring offices wouldn't be such a bad thing now if  you want to learn more about why good managers are  

so hard to come by go and watch my video on why  company management is always terrible a special  

thanks again to morningbrew for making it possible  for everybody to keep on learning how money works