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

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 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 rain 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 today by Morning Brew. Morning Brew is a completely free daily email newsletter that gives you the news you need to know in a way that makes it fun to read. Morning Brew has quickly become one of my favorite news sources because it gives you the stories that you need to know and it does it in a way that gets directly to the point. Their stories cover a range of topics like careers, real estate, world news, politicians, education, and smart living. Find out how much more informed your day can be by starting it off with Morning Brew by using the signup with the link below. 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 is 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 and 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 is 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 hype 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 get a traditional dream job. Boring jobs will also on average pay better. Ford's median employee made $64,316 in 2018, including bonuses, overtime, and stock awards. GM's median employee made slightly more than $77,849. 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 earn 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 the 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 their 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 Morning Brew for making it possible for everybody to keep on learning how money works.