A boring job can make you vulnerable to burn-out

London: Psychiatrists have said that having a boring job can leave you just as vulnerable to ‘burn-out’ than one which leaves you rushed off your feet.

They believe there is a distinct category of "underchallenged" employees who end up finding they simply cannot take any more of the "monotonous and unstimulating" tasks that they are expected to perform. Such people "have to cope with the disenchantment caused by feeling trapped in an occupational activity to which they are indifferent, which bores them and produces no gratification" the Telegraph quoted Jesus Montero-Marín, of the University of Zaragoza in Spain, as saying. "These employees present a cynical attitude and are invaded by guilty feelings due to the ambivalence they feel for their work and by their desire for change." People working in administrative and service roles were most likely to be bored in their jobs, while men were more likely to suffer this type of burn-out than women. According to Montero-Marín that was "perhaps owing to the fact that the role of males has always been linked to social expectations of professional development.” The study was based on a questionnaire of more than 400 employees at the University of Zaragoza. Montero-Marín categorised two other types of burn-out: ``frenetic``, in which the employee works "increasingly harder to the point of exhaustion"; and ``worn-out``, where workers "give up when faced with stress or lack of gratification". The study has been published in the journal BMC Psychiatry. ANI