It’s funny how life works…

When you are overloaded with work, you want to slow down.

And when you have nothing to do at work, you feel guilty and bored out of your mind.

In today’s story, a worker talked about why they’re having some conflicting feelings about the fact that they have nothing to do while working from home.

Let’s take a look.

I work from home and do almost nothing. Could I get fired for this?

“About a year ago, I got a fully remote job as a project coordinator at an multi-national corporation.

The interview process was very difficult – behavioral rounds, a case study, and a final interview where I had to explain how I would manage several projects at the same time.

This made me feel that the job was fast-paced and involved a lot of activity, which scared me a bit.

Hmmm…

But today, I’m sitting in my house at 10:30 in the morning, drinking my coffee and looking at my calendar, and I realize that I have… nothing urgent to do. Again.

The first month was hectic. I set up the project timelines, created dashboards for tracking, and streamlined the way our team updates weekly reports.

My manager was impressed and told me I was a “genius” for creating automated reminders for overdue items.

After that, things calmed down. Once that initial setup was done, my daily work decreased and became a matter of a few emails, occasional meetings, and a few “urgent” requests.

This is BORING.

In meetings, I’m almost completely zoned out. I suggest to people that they start using AI (granola) to summarize the meeting and come up with action items. My 50-year-old director told me I was a “techie” for doing that. Dude, I don’t even like technology that much.

Last week, my manager asked me if I remembered a decision we made two months ago – I typed a keyword into the second brain setup I have (saner) and got her the answer instantly.

Then she asked me if I have a “photographic memory.” Lady, I don’t even remember my friends’ birthdays.

Most of my time now is spent making it look like I’m busy. I leave a GDoc page with lots of details open during any Zoom call so it looks like I’m working hard.

I schedule messages on Slack to be sent at the end of the day, even though I finish them in about… 20 minutes, for example.

They have mixed feelings about this.

Sometimes I feel guilty because of how little I actually do.

I’ve started new hobbies. I learned to make fresh pasta. I started decorating my house. I’ve read more books this year than I did in the last two years combined.

Every once in a while, I panic that my manager will notice and fire me in this wave of silent layoffs that’s happening, but last week she told me I’m doing “fantastic work and keeping everything running smoothly.”

So… I’ll probably just keep doing what I’m doing?

Is this normal?

Should I keep going like this?”

Let’s see how Reddit users reacted.

This person had a lot to say.

Another reader weighed in.

This individual shared their thoughts.

Another Reddit user spoke up.

And this individual weighed in.

It gets pretty boring when there’s nothing to do at work all day…

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who turned down a dream promotion because it seemed like too much work.