This seems all too familiar, I score 8/10 as my work is not meaningless and the Trust's computers are too slow to correspond by e-mail, snail mail is quicker!
Yes, I work for the NHS and this syndrome should definately not be diagnosed within the workforce. However, having recently graduated from a Masters I am now considering a PhD, both just to keep my mind active. This is a crime, I should have gone in to NHS management, plenty of targets to meet and paperwork to do there.

Darrin, London,

You could amend no.3 slightly. I used to pretend to be busy but soon discovered that is was simply better to get up and leave. Everything is so much more peaceful whilst others are at work.

russel, houston, tx

I thought I had been suffering from burnout, but after reading this article I realized it's boreout! I have additional technical skills that would be of value to my workplace, but my managers have not taken me up on my offer. I believe this is because our organization is divided into 3 "teams" all with separate budgets. In addition, I have also expressed my interest in learning new skills and taking classes that may benefit me and my company professionally, but my the roles here at the company are too rigid to allow that. Not only that but there always seems to not be enough money in the budget. I believe that a good company will always want their employees to grow and learn, and any company that does not support that is not a company I would want to work long-term for. I think when an employee feels under-challenged it is a clear indication that it is time to move on and seek opportunities that will utilize their skills.

Elaine, Los Angeles, USA

10/10 and rising..!! The article descibes my "working" day with terrifying accuracy... What it doesn't say is what to do about it... Confront the boss? (If he ever comes into the office) Confront his boss..? Take the pay cut to retain what's left of my health..?

Or... somewhat cynical this... buy the book perhaps..? Does it have the answers...?

Jeff Mitchell, Glasgow, Scotland

I used to have a very useful list of 50 characteristics that showed boreout, burnout, control freakery and disempowerment, of which some of the above featured- I must find it out and re-check it again.

I always thought it was the domain of middle management to boreout junior staff by way of them maintaining their sense of self importance, but apparently not.

Boreout even exists on training schemes for the unemployed - a much used skill it seems! I even know volunteers who suffer the same wave of controlled apathy.

Pete, West Mids,

Astounding. In my old 7yr long job at a corporate I honestly would have been scoring 10/10 in the last year before i left. I now own and run my own company, and I score 1/10 (i have to do personal things in work time!!). I have staff, I'm going to ask them these questions....

Andrew Smith, Christchurch, New Zealand

The article awakened my feelings and awareness to realizing that "boreout" is a real concept both in my life and with other colleagues in my environment. Personally, I have for the last 20 years suffered with this concept every day in my workplace and with my so called career. I have simply adapted my work life to conform with just surviving and adopted the adage of " SHOW ME THE MONEY". However, even the latter statement is not satisfying to me and with my remaining working years and health.

J. Marsh, Minneola, Florida

Did I read this article at work?

Sylvia, Berlin,

This is me; totally underused. My boss wants to do everything herself, I have asked many times for work. But she gives me tedious tasks. I am bright, and being seriously underchallanged and looking for a new job righ now! I am totally fed up with not having enough work, but my employer simply isn't bothered! Great article.

Sharon A, London,

I work for a defence contractor and can honestly answer 'yes' to all ten. What shall I do?

Tony, Malvern,

I'm 10 out of 10!

Dan, Budapest,

I recently just left a job i was in for a year & this is exactly what happened to me. Wwithin about a month of working in my job i realised there was not enough for me to do. My boss just did not seem interested to address the issue even though i tried speaking to him about it in the beginning. it made my life hell, i was SO bored, i became utterly depressed, would simply get into bed when i got home when i should have been studying (i do a part time degree at evenings & weekends), it had a massive impact on my life, i put on weight, became tired & lethargic . i would sit all day at work everyday watching stuff on youtube to pass the time & i felt defeated. What made it worse was i had to wait until after my exams in June before i could properly job search & leave (which i did & am in new job with work to do!). it left me with no sense of self worth & utterly powerless. what is the point of employing someone when there is not enough work for them to do?!

anon, London,

Roll on Friday anyone?

Myshkin, London,

A great article explaining a what is more common than widely believed. I went through a situation similar to Name Withheld in Brighton. For many years I had an interesting and challenging job where I made decisions. After several management changes and department reorganisations I ended up being manipulated into a deadly boring job. Whilst delegation is partly the problem I think regulation and accountability is an issue. For many, I believe they no longer consider they have accountability, or make a difference in their job, to credible management or the customer. If that's the case why try?

Mike, Hadleigh, Suffolk, UK

I answered yes to every question but 8 but that's irrelevant to me because I'm a placement student and If i left the job my degree classification would go down.

Andrew, Redcar, England

Thank God someone has finally recognised this. People often say 'Gosh paid to do nothing aren't you lucky?' Not if you like being busy and acquiring new skills it isn't. It is almost a new form of bullying - bore them out of their job. the effects are so insidious - getting home completely numbed out and unable to do anything productive just adds to the circle.
Jacqueline - you've tried everything, you will hav eto bite the bullet as I will. What a waste.

carole, London, UK

A hint for those who are suffering from boreout - there are now thousands of books available on the internet downloadable in .txt format. You can sit at your desk and seem to be working for hours while getting through some of the classics. Any search engine will show you the way.

Thanks for the article - you made my mind up - I'm off.

James, Melbourne, Australia

I got 10/10 and would have if I did it retrospectively for the last 5 years of my "career" - HELP!!!!

Devlin Smith, Glasgow, UK

I did a 12 month maternity contract during which I experienced boreout. I joined 2 months before she went away "as we are so busy we need you now." I spent those 2 months doing nothing. I got angry with the pregnant woman for not passing any work to me. After she left to have her baby, I found out why. She had nothing to do! I thought maybe she had wound down her workload before going away. My boss was always going on and on about how busy we were. So I asked him for more work. Got a couple of tiny things to do. Asked again. More small tasks that took 5 minutes to do. There were days when I had finished my work by 9.55am. It was so enervating, frustrating and weirdly tiring. I left early, before she came back from maternity leave. Before I left I went to my boss's boss and HR and told them. They were concerned. But l learn from the grapevine that she is back and still doing very litte. They won't tackle her about it as they are scared of sex discrimination claim.

Babu Pati, Sheffield,

I started a new job late in 2005 which involved working from home but visiting customers was a large part of my job. I noticed very quickly that the routine administrative tasks I needed to complete weekly could be done in a few hours on a Monday morning. The nature of my customer base was that none of them wanted more than a monthly visit and as I had only 5 accounts to look after, most of my time was spent looking for things to do.

I had the cleanest tidiest house in England and lost some weight due to extra walks and cycle trips I could make during the working day. Of course, I have a business mobile so nobody knows.

The downside to this is that I felt as if I were unemployed and racked with guilt that I was being paid a handsome salary, provided with a brand new car but was only really able to fill a day and a half a week with real work!

In the end I had to call it out and admit to my boss that I needed a greater challenge. We did this and I'm no longer bored out.

Jonathan Novak, Leighton Buzzard, England

I am thrilled I stumbled upon this article today. I graduated college a little more than a year ago and started working as a financial analyst more than two and a half years ago. My manager when I first joined was great. He gave me great tasks and projects, as an Intern I automated our companies monthly reporting process. Then he left the company and my new boss won't give me anything to do, if he does give me something it is not challenging. So I've been depressed doing nothing all day but surf the net...only to find out I have BOREOUT. At lunch today I was actually talking to my wife about finding a new job JUST BECAUSE. The article is right about having only two options. Thanks for the great article.

Kevin, Fullerton, USA

Ok then so what should I do? I answered "yes" to all ten questions on the checklist. and I dont know what to do. Do I take the plunge and quit before I am fired? I have tried to talk to my boss, but its no good...I have tried being eager and asking for work, making myself available for everything, but I cant keep it up... Should I bite the bullet and look for something new?

Jacqueline, Osaka,

Part of the problem is Qualification Inflation. It's now become standard that even people doing the most mundane work have university qualifications - the old joke about the BA graduate asking if you'd like fries with that is frighteningly true. We're training people to think and then putting them in jobs where they're not allowed to.

Rachel, Christchurch, New Zealand

I know the feeleing - I joined a North West Company and I was bored from the start. I was efficient at my work and that was penalised. The rest of the staff were quite happy being on a "go slow" and stayed behind after office hours just to be seen to be there. The CEO did not notice a thing - He was so convinced that people were working hard. Wake up CEO !

S Johnson, North West ,

I worked in The United States and believe me,boreout was never a problem.There was never enough time in a day to get the job done.12 hour work days were the norm,24 hour days were not that uncommon and a 7 day work week happened very often.There was a cafeteria on site and many days you ate there at 6 am,noon,5 pm,and midnight.No,boreout there was no problem.

ron, toronto,

Darn! I was displaced at work and put in a resource pool. I should really have been made redundant but order from the top was no redundancy payments. People therefore left, some of us stayed for a variety of reasons. I used to find myself speaking to mates on the phone using that exact term - I'm being bored out. I also didn't feel it was appropriate to express at work and spent a lot of time looking busy. Now i realise it was an actual technique along with the cold shoulder, non inclusion in team events, and other forms of bullying!! I'm just about to watch management bore one of my team members out!

Name Withheld, Brighton, England

I had this in my job in London for three years. I didn't understand what it was for a long time. The thing is that I often didn't have enough work. My two bosses would give me work and then go on a two-week business trip to Japan and I'd finish my work in three days. Then I was forced to 'look busy'. The stationery cupboard has probably never looked so organised since my departure. I did other people's filing and photocopying, anything. I was seriously underchallenged.

After 6 months I started having sleeping problem - waking up ever earlier. Then the digestive problems started, followed by mild depression (with pills). On the day I handed in my notice, I immediately slept better again and within a month my stomach problems had disappeared.

Of course, you get very little sympathy from others. "What? An easy job and you still get paid the average wage for it? Nice. What are you moaning about?" But believe me, it was no fun. My colleagues were nice, the work was just not enough.

Tina, Duesseldorf, Germany

"I remember while working for the Financial Times in the 1970s that colleagues developed an “Italian Jacket” system."

The "Italian Jacket" is a brrowed jacket as old as the State of Italy! You phone a public office in working hours here in Rome and ask for "Vincenzo". The telephonist will put you through to his office and an underling will answer the phone. "Vincenzo? I know he's here, his jacket is on the back of his chair". Vincenzo meanwhile has come in, clocked on and gone shopping / to the gym / to see his lover".... all this to avoid boreout.

Paolo Bagarino, Roma, Italy