What your boredom tolerance may be telling you - and employers

A friend who runs his own hair salon tells me that he now wants to be a t-shirt vendor on the island of St. Maarten in the Caribbean during the months his business is slow. Aside from posing problems for his year-round salon customers – after all, who will be taking care of them of them while he is off hawking souvenir shirts to tourists? – this raises another question: Are we only supposed to have one career?

In an earlier post, I wrote about the need to specialize in something if you are to be successful. Orville Redenbacher, of popcorn fame, once said the same thing. But, what happens when you have a number of interests and abilities? If exploring each of them, does this pigeonhole you as a jack-of-all-trades and master of none? Can that limit your career opportunities? Jack Ferris’ article, The Top 5 Reasons to be a Jack of all Trades, gives strong support for not honing in on one specific career – boredom being chief among them. I am not yet ready to reverse my stance on specialization but it seems that if boredom is what drives employees to seek other career adventures, then should organizations do something to keep things revved up a bit – especially if they value that employee who likely will become bored?

Corporate types may view people who are easily bored as not being able to focus on the task at hand. Like elementary schools, however, organizations are often operated to support the weakest student, not the highest performing. High performers who can rapidly process information, quickly arrive at sound decisions, and are always future thinking, are seen as agitators, troublemakers, and high maintenance. I can say, unequivocally, that this is probably true. (OK, so I give myself a little latitude here.) Ironically, though, these personal attributes are what companies typically look for when hiring but are aghast when the employee actually fulfills the prophecy.

There may not be a happy medium in this case, with organizations trying to keep things running on an even keel while employees are looking to broaden their horizons. (Perhaps I could have fit in one more cliché?) If you find you are one of those people who becomes easily bored, take heart. As Ferris reminds, “Lack of intellectual stimulation, not superlative material wealth, is what drives us to depression and emotional bankruptcy. Generalizing and experimenting prevents this, while over-specialization guarantees it”.