The present study provides an insight into instants of non-work-related activities at work, based on an original approach mostly made of self-reports given to honest, willing and not-always-so-busy workers. With a specific focus on the accounts of boredom experiences at work, this article wishes to interrogate commonly shared assumptions of never-ending chase for efficiency, productivity, or even intelligence in organizations (Alvesson & Spicer, 2012). By unveiling what is truly happening in people’s intimacy, it ambitions to search for another story on work. The primary findings reveal that boredom is both a symptom and a practice. At an individual, collective and organizational level, boredom is symptomatic of a specific relationship to others at work, to one’s job and/or organization, and eventually to one’s professional and personal self at work. Therefore, boredom can be interpreted as both a diabolized, yet symbolic practice, convoking rich processes of emotional labor that workers experience while at work. When mastered, boredom can be the embodiment of a sense of self at work, which then becomes a familiar place. The eye of the coworker then no longer judges the staging of the ‘bored self’: on the contrary, it can freely indulge in comforting idleness at work.
