First jobs out of college can be absolutely dull. Mine was. Or at least most of it was. A large part of my day was spent entering data into a DOS system to generate constituent response letters. I used to tell my wife that a chicken could do it if you sprinkled enough feed around the F9 key.
It’s just difficult to do well on tasks we find boring. But according to Lifehacker.com, it’s a skill worth developing if you want to succeed in life. Whether you’re a college student struggling with a boring subject or just starting a job doing nothing but data entry, mastering the mundane matters.
Lifehacker explains why with this quote from a tech recruiter,
I’m going to look for consistently high grades, not just high grades in computer science. Why should I, as an employer looking for software developers, care about what grade you got in European History? After all, history is boring. Oh, so, you’re saying I should hire you because you don’t work very hard when the work is boring? Well, there’s boring stuff in programming, too. Every job has its boring moments. And I don’t want to hire people that only want to do the fun stuff.
Everybody always wants to do the fun stuff, but it’s the menial stuff that defines you, especially Christians. It’s sort of like that saying about what you do when nobody’s looking. Anyway, Lifehacker has some tips on how to do it and like it.
- Look at the long-term benefit
- Find what you can learn from it
- Think of doing it for someone you love
- Enjoy the interaction with the people
- Think and say something positive
- Gather with passionate people
It seems that number three fits perfectly with Paul’s command in Colossians to work “as working for the Lord.” All the others could become a natural outflow from it if you get that one right.
