Moving boredom from problem to opportunity: A psychoanalytic perspective on workplace boredom and identity in organizations

Abstract

The study develops novel perspectives on workplace boredom by investigating how conscious and unconscious aspects of identity work drive responses to it. Based on a psychoanalytic, specifically Lacanian, analysis of 56 narratives in which individuals recount their experience with boredom at work, it explores why boredom is so often portrayed as dysfunctional. The study also examines why it is important to understand and strengthen boredom’s more functional aspects. Specifically, the study advances the idea that boredom offers discursive resources to construct identities in more or less empowering ways with the potential for returning us to the creative possibilities inherent in each lived moment. Implications of this perspective are discussed.

Introduction

Boredom has been described as a growing dysfunction for both organizations and individuals (Cummings et al., 2016), affecting even industries and jobs that, on the surface, do not seem boring at all, such as management consulting (Costas and Kärreman, 2016) and professionals in leadership positions (Carroll et al., 2010). Indeed, boredom seems to have reached epic proportions (Mel and Jex, 2015: 132). Researchers who have reviewed the evidence suggest that it is urgent to develop better solutions to this problem that threatens to undermine organizational productivity and the meaning individuals may find in their work (Loukidou et al., 2009). Such problematization of boredom is underlined in the definition of boredom as a negative subjective state experienced when an activity is perceived to lack interest or significance (Fisher, 1993: 396). It is also underlined by the many negative outcomes that have been linked to boredom. At the organizational level these include lower productivity, and more accidents, absenteeism and turnover, while at the individual level these range from reduced job satisfaction and quality of life to increased stress, depression, and drug abuse (Loukidou et al., 2009: 382; Mel and Jex, 2015: 133).

When boredom is investigated further at the individual level and from a linguistic perspective, specifically as a discursive resource for identity work (Brown, 2019: 10), as the ongoing effort to construct, maintain and secure fleeting and ever-changing answers to question about who and how we are (Knights and Clarke, 2014: 337), boredom has also been found to be problematic. In one study, participants narrated boredom by denying, rejecting and marginalizing it to construct their identities (Carroll et al., 2010). In this context, boredom is seen as something that good leaders and good employees try to avoid, like a “disease” (Carroll et al., 2010: 1035). Another study reveals that, if boredom cannot be avoided, it may inhibit adaptive identity work (Costas and Kärreman, 2016). That is, individuals, in this case, management consultants, who find their jobs to be boring, despite promises of exciting careers, were found to be stuck in their identity work and unable to reconcile this contradiction.

Such negative evidence against boredom is unsettled by occasional voices suggesting that boredom needs to be re-examined as it may also have more constructive qualities (Johnsen, 2016). For example, boredom may be important for individual and organizational learning as a creative space in which to question the taken-for-granted, and to disrupt dominant organizational discourses (Carroll et al., 2010). Dominant discourses are the prevailing practices of talk and conversations through which organizational realities are created and maintained for organizational participants, and importantly, through which members’ identities are authored as “linguistic accomplishments” (Kornberger and Brown, 2007: 499). A recent study develops this perspective further, suggesting that boredom may be an empowering resource to contest such dominant discourses and experience oneself as creative and powerful in the context of identity work (Driver, 2022). Identity work, if seen through a recently developed psychoanalytic perspective (Brown, 2019: 10), includes the unconscious dimensions of how the self is discursively constructed (Driver, 2009). And in the context of such unconscious dimensions, boredom may facilitate important movements for discursively constructing the self, and, in so doing, open up possibilities for new engagements with self and organization (Driver, 2022).

The purpose of the present study is to build on the perspective developed conceptually by the latter study (Driver, 2022), in order to investigate empirically how boredom functions at the interstice of conscious and unconscious dynamics of identity work and what this may tell us about its potential for empowerment and transformation in organizations (Carroll et al., 2010; Johnsen, 2016). The aim in doing so is to interrogate these findings further while offering a novel perspective on boredom and how it is drawn on as a discursive resource to narrate identities in practice. This perspective may explain not only why, in prior research, boredom has been found to be associated mainly with dysfunctional outcomes (Fisher, 1993; Loukidou et al., 2009), but also why such findings may represent a significant oversimplification of boredom. Specifically, the paper develops a psychoanalytic, particularly Lacanian, perspective on boredom (Lacan, 1977, 1988), showing that to understand the complexities of boredom, it is necessary to explore in greater depth how it functions with regard to the unconscious dimensions of identity work (Driver, 2022). In exploring boredom from this vantage point, the paper develops the idea that the negative evidence, so often found in how people experience boredom, may be associated with the way they draw on the discourse of boredom as they narrate their identities. The study examines how this unfolds in particular narratives tracing discursive movements that may be tied to boredom’s more or less creative and empowering aspects.

In examining boredom from this perspective, the study seeks to make several contributions. First, it offers a more fine-grained understanding of boredom, as a significant aspect of the experience of work and organizations today (Mel and Jex, 2015: 133). The study illustrates how boredom is drawn on as a discursive resource to engage in identity work, while crystallizing the unconscious aspects of this process further in practice Second, the study provides more complex conceptualizations of boredom that move research beyond potentially oversimplified understandings of boredom solely as a dysfunctional problem to be solved. Lastly, the study offers novel avenues for investigating boredom from this perspective. It develops research methods sensitive enough to capture the many ways in which boredom becomes mapped on to the linguistic struggles we all face as we seek to articulate who we are and what we want (Hoedemaekers and Keegan, 2010: 1028), moving us from disempowerment to empowerment and back again.

Boredom and identity work

Boredom has long been identified as a workplace problem. For instance, Roy’s study of garment factory workers, dating back to 1959, vividly describes how workers come up with creative ways to break up their monotonous and boring workdays (Roy, 1959). Today, boredom is said to be on the rise and “a significant problem in the modern workplace” (Mel and Jex, 2015: 132) that is associated with a number of negative effects ranging from employee health problems, such as depression (Cummings et al., 2016: 280), to sabotage, theft and other behaviors that are considered to be unproductive (Fisher, 1993), including surfing the internet or emailing on company time (D’Abate, 2005: 1018). Prior research has investigated the causes of boredom mainly as a problem linked to external circumstances, such as the absence of adequate stimuli (Fisher, 1993). Additionally, research to date has made only vague connections to employee selves, such as investigating boredom proneness, which is described as an individual’s tendency to be depressed and distractible (Bruursema et al., 2011: 95).

Across such research, boredom is often portrayed as a negative response to one’s environment (Cummings et al., 2016: 280), which has “causes outside the person” (Fisher, 1993: 396). Only recently has boredom been conceptualized as an internal dynamic, namely a discursive resource for identity work (Carroll et al., 2010: 1033). One such study analyzes how boredom can lead knowledge workers to experience identity dissonance (Costas and Kärreman, 2016). On the one hand, study participants were shown to be committed to the aspirational identities constructed from dominant organizational discourses in management consulting, promising fulfilment through interesting and meaningful work. On the other hand, they are routinely tasked with boring and apparently meaningless work. As a result, they experience the dissonance between their desired aspirational identities and the identities that seem to be performed as they engage in boring tasks. For instance, one participant describes having expected to realize an identity as a highly successful, fast-tracking and admired businessperson and instead finding that she has to do routine and boring work not compatible with this identity (Costas and Kärreman, 2016: 74). Boredom is narrated as a significant problem for this person’s identity. She feels devastated by the experience and cannot reconcile this with whom she thinks she is. The study finds that, as a result of how boredom is narratively constructed in the context of identity work, individuals are unable to move on to alternative and potentially more adaptive identity constructions. In turn, this limits their agency and leaves them to experience dissatisfaction. Moreover, individuals seem unable to do anything about this dissatisfaction, such as contesting dominant discourses in organizations that overpromise the benefits of work leading to identity dissonance (Costas and Kärreman, 2016: 79).

Similar findings are revealed in a study on leadership in which the positive potential of boredom is underlined but found to be missing in how senior managers draw on boredom as a discursive resource (Carroll et al., 2010: 1035). While the authors suggest that boredom is an important resource for the contestation of dominant organizational discourses, they find that, in practice, it does not function in this way (Carroll et al., 2010). Leaders instead use boredom as a discursive resource to construct identities for whom boredom presents only negative aspects. For example, if they are seen to be bored, they are also seen to be unmotivated. This negative construction of boredom therefore inhibits more positive constructions of boredom as a space that allows time for reflection, learning and creativity (Carroll et al., 2010: 1046). Hence, when considering prior research examining boredom in connection with identity work, boredom is regularly marginalized, rejected and excluded (Carroll et al., 2010; Costas and Kärreman, 2016). Below, I develop a framework that may allow us to explore more effectively why such negative conceptions of boredom are so common and how we may be able to tease out and strengthen its more constructive qualities.

A Lacanian view of identity and boredom

To explore boredom from this perspective, I first provide an overview of how identity may be understood in a Lacanian context (Driver, 2009). I do so while being mindful that Lacanian concepts in their radical openness defy closed-down definitions (Kenny, 2009). In what follows, I therefore discuss dimensions of the Lacanian approach not to define them but to invite readers to share in their possibilities for elucidating the complexities of the experience of boredom in organizations.

Identity, from a psychoanalytic perspective, is simply how we articulate ourselves in ordinary speech. Lacan referred to this as an imaginary construction (Lacan, 1977: 236) because it is based on the illusion that we have a self that we can know. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The self we so construct is a misrepresentation based on our earliest attempts to construct the self from images we see. Such images can be literal images of the self in a physical mirror or in the way that others respond and mirror the self in our interactions with them (Lacan, 1977: 218). So, for example, we may construct an imaginary self from dominant work-related discourses in which we are a person doing interesting and exciting work with the expectation that boredom will not be experienced (Mel and Jex, 2015: 145). If boredom is experienced nonetheless, it would unsettle this imaginary self. That is, when boredom is drawn on as a discursive resource in the context of how the imaginary self is constructed, it unsettles the idea that this imaginary self is still obtaining what it wants. For instance, it prevents individuals from finding fulfilment through the kind of interesting work that many dominant organizational discourses of work promise (Muhr and Kirkegaard, 2013).

From a Lacanian perspective, boredom is simply another manifestation that we can never know who we really are or find what we are looking for (Driver, 2022). Finding fulfilment is structurally impossible (Lacan, 1988: 210) and access to whatever is left of us as authentic or real is submerged in our unconscious and can never be known consciously (Lacan, 1988: 284). All that can be accessed of anything real are moments when the unconscious disrupts our conscious constructions, namely every time our conscious imaginary selves fail.

Lacan refers to this as failures of the imaginary (Lacan, 1988: 177). Such failures are evident when the narratives, through which the imaginary self is constructed, are unsettled by ambiguities, distortions and rhetorical creations that undermine a coherent sense of self (Benvenuto and Kennedy, 1986: 13). Hence, if a person constructs a self as someone who finds fulfilment in doing interesting work and then talks about experiencing boredom, from a Lacanian perspective, this constitutes a failure of the imaginary self (Driver, 2022). Boredom has long been associated with being a space in which we encounter emptiness and lack (Phillips, 1993: 71) and would, from a Lacanian perspective, be an encounter with what Lacan calls our fundamental lack (Lacan, 1988: 210). This lack is experienced when we articulate the feeling that there is something missing, such as work missing interest or meaning.

The crucial question from a Lacanian vantage point is what we do with failures of the imaginary and encounters with lack (Vanheule et al., 2003). Unfortunately, more often than not, we respond in ways that are not constructive from a Lacanian perspective. Most individuals seem to get stuck further in their imaginary constructions, because they cannot recognize or accept that lack is structural. This is referred to as an imaginary response or “reaction type” (Vanheule et al., 2003: 330) to the failures of the imaginary and entails trying to cover lack over and repairing the imaginary self. Put differently, boredom, from this perspective, is the placeholder for an experience of fundamental lack, such as not finding interesting work and the fulfilment promised through it. Most individuals respond to this by trying to cover lack over. For instance, they hold on to an imaginary self as having interesting work and the subsequent fulfilment they expect. Boredom is then seen as the reason for why they cannot realize this self and their hoped-for fulfilment.

However, and this is what is so important about the Lacanian perspective, we can also respond in a more “symbolically functioning” (Vanheule et al., 2003: 335) manner. That is, we can simply make space for the unsettlement of the imaginary to take place and encounter that such moments are potentially liberating and empowering (Vanheule et al., 2003). When articulating the experience of boredom, for example, we can become aware of the structural impossibility of knowing who we are and finding what we want. Then we can enjoy boredom as a momentary liberation from the imaginary and an encounter with our ever-changing becomingness (Harding, 2007). Importantly, we can enjoy whatever the present moment may offer without comparing it to illusory expectations and fantasies of fulfilment (Fink, 2004: 157).

In short, Lacanian identity research stresses the fragility and elusiveness of identity work. It focuses on a fundamental lack in human subjectivity that continuously undermines identity work as a project of defining who we are and obtaining what we want (Brown, 2019: 10). When looking at boredom in the context of such identity work, it becomes possible to understand the former’s complexities in view of different responses to lack (Driver, 2022). That is, it becomes possible to explore how boredom discourse is drawn on as individuals narrate the self, how this is then unsettled by various failures of the imaginary, and how the lack, that is so surfaced, is responded to (Driver, 2022). A common response may be to maintain the illusion that, through identity work, lack can be overcome. From a Lacanian perspective, this imaginary response to boredom limits agency and is disempowering (Costas and Kärreman, 2016), because it makes individuals vulnerable to promises of overcoming lack and finding fulfilment (Roberts, 2005). That is, we become more vulnerable to identity regulation, as “the self-positioning of employees within managerially inspired discourses about work and organization with which they may become more less or identified” (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002: 620). From a Lacanian perspective, we seek to align our imaginary selves with organizationally-preferred versions of ourselves in hopes of finding fulfilment in doing so (Hoedemaekers, 2009). If boredom cannot be reconciled with the imaginary self, so constructed, the experience of it then becomes a personal shortcoming. Individuals blame themselves for such shortcomings (Gemmill and Oakley, 1992: 360) while holding on to the illusion that they can find the fulfilment they are looking for.

However, as such fulfilment is structurally impossible, boredom is also an opportunity to encounter this impossibility. In so doing, we may be liberated from the fantasies that keep us tied to the hamster wheel of working ever harder to find, what, if seen through a Lacanian lens, we can never achieve in the first place (Hoedemaekers, 2009). Therefore, from a Lacanian perspective, it depends on how we respond when drawing on the discourse of boredom. On the one hand, we can adopt a more imaginary response in which boredom has to be excluded or covered over. On the other, we can adopt a more symbolic response, in which boredom can serve more constructive roles. Here, the idea that boredom is a placeholder for fundamental lack is welcomed as an opportunity to encounter and reflect on lack. In turn, this offers the opportunity to engage with boredom to understand that we can never know who we are and find what we want. This, in turn, makes boredom a discursive resource to articulate that we all struggle with failures of the imaginary. As a result, we can stop blaming ourselves for being bored and instead see boredom as a space of learning and creativity (Carroll et al., 2010; Johnsen, 2016).

Empirical material and interpretation

To examine how boredom and identity work may unfold in practice from this perspective, I followed prior research analyzing “narrative reports of incidents of boredom” (Fisher, 1993:397) and collected 56 narratives of boredom from individuals working in different organizations and industries, hoping to include as many “alternative cosmologies of the workplace” (Boje, 2001: 54) as possible. Participants hold jobs ranging from front-line employee to senior management as well as blue and white collar professionals, and include industries ranging from information technology to retail, education, hospitality and transportation. The average tenure as job holders was 5.6 years with ages ranging from 25 to 62. Twenty-one participants are female, 35 male. The aim was to focus on the more symbolically-charged aspects of narratives (Gabriel, 1991: 873) and use stories to enter the “human territory” (Gabriel, 1991: 873) in organizations while leaving space for unconscious aspects and “the rights of desire and fantasy” (Gabriel, 1995: 498) to emerge. Stories offer opportunities to explore subjective meaning making (Gabriel, 1991: 871), identity work (Humle and Pedersen, 2015: 585) and unconscious dynamics (Gabriel, 1995: 483).

My institutional alumni network offered the starting point for data collection and, using a snowball method (Pole and Lampard, 2002), yielded the stories analyzed here. Specifically, I asked participants to share any story that came to mind about a time when they experienced boredom at work. I asked them to describe the experience and any feelings or thoughts it evoked. Participants were then asked to email these stories to me and, when they did, I also asked them to recommend others who might want to participate in the study. Self-written stories have been used in prior research to explore psychoanalytic aspects (Gabriel, 1997: 318; Vince and Mazen, 2014: 198) of doing “identity work through narrative” (Schachter, 2011: 109). The term story is used in the organizational sense, including traditional stories but also narratives that are more fragmented and terser (Boje, 1995).

For a Lacanian reading of these narratives that is not a problem as any ordinary narrative can be analyzed in terms of imaginary constructions and their failures outside of clinical settings, not in an effort to diagnose patients but as a way of understanding more general dynamics (Vidaillet and Gamot, 2015). For instance, in a previous study on the identity work of leaders from a Lacanian perspective (Driver, 2013), individuals describe what they do and how they see themselves as leaders. This is then investigated both as a conscious construction of an imaginary self as well as the inevitable failures of such selves in the ambiguities, omissions and other linguistic creations indicating that the self is unsettled by unconscious dynamics. In one quote a leader describes how his leadership is unsettled by his dissatisfaction and expectation to move further and faster than others, suggesting, from a Lacanian perspective, that there is underlying lack unsettling his imaginary self (Driver, 2013: 414). Building on such prior identity research, therefore, the stories that were collected for this study are not clinical cases to be psychoanalyzed. Rather they are to offer glimpses into how individuals encounter their lack and what this might tell us about how boredom is drawn on as a resource for identity work, as a linguistic dynamic (Parker, 2005).

Storytelling was also used to conduct qualitative research (Ollerenshaw and Creswell, 2002: 329) with narrative inquiry (Morison and Macleod, 2013; Ollerenshaw and Creswell, 2002; Polkinghorne, 2007; Sermijn et al., 2008) being the specific framework employed to analyze the narratives. This framework provides a space in which to examine subjectivity in complex fashion (Wolgemuth and Donohue, 2006) focusing on how subjects organize particular signifiers (Parker, 2005: 167) as linguistic struggles (Hoedemaekers and Keegan, 2010: 1028) rather than objectifiable findings claiming subjects as data points (Tuck and Yang, 2014: 814). Within this framework I engaged in iterative readings of the narratives based on different perspectives (Alvesson and Skoldberg, 2000). This included an empirical perspective to describe and categorize the narratives, and a hermeneutic one focusing on the various interpretations offered by narrators. It also included a critical perspective examining relations of power and a postmodern one focusing on the fragility of identity narratives.

In the empirical perspective, “descriptive coding” (Lilius et al., 2011: 878) was used to identify respondents’ gender, age, occupation, tenure and industry and get a sense of the different responses to boredom, such as whether the narrator kept busy, daydreamed, or exhibited other responses noted in prior research (e.g. Fisher, 1993). The hermeneutic approach facilitated “broader interpretive questions” (Lilius et al., 2011: 878) about how narrators framed their responses to boredom as, for instance, a mostly negative or positive experience. The critical approach allowed for an examination of how the reactions to boredom made narrators vulnerable to identity regulation (Alvesson et al., 2008), and how employer-preferred versions of the self (Kornberger and Brown, 2007: 500) rendered boredom more or less empowering (Johnsen, 2016). The postmodern approach consisted of examining the data as malleable identity narratives (Schachter, 2011: 109) with unconscious dimensions (Parker, 2005). As in prior Lacanian identity research (Driver, 2009), this meant examining the narratives shared by participants about what they do and how they see themselves, both as a conscious construction of an imaginary self as well as its unsettlement by unconscious dynamics.

The aim of this process was not to present conclusive evidence as to what the narratives “really mean” but to offer interesting new arguments in the ongoing debate (Alvesson and Skoldberg, 2000: 276) over how to understand boredom as an elusive phenomenon in organizations (Carroll et al., 2010: 1032). This offering is an “incomplete, contingent and corrigible activity” (Parker, 2005: 176). It runs up against “the limits of language to capture the complexity and depth of experienced meaning” (Polkinghorne, 2007: 480). Therefore, the interpretations I present below are not findings in this sense but a “creative endeavor” (Ybema et al., 2009: 316) as a linguistic struggle that always already points to other possibilities and creative interpretations (Vince and Mazen, 2014: 197).

Boredom as a personal problem at work

With this in mind, the following sections are designed to offer illustrations of how the dynamics I have described in relation to boredom from a Lacanian perspective, in theory, may unfold in particular narratives, in practice. I begin by exploring how the discourse of boredom is drawn on in identity work as the imaginary self is constructed in common conscious narration. I focus on instances where narrators engage in more imaginary responses to underlying lack by which the latter is routinely covered over as boredom is narrated as a problem to be solved (e.g. Bruursema et al., 2011). Such responses seemed to be stronger in 42 of the 56 narratives analyzed here. Although it should be noted that differentiating between imaginary and symbolic responses seems to be easier conceptually than empirically (Vanheule et al., 2003: 335). That is, while, from a Lacanian perspective, this distinction seems clear in theory, it is much harder to demonstrate with actual data, even when such data are qualitative (e.g. Vanheule et al., 2003). Having said that, the following excerpts were selected to demonstrate such a distinction as effectively as possible and show a discursive movement in the narratives that tends to be limited to more imaginary rather than symbolic responses to lack. The first excerpt comes from Bob, 52, a former rancher, working as a sales staff supervisor in the retail industry for 3 years:

I got to a point where boredom took over, when there was no pressing project. . .and no customers to wait on. . .I remember the feeling being a little disturbing. . .and a little hypocritical because I knew I could be doing something. . .[but that] was even more boring and tedious than doing nothing. . .I suppose that I found the tediousness and meaninglessness of the extra chores to be a worse kind of boredom. . .I didn’t want to be seen as lazy, so I would at least look like I was busy. Eventually, I became a little more dedicated. . .[because] I knew it wasn’t right. . .when I wasn’t doing anything productive for the company. I figured if I was going to take a man’s money for a day, then I owed him a solid eight hours of work. . .I got better at forcing myself to do the menial jobs and stay busy. . .I found ways to change my perceptions of it over time. . .and focus on taking pride in my work and telling myself it wasn’t meaningless.

In this narrative, Bob describes a common experience of workplace boredom. He does not have enough to do, so he is bored. Here, boredom is constructed as a negative experience and a problem he wants to solve, as so much of prior research has suggested (e.g. Fisher, 1993; Loukidou et al., 2009). From a Lacanian perspective, we can also see how Bob constructs an imaginary self as someone who is dedicated, hard working, stays productive and does meaningful work. This self is likely aligned with dominant discourses in his organization around whom a good employee is supposed to be as well as how good employees find meaning or enjoyment in their work, such as by being seen to be productive and dedicated at all times. Bob is clearly worried about keeping up this imaginary self in the face of the boredom he experiences as he struggles with feeling that he is doing something wrong and has to force himself, as he says, to get better at doing tedious work. This makes it more difficult to maintain his imaginary self and the fantasy that he can know who he is and obtain what he wants, such as finding it rewarding to be a productive employee, another discourse likely to be dominant in his organization. However, rather than questioning such discourses and perhaps contesting promises of interesting and rewarding work, Bob holds on to the fantasy and instead repairs the imaginary self by, as he says, by changing his perception, taking pride in work he clearly finds boring, and telling himself that it is meaningful.

Here, boredom can be seen to unsettle the imaginary self and become a placeholder for underlying lack as any imaginary self necessarily fails around the impossibility of knowing who we are and what we want. Yet, Bob does not amplify this lack or allow it to be long enough for him to respond to it in potentially more transformative ways. Instead, he repairs his imaginary self by seeking to overcome boredom and staying busy while returning to being the productive and dedicated employee he thinks he is. This also repairs and maintains the fantasy that in being this person he can find what he is looking for, as long as he solves the problem of boredom.

Consequently, Bob’s narrative seems to illustrate rather well a more imaginary response to the surfacing of lack. In a more imaginary response lack has to be covered over and the imaginary has to be repaired while fantasies of fulfilment are maintained. This leads to becoming further enmeshed in the imaginary order; and we can see this well in Bob’s narrative. He literally has to force himself to align with his imaginary self and to believe that his work is as meaningful and interesting as he wishes it to be, keeping Bob firmly stuck in the imaginary. An imaginary response also leaves Bob stuck with an identity that likely aligns him with dominant discourses in his organization around productivity and dedication but leaves little room for potentially more constructive avenues, such as questioning or contesting such discourses, and dealing with boredom in a structural manner rather than personalizing it as a shortcoming. Here the narrative also illustrates how disempowering such a response can be. To validate and repair his imaginary self, Bob’s only option seems to be to do more work while forcing himself further into the illusion that it is meaningful and enjoyable.

This kind of response to lack also comes through in Francine’s story who is 39 and has worked as a medical lab technician for 8 years:

Being bored is not fun for me. . .When I get bored, I start to do stuff I was never told to do, which seems better than sitting and doing nothing. . .Boredom is really one of the worst things about the job. . .and usually puts me in a bad mood. . .When I am bored, I feel as though I am being undervalued and not thought of as competent. It changes the way I feel about myself and my job, so I try to avoid boredom at all cost. . .I am just not the kind of person to just sit still. When I am at work, I want to help patients and feel like I am making a difference.

Francine draws on the discourse of boredom as a negative state with the familiar reaction of trying to fill her time with busy work. She constructs an imaginary self as someone who wants to stay busy, not sit still and be a competent and valued member of the organization. The latter is likely a dominant discourse in her organization as she refers to being valued by her employer, presumable because she stays productive and competent in her work. Boredom disrupts this imaginary self-construction, the alignment with dominant discourses in her organization and, importantly, the fantasy that by having this self, she can also find fulfilment. For instance, Francine expects to be in a good mood when she is at work and make a difference by helping patients. Boredom undermines this expectation and therefore the fantasy that work offers wholeness and fulfillment of the self (Hoedemaekers, 2009: 192). But rather than questioning whether this may be possible in the first place, and hence trying to work through the fantasy, Francine hangs on to it by blaming boredom for being an obstacle to its realization. In doing so, the possibility of fulfilment remains intact. All she has to do is to remove boredom as an obstacle and then she can return to the fulfilment she expects and is promised by her organization. From a Lacanian perspective, fulfilment is, of course, impossible as the imaginary self is always lacking. But Francine is covering over her lack by articulating boredom as a solvable problem and hence seems to exhibit a more imaginary response.

As a result, Francine becomes stuck in trying to fix her imaginary self and maintaining the fantasy of fulfilment. Doing so limits her empowerment. Francine, like Bob, cannot change her situation, question why she might be bored, or find potentially more constructive avenues for herself. All she can do is to is to work harder by finding more things to do and submit herself to the employer-provided definition of who she ought to be as a valued employee (Costas and Kaerreman, 2016: 62). Importantly, this also limits Francine’s enjoyment. Hanging on to her imaginary self, means that she experiences, as she says, having bad moods at work and feeling that she is undervalued. From a Lacanian perspective, Francine seems to be limited to enjoying her disappointment that her imaginary self fails repeatedly; and she has to work ever harder not only on herself but also for her employer.

We see this dynamic in a narrative by Duncan, 43, an IT manager for 15 years:

When I get bored, I feel lonely and. . .like being forgotten. . .it is a very defeating feeling knowing that nothing new is in store for me, just knowing exactly what is coming every day. . .You just really kind of loose it. You feel useless; and it is actually kind of painful. . .I got to having a pit in my stomach, a pit of dreadful nothingness.

In this moving description, Duncan appears desperate to construct an imaginary self as someone who is engaged in interesting work offering him purpose and the feeling of belonging. Yet, all he seems to experience is boredom and the “dreadful nothingness” of his work. Duncan describes vividly how the failures of his imaginary self make him feel as being forgotten and defeated, losing it or going mad, and even experiencing physical pain. Boredom therefore not only unsettles his imaginary self and is experienced as a negative state, but even leads to human suffering (Johnsen, 2016: 1413). Unlike prior narrators, Duncan cannot even continue to chase the particular fantasy that through more work he will overcome boredom and lack. He does not describe staying busy or finding things to do. In, what seems to be, Duncan’s imaginary response to lack, the self can only experience continuous defeat in the face of the monotony he so dreads.

While Duncan’s experience seems more extreme than prior narratives, it reflects a similar dynamic. Whether this involves working harder or simply suffering the experience in place, an imaginary response to lack renders boredom a disempowering discourse in which the structural conditions within which the self is constructed cannot be encountered in constructive ways. As we see, Duncan continues to work “knowing exactly what is coming every day” while being stuck with the dreaded experience of boredom. Moreover, rather than contesting this or seeking to change it, he, instead, seems to blame himself for experiencing boredom in the first place. He describes feeling useless and forgotten presumably by his employer. Here again enjoyment is limited to disappointment in that one cannot find what one is looking for, and that lack persists despite all the hard work to cover it over. Duncan also seems to continue to hold on to the fantasy that he should not be forgotten and instead be seen to be of use. Boredom unsettles this fantasy. But, in Duncan’s imaginary response to this unsettlement, it cannot be worked through. Therefore, Duncan is left to suffer in place seeking to align himself with perhaps dominant discourses in his organization around being appreciated and useful while failing to do so in the face of the “dreadful nothingness” that boredom represents for him.

Boredom as a structural condition of work

I now explore the 14 narratives in which a more symbolic response to failures of the imaginary and underlying lack seem to be in evidence (Vanheule et al., 2003: 335). Here, narrators still construct an imaginary self and experience its unsettlement. However, the lack that thereby surfaces is seen more as a structural condition of self and work (Arnaud and Vanheule, 2007), rather than a personal problem. I begin with Mel, 32, who has worked as a mid-manager in a telecom firm for 4 years:

I usually get all my responsibilities done right away and being bored can be annoying. . .But I am thankful for the times when I get to just do nothing and still get paid. . .If I didn’t occasionally get bored then I would be stressed out with the amount of work I have to do. . .and feel as if work is all I can think about. . .I mean, it is fine to be busy and to feel like you are getting something done; but I always think there has to be more, you know, to think about other things and be creative in other ways, and being more than just an employee.

Mel constructs an imaginary self as a responsible employee who gets her work done and some enjoyment from doing so. But unlike Bob, Francine and Duncan, Mel does not seem to see boredom only as a negative experience. She refers to it as annoying but also appreciates it as a space in which she can do other things. Boredom, as Mel seems to see it, is a welcome break from the business she normally experiences. In allowing her “to just do nothing,” boredom reduces her stress and feelings of being overworked. It offers a space in which to be creative and “more than just an employee.” In this sense, boredom unsettles the imaginary construction of a self that is the responsible and efficient employee. But the lack, that thereby surfaces, is not covered over. Instead, lack seems to be allowed to exist and in some sense even to be amplified.

As Mel describes being fine with being busy and achievement-oriented as well as with just doing nothing and being creative in other ways, it seems that she is less stuck in her imaginary order and able to deal more flexibly with her situation. Perhaps this enables her to contest dominant discourses in her organization around productivity and workloads, or she has chosen not to align herself with employer-preferred versions of herself. In any event, it seems that Mel is more empowered than prior narrators. She does not seem as frantic to cover over the unsettlement of her imaginary self, as productive and efficient, and does not seem to feel guilty about experiencing boredom. Indeed, in Mel’s narrative, boredom does not seem to be portrayed as a personal problem but rather as an opportunity for self reflection and development. As she says, she enjoys boredom for allowing her to be more than an employee. But without defining a specific alternate identity, there is the sense that she is less stuck in an imaginary order in which such definition is crucial. Moreover, it seems that boredom for Mel is also a space for a different kind of enjoyment, one less driven by the fantasy of fulfilment and its inevitable disappointments. Rather, she seems more open to possibilities and an evolving sense of who she may be rather than fixing a particular identity. Boredom, for Mel, seems to be a placeholder that allows her to circle her lack in more creative and empowering ways rather than covering it over.

This response is echoed by Sharice, 43, a senior insurance agent who has been with her company for 6 years:

I consider myself a pretty ambitious and hard-working person having worked my way up in the industry to a senior position. Most of the time I am really busy. But I also have a lot of downtime, time to think about love, my future and what the hell I am doing with myself. It frustrates me, excites me and occasionally I just cry. Boredom brings out weird emotions. . .it’s strange, almost foreign. . .But I believe boredom can be very positive. It lets you escape, almost from the hell of work you may be in. . .It allows you to consider your options. . .I do not know how long I want to keep doing what I am doing; and when I am bored, I can at least envision doing something else, maybe being someone else. Not like I want to be bored all the time but just to explore what else I might become and maybe try different things. . .I cannot see myself as an insurance agent for the next thirty years.

Sharice draws on the discourse of boredom to construct an imaginary self as someone who is hardworking and ambitious, and able to get her job done. Boredom unsettles and disrupts this self-construction, which Sharice describes as being frustrating, weird, and making her cry. But unlike most prior narrators, boredom is far from being just a negative experience. Like Mel, Sharice describes it as something positive, a space for self-reflection and exploration where she can think about other things in her life and what she might want to do besides this job. Sharice also underlines boredom as a disruptive space, describeing it as weird, strange and foreign.

Yet, it seems that such strangeness is an opportunity for Sharice to explore new possibilities. Like Mel, Sharice seems less concerned with fixing a specific identity. She allows the lack that surfaces through boredom to enable a sense of becoming, as a more fluid sense of whom she may be and what she might want. Here boredom seems to emerge not only as an escape from what she refers to as her “hell of work” but also from a fixed imaginary self. Sharice articulates boredom not as a personal problem she must overcome but as an opportunity to explore what she might become. This does not mean, as Sharice underlines, that boredom is now her new fantasy of fulfilment. As she says, she does not wish to be bored all the time. But boredom seems to create an openness, a liberation from the imaginary certainty of knowing who she is and what she wants, that Sharice can enjoy without disappointment. She seems less attached to a predefined imaginary self that she must repair and therefore also to an employer-preferred self. While there may be traces of the fantasy that doing other things and being someone else may bring her enjoyment, it does not seem that she is fixated on any particular imaginary construction or fantasy of fulfilment. Boredom allows Sharice to articulate a more symbolic response to underlying lack, empowering her to think creatively about who she is becoming.

Chris, 46, a mortgage bank manager for 9 years, articulates something similar:

I am usually a very productive person, but I am bored at this very moment and, as usual, I begin to get a little stir-crazy. Normally I write lists, sometimes even bucket lists, which get shoved into a drawer somewhere. Boredom doesn’t make me feel negative or depressed. . .I just feel stopped. . .I take the world in for a minute and am there, stuck with myself, which isn’t necessarily bad. . .It’s all just expectations being met and then not. . .When I first started this job, I had all these ideas of what it was going to be like and how I was going to be such a great employee. They tell you all of these things they want you to be, like dedicated and devoted to what you do. Of course, being bored is not something they want you to be, and it is not something they even mentioned as something I should have expected. But then they do not tell you about a lot of things. . .Being bored gives you a chance to think about that and what else there is, really. It kind of makes you realize that you have to be flexible, and you cannot get too hung up about your expectations. It stops you from doing that and then you find out that every day is different, and it is okay to just go with the flow.

Chris draws on the discourse of boredom to construct an imaginary self as a “very productive person.” As in prior narratives, this is done by defining boredom in opposition to what the productive person would experience. Hence, it is articulated as a placeholder for a failed imaginary self, which, as we have seen, seems to cause some tribulation. Mel and Sharice describe the strangeness of boredom and how annoying it can be, and Chris underlines how it makes him “stir-crazy.” Still, Chris does not default to articulating boredom as a personal problem that has to be solved. Instead, it becomes a space in which to let underlying lack surface and to amplify, rather than cover over, that his imaginary self is thereby disrupted.

Chris describes what seem to be the dominant discourses in his organization from which he crafted his imaginary self as the “great employee” who is “devoted” to his work. Rather than getting stuck with this imaginary order and working ever harder to cover over its failures, he seems to work through the fantasy that such a self can exist, and, importantly, find fulfilment in being so. Chris describes this as expectations that are variously met but also not met, which seems like a profound insight when it comes to the fantasy that we can know who we are and find exactly what we are looking for. Like Mel and Sharice, Chris seems much more relaxed about not defining who he is and instead being open to what he may become. He underlines his sense of flexibility and an openness to going with the flow. He seems to welcome the creativity that boredom enables him to engage in by thinking about things differently.

Chris also seems to welcome boredom as returning him to the moment, and an awareness that every moment offers new and different opportunities. Moreover, he seems to understand that boredom not only surfaces a lack in a specific imaginary order, or a specific identity, such as being a productive and devoted employee. Rather, boredom surfaces a lack in all such constructions. When Chris describes encountering boredom as something his employer did not tell him about, he says that “they don’t tell you about a lot of things,” underlining that it is difficult to have specific expectations and, importantly, have them realized. From a Lacanian vantage point this seems to acknowledge that the failure of the imaginary is impossible to avoid as it is structural, illustrating the kind of identity work that may be facilitated by a more symbolic response to lack. This also means that Chris can enjoy boredom differently, not as a disappointment in not finding imaginary fulfilment. Rather he can enjoy boredom as a space in which expectations are not always met and therefore to being flexible to enjoy what actually is. This frees Chris up to play with dominant organizational discourses about whom he should be. He can think of being a dedicated, devoted and great employee, as just expectations that may or may not be met. He does not have to be disappointed or fix his identity accordingly.

Discussion

The foregoing analysis illustrates the complexities of how boredom is drawn on as a discursive resource to narratively construct the self in view of the unconscious aspects of this process. This is not to imply that in the above analysis, the narrators’ unconscious was somehow revealed or even accessed, which is, of course, impossible from a Lacanian perspective (Lacan, 1977: 218). However, the analysis does illustrate how the unconscious disrupts conscious imaginary self-constructions as the lack that surfaces whenever they fail. Boredom, as we have seen, is an important resource for experiencing this. Boredom becomes a placeholder for underlying lack, or what imaginary selves seem to be lacking. For example, productive and devoted employees may lack interesting and meaningful work. Therefore, they are unable to validate who they are and find what they are looking for. As we have seen, all narrators experience such a lack. However, not all narrators respond to this experience the same way. While imaginary responses, in which such lack is covered over, seem to be most common, symbolic responses were also found. In what follows, I will describe boredom in the context of each of these responses and highlight how they help us make sense of prior research findings on boredom and crystallize its complexities.

Boredom and imaginary responses to lack

In the context of imaginary responses to lack, boredom emerges as a less empowering and constructive space for individuals and is routinely rejected or marginalized as a way to cover over fundamental lack. It seems that this is the very response that prior research has focused on and, therefore, arrived at somewhat oversimplified conclusions about boredom. These foreground conscious identity work and the construction of imaginary selves that, on the surface, can know who they are and find what they want. That is, prior research seems to engage mostly with what individuals say rather than what they fail to say, thereby marginalizing the many failures indicating unconscious unsettlement. This then also privileges a more disempowering view of identity work as being mainly imaginary and, therefore, rendering individuals more vulnerable to identity regulation (Roberts, 2005). In this context, individuals are seen to want to conform to employer-preferred versions of employee selves as individuals who wish to be, and find fulfilment in, being hard working and productive (Costas and Kaerreman, 2015: 62). As we have seen, the narratives also illustrate such imaginary responses and the vulnerability this entails to identity regulation. Most of the narrators struggle to conform to employer-preferred versions of themselves as hardworking and dedicated employees who find meaning and enjoyment in their work. Consequently, it is easy to conclude that boredom is mainly a disempowering dynamic that subjugates individuals to the demands of industrial processes (Gardiner, 2012: 56).

An imaginary response, in which enjoyment is limited to disappointment that fantastical bliss has not been attained, which has been linked previously to such outcomes as stress and burnout (Vanheule et al., 2003), may also explain why prior research has found boredom to be associated with human suffering (Johnsen, 2016: 1413) and a variety of dysfunctional outcomes from depression to drug abuse (Loukidou et al., 2009: 382). As we have seen in the narratives, many respondents struggle with the stress of experiencing boredom, react strongly to it, cry about it and even suffer physical pain. This seems to make sense from a Lacanian perspective. If one must cover over any lack that surfaces, due to the attachment to the fantasy that this is possible, one necessarily experiences such lack as dysfunctional. Moreover, if one takes responsibility for lack as a personal failing, then the blame and disappointment and the continued hard work to fight something that will always recur, may be enough to explain why boredom is considered a “disease” (Carroll et al., 2010: 1035) associated with ill health and human suffering.

Boredom is positioned as a placeholder for lack that refuses to go away and, if viewed only negatively, cannot be dealt with in any constructive way. As we have seen in the narratives, in the context of more imaginary responses to such lack, narrators cannot articulate more empowering ways of dealing with boredom. They cannot hold their employers accountable for failing to deliver on the promise of meaningful and interesting work and cannot do identity work that might allow them to adapt (Costas and Kärreman, 2016). Psychoanalysis has suggested that boredom can be a space of psychic deadness where underlying conflict cannot be dealt with, and the individual is literally stuck (Bergstein, 2009). Imaginary responses to the lack surfaced by boredom may be the way such deadness and rigidity can be understood. Narrators cannot deal with boredom as a constructive encounter with their lack. Therefore, they cannot address underlying conflicts related to being productive human resources, who should expect to do interesting and fulfilling work, while experiencing boredom instead (Mel and Jex, 2015: 145).

This might also explain why boredom has been associated with arrested identity work, or literally being unable to work on one’s identity in adaptive ways (Costas and Kärreman, 2016). From the perspective developed here, this happens when one is stuck with an imaginary construction of the self that has to deny boredom even while boredom is clearly experienced, leaving underlying conflict unresolved. It also illuminates why boredom has been associated with disempowerment and the displacement of agency from the individual to the organization (Costas and Kärreman, 2016: 77). In the context of more imaginary responses to lack, individuals blame themselves for failures of the imaginary while continuing to chase the preferred selves prescribed by their organizations. In short, the present study offers novel and important insights on why boredom is experienced commonly as negative and how this unfolds in practice in the context of identity work.

Boredom and symbolic responses to lack

However, the foregoing analysis also inspires an entirely new perspective on boredom as a more constructive space. Specifically, it advances the idea that boredom serves as an opportunity to encounter the fluidity and indeterminacy of imaginary self-constructions. Here, narrators still draw on dominant organizational discourses to construct imaginary selves, reiterating, for example, that they are hardworking and responsible. But they seem to be less stuck in such constructions. Perhaps the experience of boredom has already unsettled the dominant discourses in their organization promising interesting and exciting work (Costas and Kaerreman, 2015: 78). Perhaps they, themselves, are able to contest such discourses. As we have seen, several of the narrators are well aware that employers make promises about interesting work that, in their own experience of boring work, are not realized. This may render the preferred self on offer less attractive providing room to disinvest from it (Costas and Fleming, 2009). As we have seen, boredom offers a space for narrators to reflect on what they wish to be beyond their jobs freeing them from being defined exclusively by their employer-preferred identities.

Prior research has underlined that boredom returns individuals to the particularity and significance of each moment and reinforces the demand for uniqueness and non-homogenized self-made meanings (Johnsen, 2016: 1413). Narrators like Mel, Sharice and Chris seem to encounter boredom in such a way as they articulate boredom not as a temporary problem but an ongoing opportunity to circle their lack in unique and creative ways. They embrace boredom as an experience of becomingness rather than an obstacle to being a fixed version of themselves. Therefore, the Lacanian perspective illuminates in greater depth why prior research has found that some individuals develop better coping strategies to deal with boredom than others (Loukidou et al., 2009: 394). Coping may be connected to symbolic responses to failures of the imaginary and the working through of fantasies of fulfilment (Hoedemaekers, 2009).

This may also illuminate why boredom’s more constructive aspects have been described as allowing human desire to surface, especially a desire for something other than what currently is (Johnsen, 2016: 1413). Such surfacing is an important aspect of more symbolic identity work as lack foregrounds an unspecified desire for something other than what currently is. Moreover, rather than fulfilling desire, or falling prey to the illusion that this can be done, desire is simply allowed to be. As we have seen, narrators reflect on boredom as a space of empowerment and creativity but do not seem to get stuck in specific imaginary constructions of alternate selves. This, in turn, reinforces boredom’s potential for alternatives arising from “life as it is lived” (Johnsen, 2016: 1405). That is, more symbolic responses enable individuals to draw on boredom as a discursive resource to see themselves as different from being human resources. In so doing, they also open new possibilities that come from being human living in a particular moment and experiencing that “anything might serve to transform a person’s life” (Phillips, 1993: 77).

Imaginary and symbolic responses as a discursive movement

Prior research has underlined that imaginary and symbolic responses to underlying lack are not different permanent states of being (Driver, 2022). Rather, they arise out of different narrative contexts, that, in empirical research, may be difficult to separate (Vanheule et al., 2003: 335). In the present analysis, I have focused on foregrounding imaginary and symbolic responses in the narratives in separate sections and with different narrators. However, from a Lacanian perspective, it is important to stress that imaginary and symbolic responses are always intertwined in the triad of the imaginary, symbolic and real. Every human being moves through them as they articulate the self in language, or the symbolic order, encounter the missing real while seeking to defend against this in an imaginary order, where such lack can be overcome (Lacan, 1988: 223). Hence, it is impossible to ever leave behind the imaginary. The only way to get to a symbolic response is to first construct imaginary selves and then experience their failures (Lacan, 1988: 177).

As a result, it is impossible to separate the imaginary and symbolic responses I sought to illustrate in the foregoing analysis and important to point out that it is a discursive movement along a continuum. All narrators move along this continuum differently and fluidly. Prior research suggests that people find it very interesting to talk about boredom (Gardiner, 2012: 46) and, as we have seen here, the narrators did this in moving ways drawing on the discourse of boredom to construct who they are and what they want in unique ways. Lacanian psychoanalytic clinical practice seeks to move individuals toward more symbolic responses by amplifying lack in the imaginary (Lacan, 1988: 241). Outside of clinical contexts, perhaps simply providing the opportunity to articulate how narrators feel about boredom is an opportunity to engage in such movement. In this manner, boredom not only offers the opportunity for new and creative conversations (Gardiner, 2012: 46), but also for enabling discursive movements offering space to engage with our lacking selves in more creative and empowering ways.

Conclusion

The purpose of the present study has been to explore why boredom remains a predominantly dysfunctional aspect of work and how we may understand and strengthen its more empowering aspects. The purpose was also to build on prior research (Driver, 2022) introducing a Lacanian perspective on boredom. Specifically, the study developed this empirically offering further insights into the complexities of boredom at the interstice of conscious and unconscious dynamics of identity work. In so doing, the study provides a more fine-grained perspective on how boredom functions as a ubiquitous aspect of work and workplaces today (Mel and Jex, 2015). Specifically, it sheds light on how boredom functions as a readily available discursive resource to narratively construct identities. Identity construction, in turn, commonly involves the conscious narration of imaginary selves, and, as we have seen in the narratives analyzed here, an imaginary response to failures of the imaginary. Boredom, as one such failure and placeholder for underlying lack, is therefore covered over. This is underlined by much of prior research which finds it to be marginalized or rejected, associated with a range of dysfunctional outcomes, and treated as a problem to be fixed (Cummings et al., 2016; Loukidou et al., 2009). Put simply, the dysfunctional aspects of boredom seem to be driven by imaginary responses to lack with firm attachments to the fantasy that we can know who we are and obtain what we want.

As this describes much of the process of ordinary conscious identity construction (Lacan, 1977: 236), it explains why dysfunctional aspects of boredom seem to dominate prior research findings. It also explains why boredom is now so commonly experienced by white collar professionals and individuals in leadership positions (Bruursema et al., 2011) because identity work puts the focus on the subjective aspects of boredom rather than objective ones, such as work environments or job characteristics (Loukidou et al., 2009). In other words, the Lacanian perspective offers more complex ways of understanding why and how boredom is driven by the subjective experience of work “rather than merely the result of boring work” (Mel and Jex, 2015: 152). As prior research has suggested that positive and negative aspects are tied to how the self is viewed (Carroll et al., 2010: 1032), the Lacanian perspective develops this further. It offers a more fine-grained picture of the actual processes that underly this.

The present study also underlines that, when conducting research on boredom, it is important to employ methods that are suitable not only to analyze what individuals say about themselves in relation to boredom but also what they fail to say. It is important to be mindful of research itself as an imaginary project with imaginary interactions between researchers and research participants (Harding, 2007) and not to get caught in the imaginary undertaking of constructing boredom in this fashion. Instead, it is critical to look for ambiguities, omissions, and other subtle ways in which narratives of the self, and therefore also boredom, are always already unsettled (Benvenuto and Kennedy, 1986: 13). The present study offers starting points for doing so by employing narrative methods that are sensitive to exploring what is missing from narratives and carefully tracing discursive movements along imaginary and symbolic responses.

As to understanding and strengthening the more empowering aspects of boredom, the study also offers new insights and avenues for future exploration. The Lacanian perspective suggests that boredom’s more constructive dimensions are tied to understanding and strengthening a more symbolic response to failures of the imaginary. As we have seen, encountering the failure of imaginary self-constructions can be highly functional. It offers a space in which to work through the fantasy that work can either prevent such failures, or provide ways of overcoming them, while obtaining fulfilment. The Lacanian perspective crystallizes that whatever our identities may be, as hardworking and satisfied employees for example, they fail. Specifically, they fail not because we experience boredom, but because our identities are structurally determined to do so.

Highlighting such complexities also illuminates why boredom may be seen as a threat in organizations that must be eliminated at all cost (e.g. Fisher, 1993). The perspective developed here suggests that boredom is indeed a “Trojan horse” for a different kind of awareness (Gardiner, 2012: 53) with emancipatory potential (Gardiner, 2012: 47). It underlines that boredom can be a force to contest dominant discourses in organizations centered on economic valuation and industrial homogenization (Johnsen, 2016: 1403). It can also be a space for individuals to experience, instead, the particularity and significance of “everyday work practices in their understanding of selfhood” (Costas and Kaerreman, 2015: 79). In such a space, it may be possible to move from psychic deadness to revitalization and consider things from alternative and potentially more constructive perspectives (Gardiner, 2012: 52).

As we have seen, some of the narrators feel empowered to question who they are and what they might want from work. They enjoy boredom as a space of temporary liberation where they can unsettle dominant discourses about whom they are supposed to be and how they are to enjoy themselves. This, in turn, may provide a feeling of empowerment that there are always new possibilities and that something more meaningful, than whatever is prescribed in organizations to meet the demands of industrial processes (Gardiner, 2012: 56), can be experienced. Future research may explore in greater depth how boredom functions in such empowering ways for identity work. It may investigate how this is connected, in turn, to various cognitive strategies that prior research has identified as conducive to coping with boredom and even benefiting from it (Loukidou et al., 2009: 398). It is possible that individuals who engage in symbolic responses are able to reach different states of awareness (Gardiner, 2012: 59). These, in turn, change their expectations about work and the meaning they seek. Doing so has been linked to lessening the negative impacts of boredom while potentially increasing its positive impacts, such as facilitating wellbeing (Loukidou et al., 2009: 398).

This is not to belittle the often-negative experiences and even suffering (Johnsen, 2016: 1413) that many individuals associate with boredom. As prior research has suggested, boredom always “feels like lack of something” (Baghdadchi, 2005: 324) and therefore, from the perspective developed here, easily becomes a placeholder for the experience of fundamental lack. Such lack is, at first glance, unpleasant and anxiety provoking, and, as we have seen, limits enjoyment to disappointment (Lacan, 1977: 268). However, once we understand it as a structural condition of the self (Arnaud and Vanheule, 2007), we can appreciate lack as that through which we all obtain a sense of self (Lacan, 1988: 223).

Consequently, the study highlights that whether we enjoy boredom or seek to combat it, boredom discourse offers resources to articulate imaginary selves, which, from a Lacanian perspective, invariably fail. But their very failure offers the opportunity to respond not just in imaginary but also symbolic ways, doing important work for ourselves as subjects (Arnaud and Vanheule, 2007). By allowing boredom to suspend imaginary certainties and encountering it as a transformational possibility (Gardiner, 2012: 59) and a structural dimension of human becomingness (Harding, 2007), we can also enjoy boredom to circle our lack (Fink, 2004: 156). In so doing, boredom can be a resource for identity work that empowers us to use whatever resources the moment may furnish to be more present, creative and alive (Gardiner, 2012: 52).