The boron-out, not to be confused with Burnout.

First published: May 21, 2007.

Everyone is talking about this very trendy occupational disease that is burnout: A burnout syndrome, following exposure to continuous and prolonged stress. This is a real disease, documented by medicine.

Wikipedia tells us about what burnout is. You can also test your level of burn-out on the swissburnout.ch website, with the "Hamburger Burnout Inventory" ^[1] test.

On the literature side, it is an inexhaustible source of publications.

Read an article on newly listed "occupational disease" in the MigrosMagazine of May 14, 2007: the boron-out. However it may be noted that the definition of the disease comes from two consultants not doctors, and we can discuss the fact that they catalog it as "disease".

But the symptom is real:

This bore-out, therefore, can be considered the opposite of Burnout: it is characterized by the absence of challenges, disinterest and boredom at work. The example quoted in the article is an employee, 30, who admits to surf several hours a day from his place of work, write to private emails, order online, make the sudokus. His professional work, he would stand to make, then have free time. However, this behavior causes fatigue and irritability, and also influences the private life: demotivation, it's contagious.

Taken from the English verb "to boron": bored, its 3 features would be:

• The lack of challenges
• The disinterest
• Boredom

This issue highlights a management problem: often, some responsible delegate only boring tasks and disempowering their colleagues.

Not less than 10% of employees would be affected by this problem, mainly in offices, because it is easier to hide behind a screen.

In the end, the recommendation made in the article for those who are in this case, it's to talk to his superior.

The complement of the syklop: or to set new challenges, by daring to change of place, or even guidance.

Side web, we see that the concept of boreout came from Germany. The two consultants we were talking about above released the book"Diagnose Boreout",in German.

Otherwise, indeed, this term is highly represented on google in German. Nothing in french. In English, see this document that explains the concept. It should be noted that it is also the work of the same 2 consultants, visibly passionate about marketing too…

My opinion: Yes, of course, the problem is real. Certainly not new, but its impact increases saw the increase in the service sector. At the level of the management of human resources, all this is known for long, unless it was necessary to give him a name. For the sake of marketing to sell a book, two authors baptized him, and managed to talk about their book. So much the better for them.

Other than that, a hint of annoyance: talk about bore-out, and therefore refer to Burnout, which is, remember, a true disease, is simply disparage burnout.