I've discovered this with many things. I left my previous job before a year was up in large part because I wasn't happy with it, and later discovered that other people jumped ship for similar reasons. At the time, all the corporate positivity-speak made it feel as if I was being a rogue, but others were actually dissatisfied as well.
As far as being paid to "do nothing", I think the core issue with that is it's never actually doing nothing. When you're doing nothing at work, your job is actually to _appear_ busy and to seem relevant. Not only is it difficult, but it's unpleasant, dissatisfying, and demoralizing. There are times when I've been effectively paid to do nothing, and it sucked because I could almost never work on anything that was interesting or mattered.
On the other hand, if I were paid to truly just "do whatever", that might be a different story. I can always identify interesting and even important problems to work on. In the "do nothing" paradigm, usually I'm told not to do such things but instead work only on anything that comes across my desk, and those things may not arrive regularly. That's what sucks.
As far as being paid to "do nothing", I think the core issue with that is it's never actually doing nothing. When you're doing nothing at work, your job is actually to _appear_ busy and to seem relevant. Not only is it difficult, but it's unpleasant, dissatisfying, and demoralizing. There are times when I've been effectively paid to do nothing, and it sucked because I could almost never work on anything that was interesting or mattered.
On the other hand, if I were paid to truly just "do whatever", that might be a different story. I can always identify interesting and even important problems to work on. In the "do nothing" paradigm, usually I'm told not to do such things but instead work only on anything that comes across my desk, and those things may not arrive regularly. That's what sucks.
Just a thought.