Working from home is great. Let’s just start there.
Sweatpants, actual productivity, fewer interruptions, no commute, the freedom to swap an empty meeting for a load of laundry — it’s a dream.
But before the WFH revolution, I spent over a decade in corporate America as an engineer in two different industries at three major companies. And if there’s one universal truth across every cubicle farm I lived in, it’s this:
I was bored. Chronically, endlessly, spiritually bored.
Engineers love to talk about data, but here’s one piece of anecdotal evidence I will stand behind forever:
The average corporate employee is “productive” for about 12 minutes per hour.
The other 48 minutes? Absolute theater.
And I played my part beautifully.
The Corporate Boredom Nobody Warns You About
Managing people is hard, sure.
But keeping them busy? Impossible.
I would complete my assigned tasks in a normal (okay, I admit it, sometimes faster-than-normal) amount of time. And then… nothing. No next project. No clear direction. No urgent fire. Just a sea of Outlook reminders and a calendar full of meetings that probably could’ve been a PDF.
And most tasks I did have required someone else’s input:
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Another engineer who was booked solid in meetings
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Someone who took three business days to answer emails
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Someone “circling back next week”
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Someone who simply did not have the bandwidth, energy, or desire to help me before lunch
So I waited.
And waited.
And stared at my inbox like it owed me something.
This is how I came to understand the true essence of corporate America:
It’s not about productivity.
It’s about filling a seat convincingly.
Baby Engineer Colleen’s Boredom Era
In the early days, I fought the boredom with enthusiasm.
I harassed my manager with “Do you have anything for me to do?” emails.
I popped into their cubicle multiple times a day, bright-eyed and eager, like a productivity-obsessed golden retriever.
That enthusiasm lasted about three months.
Then I understood the truth:
If I didn’t find ways to fill my day, I’d go absolutely feral.
So, I built my own internal schedule:
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Took long walks around the building like it was my personal indoor track
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Casually visited the same rotation of coworkers to “check in” and “collaborate” (translation: socialize)
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Studied for the LSAT during the era I convinced myself I might want to be a lawyer
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Read e-books during slow weeks
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Worked on a rotating cast of entrepreneurial experiments that absolutely did not belong on my work computer
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Took the kind of leisurely office lunches that would make European workers proud
By 9:30 a.m. every day, I had responded to all emails, reviewed my calendar, followed up on tasks, and was already in my first wave of boredom.
I wasn’t alone.
There was an entire ecosystem of bored corporate workers wandering halls like ghosts:
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The coworker who looked “deep in thought” but was actually playing solitaire
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The guy whose entire afternoon was “locked down by a meeting” that he never attended
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The intern who thought being bored meant they were failing
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The senior engineer who knew exactly how to stretch a 10-minute task into a four-hour saga
Corporate boredom wasn’t personal.
It was cultural.
The Accidental Gift in All That Boredom
Here’s where things get reflective.
All that wandering.
All that visiting.
All those “Hey, what are you working on?” conversations.
All those accidental job-shadowing moments.
All that mentorship disguised as hallway chit-chat.
It ended up being the best training I ever got.
Engineering school taught me to problem-solve.
Corporate boredom taught me to be an engineer.
I learned tribal knowledge from the coworkers I visited on my boredom rounds.
I learned how systems actually worked — not from manuals, but from the people who had survived a decade of meetings no one spoke up in.
I learned how to build relationships, identify allies, network, and communicate across departments.
I was becoming the kind of engineer who got things done — not because of spreadsheets or reports, but because I genuinely knew people.
Without office boredom?
I never would’ve learned any of that.
Work From Home: The Productivity Era
Then came work-from-home life.
Suddenly I wasn’t killing time waiting for Chad from Powertrain to answer my email.
I was:
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walking my dog
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folding laundry between meetings
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skipping the 1–2 hours of daily traffic
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eating real lunches instead of sad desk salads
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doing actual, concentrated work without 47 interruptions
WFH was the first time I realized how little of my corporate workday had ever been about real productivity.
But of course, it wasn’t all perfect.
When your “office” is your dining room?
Work oozes into your evenings.
Responding to emails at 10 p.m. suddenly feels “reasonable.”
Boundaries get blurry.
Home and work start to merge into one beige blob of responsibility.
But overall?
WFH actually let me do my job.
The office just made me look like I was doing my job.
Why I Still Respect the Office (Just Not 40 Hours of It)
Even with my love for remote work, I’ll give the office this:
Those in-between moments — the wandering, the friendships, the shared frustration — shaped my entire early career.
It made me resourceful.
It made me connected.
It made me human in a very inhuman system.
But forcing people back 40 hours a week in 2025?
Unhinged behavior.
Hybrid is the best compromise I’ve seen yet:
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays in the office.
Mondays and Fridays from home.
Human connection + actual productivity + fewer breakdowns in traffic.
It's not perfect, but it’s real.
The Entrepreneurial Truth Behind It All
In the end, all that boredom, all that seat-filling, all that waiting for permission to be productive…
It taught me something important about myself:
I’m not built for employment.
Not because it’s “bad.”
Not because other people shouldn’t choose it.
But because I thrive when I build my own direction, own my schedule, and work on things without waiting for someone else’s email to unblock my entire day.
Working for someone else is a perfectly fine, valid, wonderful path for millions of people.
It just wasn’t mine.
And honestly?
The fear of returning to mandatory 40-hour office life was one of the biggest motivators to keep building my business, my way.