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I worked as an IT administrator, over the years, there was less and less to do... in the end I showed up, and waited for anything to break, or anyone to have a problem... and surfed way too much.

It crushed my soul, and I find I have zero initiative anymore. That was 10 years ago, and I have yet to recover.

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I had a similar experience in a previous role (minus the lack of recovery), and I second this: there is a mental/emotional cost to "getting paid to do nothing". I suspect it's similar to why some people feel driven to work even when they've become "financially independent".

If you don't mind sharing, what did you do after that job?

I worked at a job shop making gears for 5 years, until March 2020 when I got Covid and then Long Covid... I've been short of breath since then. I recently learned that my boss described me as "slow, but you never had to check his work, or that he was working"... so there's that. 8)

I'm hoping to make it back into programming, something I did before that.

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