Why is my new desk job so exhausting?
Sitting at a computer all day causes unexpected physical soreness and weight gain, while the constant need to police your personality around management drains your mental energy. Furthermore, office tasks often disappear into a void without the clear, satisfying feedback you get from finishing tangible service work. This combination of endless repetition and forced corporate shallowness leaves you too wiped out to do anything but sleep when you get home.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
Why is my new desk job so exhausting?
- 1Planning one small activity right after work, like going for a walk or cooking a new recipe.Did this help you?
- 2Using the lunch break to work out and shower to mentally split the workday into two halves.Did this help you?
- 3Doing weekend-style activities on weeknights and refusing to sit on the couch immediately after getting home.Did this help you?
- 4Applying for fully remote roles to eliminate the commute and office exhaustion.Did this help you?
- 5Exercising regularly outside of work to combat the physical toll of sittingDid this help you?
- 6Heavily policing one's own language and tone to fit corporate expectationsDid this help you?
- 7Playing office politics and consciously making oneself visible to managementDid this help you?
- 8Accepting the slower pace and finding ways to pass the time during downtimeDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I am about to start my first ever office job at a large insurance company after exclusively working in food service. I am wondering if other people who made that switch found particular aspects of office life hard to adjust to when you left service work for an office job.”source ↗
“At first, I liked it, but now it’s starting to feel quite boring. I’m sitting behind a computer all day, doing almost the exact same things over and over again.”source ↗
“Then I get home at 6, feeling exhausted, and before I know it, the evening is over and it’s time to go to sleep and get ready to do it all again tomorrow.”source ↗
“I don’t know how to come to terms with living like this.”source ↗
“Yeah, I was going to say when I started my desk job, my body was not happy. You will need to make sure you are exercising. Gaining weight and just soreness from sitting all day. It was no joke.”source ↗
“The weight gain and having to police myself about watching what I say in the Teams chat and in person because admin has eyes and ears everywhere”source ↗
“Work is never done and there is not feedback on how it's going. Something I actually miss about fast food. I could clean and sanitize the ice cream machine and that was done for the week. I knew how well I was cleaning because their was a grade in the wall. I knew when the burgers were done and the fish was finished. There was consistent small feedback signalling "done" which are dopamine hits for me. In the office you send your work off into the void and rarely hear back.”source ↗
“I also felt like everyone at restaurants were more real and interesting, where I feel everything at corporate is a bullshit, fake, glossed, and shallow interactions with one another because everything can be scrutinized my mgmt. Sometimes you want to tell someone to shut the fuck up and confront them, but that will lead to write-ups & HR & performance reviews in the office. The office pays better and is more relaxed, but corporate America is soul-crushing and takes away your voice & personality.”source ↗
“i felt the same when i started a desk job.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5Forced return to office when hired as permanent remote
- 21Why do big companies require so many rigid formalities?
- 13How to get HR to approve an ergonomic standing desk for back pain
- 9How to catch up on work after extended leave
- 6What are the real work hours like for a new HVAC tech?
- 5Is it normal to have no work to do at a new job?