#Man gets $45K severance package after declaring job ‘too boring’

Frédéric Desnard became the envy of fed up workers everywhere after being awarded $45,000 because his former job allegedly bored him out of his mind. The Parisian’s unlikely severance package marked the first case of a “bore-out” in French history, according to France TV.

His “too boring” $80,000-a-year gig was a “descent into hell,” according to Desnard, who worked as a manager at Paris-based perfume firm Interparfums until 2014, the Telegraph reports. The bored-stiff worker claimed that after losing a key client he was relegated to working monotonous duties for four years, which made him “depressed, destroyed and ashamed.”

Doctors seconded his self-diagnosis, while Desnard’s lawyers claimed in court that his hum-drum work life even caused him to suffer an epileptic seizure while driving.

Due to his alleged declining mental state, Desnard left work for six months on sick leave, before eventually being furloughed by the cosmetics company in 2014.

In an attempt to gain reparations for his on-the-job doldrums, he previously sued Interparfums for over $600,000 on the grounds of harassment and unfair dismissal, reports the BBC.

And while Desnard never received the aforementioned amount, the worker’s tribunal recently determined that his tedious tasks had caused him to experience a “bore-out,” a k a being professionally killed through boredom. According to the Telegraph, the condition is the opposite of “burnout,” where where an employee is overworked until they suffer a mental breakdown.

However, Interparfums’ lawyers claim that Desnard “never said anything about being bored during the four-year period.”

Desnard isn’t the first to allegedly suffer from bore-out. The bizarre condition affects up to one-third of French workers and is also becoming a growing problem in offices across the globe, boredom expert Dr. Sandi Mann tells the BBC. 

Despite sounding like a made-up ailment, “bore-out” can reportedly reduce people’s life expectancy by causing them to counteract their workplace malaise with unhealthy food, alcohol, drugs and “risk-taking behavior”.