The Bert Show: Vault – Most Boring Jobs

Date: December 5, 2025
Host: The Bert Show Cast (Bert, Kristin, Abby, Cassie, Tommy & More)
Theme: Exploring the reality—and pain—of holding the world’s most boring jobs

Episode Overview

This episode dives into a surprisingly relatable listener experience: having a job so boring and pointless that employees do practically nothing all day—some for years at a time. The Bert Show crew and their callers share personal (and sometimes hilarious or exasperating) overviews of cushy yet dull roles. They explore the pros and cons of getting paid to do nothing, recount cringeworthy office moments, and muse about the psychological toll of total workplace boredom.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Story That Sparked it All: A Government Job Gone Dry

• [01:34] Host: Shares a friend's story—an Ivy League MBA working in a government crime division in Philadelphia who, after a management shuffle, found herself and her colleagues literally doing nothing.
  • "She's taking Pilates in the middle of the day. She's leaving for hours at a time. Nobody questions it."
• Listener reactions: Most callers relate, citing long periods of "work" where the main challenge is fighting boredom or finding ways to pass time.

Caller Experiences: The Art of Looking Busy

Tammy – Riding Out the Clock

• [02:38] Tammy (Voice Disguised): Office manager/assistant whose job fizzled when the company owner moved away.
  • “I can leave, I can come. And then after I learn how to just forward my cell phone call just in case…”
• Notable moment: Confession to using the office for candlelight dinners and personal gatherings.
  • Host [04:10]: "I'm still stuck on you doing it on the conference?"
• Tammy is just "riding it out" for nine months, expecting the business to collapse but happy to collect a paycheck until then.

Tim – The King of Cushy

• [04:46] Tim (Voice Disguised): Describes over 10 years at a job where he does a split shift, barely works at all, and spends afternoons drinking beer.
  • “Nobody really even knows what I do around the office. And I'm basically all by myself in my own department.”

Jobless at the Water Department

• [05:24] Caller: Shares how her mother’s government job in the water department involves shopping online and doing her daughter’s research papers at work.
  • "It's ridiculous. She shops online all day…"
• Government jobs get special focus as notoriously hard places to get fired, with little oversight:
  • Host [05:49]: "In a lot of cases, these are government jobs... it's very hard to get fired."
  • Caller [06:48]: "Who's paying the salary for these government employees?"
  • Host: “You.”

Internship Ennui

• [06:53] Intern Emily: Not her current internship, but reflects on a summer printer company job sitting under a computer display, reading books and doing nothing for eight months, all while being very well paid.
  • “It was so boring. I’d sit...underneath [the display] and read a book. I didn’t ask a person if they needed help. I didn’t do anything.”

Gas Station Firebug

• Another host shares his own tale of working at a dead gas station:
  • “If you had one customer an hour...I got fired when they found me on surveillance tapes burning things.” [07:56]

Mary – Office Idle Queen

• [08:20] Mary (Voice disguised): Paid extremely well ($500/week, tax-free) to occupy an office, occasionally answer phones, but mostly download pictures, chat, and read magazines all day.
  • Host: “Are you supposed to be doing some work or you just don't have any job responsibilities?”
  • Mary: “They just need somebody to be in the office in case somebody calls... Sometimes I get a little bored, but I get paid extremely well for, like, doing nothing.”
• Hosts seem incredulous at the salary for so little work:
  • Host [09:07]: “$500 a week, tax free just to sit around and do nothing?”
  • Caller 3 [09:16]: “Wow.”
  • Host: “Yeah, I think I'd be going out of my mind also. Totally.”

Relatable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Host [01:34]: “She gets a paycheck every two weeks because they don't want to lose the department...she hasn't done a lick of work in over a year.”
• Tammy [04:34]: “I'm just riding it out.”
• Caller on government jobs [05:47]: “It's ridiculous. She does the Internet part of my research papers. It’s kind of ridiculous.”
• Host [06:48]: “Who's paying the salary for these government employees?”
  • Host: “You.”
• Caller (Intern Emily) [07:36]: “It was so boring...I would sit underneath [the computer displays] and read a book. I didn’t do anything.”
• Host [09:22]: “It's like what you said, like, you're just watching the minutes tick by, and it's like minutes turn into hours.”
• Host [09:41]: "Remember when your social studies teacher would put on a movie in class? ...You instantly start to gaze over."

Important Timestamps

• [01:34]: The host introduces the main story about "most boring jobs."
• [02:38]: Tammy’s surreal office experience and creative uses of empty office space.
• [04:46]: Tim’s “split shift” cushy job—ten years of barely working.
• [05:24]: Caller describes her mother’s idle government job in the water department.
• [06:53]: Intern Emily on literally hiding and reading at work for months.
• [08:20]: Mary’s story: sitting in an office and collecting $500 a week for nothing.
• [09:22]: Closing reflections on the sheer tedium and psychological cost of such jobs.

Tone & Style

Lively, humorous, occasionally incredulous—the Bert Show hosts and their callers happily recount, debate, and gently mock the bizarre world of ultra-boring employment. There’s a current of empathy for those suffering through these jobs, but also a shared sense of wonder (and sometimes jealousy) at the ease—and emptiness—of getting paid to do so little.

Conclusion

In this episode, The Bert Show unearths a hidden reality: for some, the daily grind is a surreal struggle against boredom rather than stress. The stories are funny, sometimes a little shocking, and always honest about the pang of wasted potential that comes with a paycheck for nothing. From office managers to government employees to high school interns, it’s a peek into the weirdly hollow lives of people with the “world’s most boring jobs.”