I voted for “I like my job and often find it rewarding”.
I’m a programmer, but I get to code really interesting stuff in a lab, and I get to watch my stuff actually move and react. A lot of days we’re like kids in a toy store and wondering that we actually get paid for this.
I think the company itself is better than average, because the pay is good, and they have flex time, 4-day weeks, pension plan, good health bennies, and lots of vacation* time. They also pay all expenses for advanced degrees up to Phd (they even covered my meals when I went back for my Master’s). In an interesting deviation from most companies, they pay overtime for weekend work, even to six-figure salaried folk. A few years ago, I was out for 6 weeks due to surgery and they paid all that sick time without so much as grumbling. Maybe I sound a little pollyanna-ish, but I think it would be hard to find a better company.
When my co-workers grumble about work, I remind them there are thousands in unemployment lines who’d love to have our problems.
I get really irked by the people who confuse boredom with not enough to do. You can easily have so much boring work that you’re frazzled, and harried, and don’t know what to do next.
Just because you have plenty to do, doesn’t mean that you’re learning anything from it, or that it’s anything but rote grunt work.
I think some people are happy with rote grunt work. They should get manufacturing or procedural jobs (process the AP every month, or some such).
Those of us who are in it more for the learning and the novelty tend to get bored with something we’ve figured out. I have about a 18-24 month non-bored period at most jobs, and then unless I get a pretty big job change, I tend to get really bored doing the same things, only with different project names tacked on.