Name: Boreout.

Age: As old as employment, but the term itself was coined in 2007 by two Swiss business consultants, Peter Werder and Philippe Rothlin.

Appearance: Dissatisfied, demotivated, exhausted.

I guess somebody has been working too hard. To be honest, I’m hardly working. 

Sounds like my dream job! Be careful what you wish for. You may end up suffering from boreout. 

Is that like burnout? It’s similar, but with a very different cause. It turns out that being severely underworked can also lead to depression, illness and, in some cases, a huge payout for damages. 

This is so not a thing. It so is. A Paris appeals court just upheld a boreout claim by a former Interparfums employee, Frederic Desnard, awarding him €40,000 (£36,000). 

Please state the facts of the case. Once a busy and fulfilled worker, Desnard was sidelined after the company lost a big contract in 2010. He was then transferred to a post where “no one cared if I arrived at 9am or 10am”.

I do wish they would advertise these jobs more widely. Desnard’s duties were almost nonexistent. “I had to buy some supplies – a few sheets of paper – and then my day was over,” he said. 

Seriously, just get me to the interview stage, and I will nail this. The lack of work soon took a psychological toll. “You go on the internet at first,” said Desnard, “and then you shut yourself in an empty office and you cry.”

That just sounds like work to me. Desnard became depressed and had an epileptic fit at the wheel of his car. He took seven months off work and was sacked in 2014, on the grounds that his prolonged absence disrupted the smooth running of the company. 

They couldn’t run the company without someone who didn’t do anything? His lawyer made the same point. 

Would it be prejudiced of me to describe the whole notion of boreout as very French? Perhaps not. Under French labour laws it is difficult to make employees redundant. Instead, they are often sidelined or shelved – mis à l’écart – in the hope they will get bored and quit. 

I don’t know which is more French – getting paid to do nothing or complaining about it. Desnard argued it was a form of psychological harassment. 

I would describe it as a modest promotion, myself. Unfortunately for you, the court agreed with Desnard. 

Do say: “It is important that companies ensure their employees are neither overworked nor underworked.”

Don’t say: “What’s the name of the illness you get when your job is too interesting?”