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Boring, 'under-challenging', administrative and service jobs can lead to exhaustion and burnout, new research has found. A survey of 400 university employees found undertaking 'monotonous and unstimulating' tasks can lead to disenchantment and high stress levels. Researchers at the University of Zaragoza in Spain found a distinct category of 'underchallenged' employees who end up finding they can take no more of the 'monotonous and unstimulating' tasks they are expected to perform. They 'have to cope with the disenchantment caused by feeling trapped in an occupational activity to which they are indifferent, which bores them and produces no gratification,' concluded lead author Jesús Montero-Marín. Writing in the journal BMC Psychiatry, the research team described two other types of burn-out: 'frenetic', in which the employee works 'increasingly harder to the point of exhaustion'; and 'worn-out', where workers 'give up when faced with stress or lack of gratification.' Longer-serving employees were more likely to be "worn-out", with those clocking-up more than 16 years' service most at risk. The longer the service, the greater the liklihood of having this "burn-out," the study found.