TNG's O'Brien had one of the most simplest (and mechanically replaceable) position on the ship. Wait to be called, and then teleport. It would be cruel of Starfleet to make a man sit in his room by himself for a shift, where he may not be called at all. Today, people who have remedial jobs like that, where they have to wait periods before being able to work (like help desks), they're allowed to listen to music. Assuming he could put any application/program on his console, what do you think he'd put on there? I say other than your current social media and chat room access, O'Brien has a RTS game on there. Maybe Midevil or Alamo based. He met Keiko on the Enterprise, maybe he has a few ebooks about Asian culture. He definitely has a few technical readout programs (access to the newest specs and whatnot). Oh, and Klingon Digest.
COMMANDER RIKER: Okay Chief, we're ready. Energize. CHIEF O'BRIEN: Just one moment Commander. I've almost taken the enemy base.
^O'Brien's definitely a modder. Good one too Lance. He could be watching Hulu or Netflix or something.
He probably runs a blog from there. O'Brien's blog #12 - A little more than a two second warning to teleport someone from an emergency situation would be nice.
That's the thing about Star Trek, everyone aside from the bridge crew and senior officers must have a really boring job. Imagine being a security guy posted to stand outside a door or something.
See Bob at dinner. "Hey Bob, how'd your shift go? Any excitement?" Bob snorts. "How's this for 'excitement'? About four hours in, an Ensign tried to get in the suite I was guarding. Had no authorization. I was hoping I'd get to use my stunner on him, but when I pressed him for why he wanted in, turned out he was just on the wrong deck, didn't want in at all thought he was at his quarters. Sorted that out and he was on his way. And that's about it. Hey Jim, pass that salt, will ya? These replicated chicken tenders taste even blander than usual."
I think you mean "menial". O'Brien doesn't strike me as needing to have education repeated because he didn't get it the first time. And as I said in the thread about the comic, I imagine O'Brien has more responsibilities than we see. Completely aside from the imagined duties I added to him over there, we know he oversees maintaining and calibrating the transporters because he mentioned it on a couple of occasions, even if we never/rarely saw him doing it. But, I imagine he still finds time to sneak in his love of Eugenics War-era movies and tv shows, stuff like "Get Him To The Greek", "Stargate: Atlantis", and "The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns".
I read some text about the blue collar workers in ST. funny. I'll try and find a link. EDIT: http://www.somethingawful.com/news/blue-stripe-life-4/