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Does Gaming Reduce Productivity?
Scott Taulbee writes "Bob Mandel of AVault has given us his interesting views on why playing games does not reduce productivity, but rather is a stimulating alternative to 'snoozing, daydreaming, overconsuming food and beverages, or sitting like a mindless slug waiting for time to pass.' He suggest that '..compared to other forms of recreational activity that could be enjoyed during work breaks, computer gaming has the greatest chance to hone skills useful for productivity in the workplace.' Should we all take this article to our bosses with requests for installing a GameCube on every desk?"
They do drastically interfere with moral. Deathmatch grudges tend to get sorted out on the coding floor instead of in the realms of quake.
Also, since you have to consider the fact that I'd be opening myself up to a discrimination lawsuit for allowing men to 'fragg' but not allowing women to 'IM'; I'd rather just cut the whole deal out.
So my office is a no-games office. Instead, I try to encourage people to bring in inspirational reading, such as the bible.
The employees seem to rather like the 'guess which book this verse came from' game that I started up. IT's the one that usually gets picked during our state-mandated ten-minute break periods.
Artists have a habit of calling any time-wasting activity "inspirational" and declaring that it improves their so-called "work".
Life in Orange County
Actually, I've found that 'surprise inspections' tend to do that rather well. Even though they were originally instituted to make sure that people weren't downloading porn, a pleasantly surprising side-benefit seems to be that people are less inclined to waste company time when they know they could get caught at any moment.
Except for the couple in closet. But two less homosexuals in the work place is a Good Thing[tm] (it's esp satisfying when they both break company policy and prove what I've always said about homos, in one swoop!)
Hell, gaming isn't near as distracting as wanking, and my coworkers don't get nearly as grossed out. That and none of those pesky sexual harassment suits. Or messy stains under the desk.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Computer game addiction is rampant. During a fit of depression, I spent approximately 2 weeks doing NOTHING at work but play Diablo 2 and hit alt-tab when the boss came around. I didn't mean to, but I had gotten into the habit of doing a Morpheus run first thing in the morning... but when I turned the game off, I got overwhelmed with work, came to slashdot, didn't find any new stories, then went back to diablo. Then when I'd have bad fights with my girlfriend (the reason I was depressed), I'd go to the office at 1 in the morning to play. Bad bad bad. A few weeks after that happened, I realized what I had been doing, and deleted all traces of diablo from my computer. I was still too much of an addict to delete my battle.net characters, but I haven't been back for over 3 months, so I'm comforted to know that I CAN'T go back to that.
OTOH, nothing breaks the stress in my office on a deadline like a 15-minute round of Unreal Tournament on one of the boards I made in my not-so-busy days. And since I've got the leeway to make levels on those not-so-busy days, I'm grateful, so more willing to stay late and work harder for deadlines.
You were a gymnastic jew thief?
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