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Workplace Monotony?
bcorrigan78 asks: "I love programming, however I work in a network operations center with very few co-workers where the air conditioners can just about put you to sleep. Besides music, what do all of you programmers do to avoid workplace monotony?"
I see you've picked up on one of them... post here!
I touch computers in naughty places
I get more reading done during work than any other time of the day.
And you can get them from your local public library.
I recomend this cd player
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
Seriously, make it a point to periodically get up from your desk, for whatever reason - get something to drink, hit the restroom, actually talk to a co-worker (as opposed to email/phone/IM). Just the act of getting out of your cube for 3-5 minutes can do wonders for you.
Hard industrial music, lots and lots of black coffee and cigarettes.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
1) Listen to DVDs...I find it's more interesting than music and not more intrusive. I minimize them and just listen to the sound, flipping over for the good parts.
2) Write code. Ever wanted to learn a graphics library? New language? Check out SDL, neat little cross platform graphics library. Write a PacMan clone to learn it.
3) Read news. I read a lot of news during the slow times.
4) Gameboy. The SP is pretty small, would probably go unnoticed or be mistaken for a PDA.
--trb
Try to work arround your company firewall... its MS stuff and its fun to see how our IT thinks some things can't be done.
Naps. Ping-pong. Slashdot. Ebay.
Here here!
Exactly the post I was about to make.
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
I currently have the same problem as you. I VNC into my box at home and do stuff. Browse torrent sites, etc... I also run a radio station for everyone in the department (Computing Services for my university) and people making requests and such make things interesting (don't have that one... hmmm, lemme find it and throw it on the playlist) AIM keeps things interesting, as does sites like MySpace, Orkut, and even LiveJournal. Slashdot, fark, and others keep me sane. an occasional game of solitaire, stepping outside for a cigerette (a vanilla clove is excellent for killing stress, I have to say), Other projects you have more interest in: I'm currently in the process of learning PHP so I may make my own dynamic site for my photography... that and working on a short story that gets less and less "short" by the week... Online photoshop contests are fun too :)
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
1) I know you mentioned "besides music", but that really is one of the best ways. One thing I've noticed is that, being a programmer, *really* hard industrial really helps me get into "the zone" while coding, and trance just makes the hours fly by. Apoptygma Berserk, VNV Nation, Oakenfold, etc.
2) Get a laptop, watch DVDs or music videos on it while working. I did this for years in my younger years. Helps boredom, but not the greatest for productivity.
3) Someone brought this up before, and it's an awesome time-suck. Learn a new language/technology.. expand your knowledgebase. Employers generally encourage this (in my experience).
4) If all else fails, and the job is just insanely boring, the company won't let you listen to music, watch DVDs, research new fields, read news, whatnot.. find yourself another job. I had this happen once a few years back with a job they sold me as a dev position, and turned out to be configuration management. After 3 months of total boredom, I moved to another job.
Hope that helps!
-- Jinsaku
-- Jinsaku
I work on my juggling for a few minutes here and there. It means I have to stand up and move around which has to be a good thing.
:)
My five ball cascade is improving too
Cheers,
Roger
Do you have any better hostages?
Oh... I also work sometimes
You're old school? I beta tested the motherf***ing abacus!
Well, you've clearly found one outlet...
/. -- take a few minutes to let the clutch slip and relax your focus. Walk around a bit, decide what to do in the evening when you get home, etc.
Other ideas:
* Eat lunch out. You don't even have to eat in a restaurant every day (which isn't particularly healthy/cheap) -- you can bring lunch and meet friends at a park. The point is to get some solid social interaction in the middle of the day.
* Take mental breaks. Don't always go from work to a game, or even ranting on
* Stay hydrated, and don't eat a big lunch. And get enough sleep at night. You'll get more work done while your working, and more fun done when you're taking a break. You know dehydration is a pretty common cause of sleepiness, right? Of course, not getting enough sleep is also a major cause. If you aren't fighting off sleep, you'll be able to get more involved in your work (and thus less bored), plus you'll get more done, and have more time you can spend doing other stuff without swamping your productivity.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
(No need to get away from the computer)
Q3
Worms Armageddon
H4X0RING the company network (NetSaint, nmap, etc)
(Some minutes off)
Snooker!
Card games!
how long until
Listen to old time radio shows (OTR). They offer drama and excitement, and you don't have to take your eyes off the screen. You can download MP3 of shows from many places.
I find it is great when coding, but not as good when reading text like emails.
If you're finding your workdays consistently boring then you're in the wrong job. Find one that's more suited to your interests.
Half a bottle of good Scotch every morning before work is your solution of routine. You won't get much work done and you might even get fired, loose your family, and sell your car and house to buy alcohol, but hey!, no routine there!
Where I work they don't believe in letting down the pressure...
Whenever I have a free moment, something suddently needs to be done.
Give me some monotony - I know what to do with it!
Enjoy it while you still can.
1.warriors2.com is my favorite. 2.comics pvp gamespy humor.
7680 MB Disk,192 GB Transfer,
Employment can be a subsidized education. Take advantage of the free time.
Of course, barring that, find a bunch of smaller message boards and alternately check them. You can even be a rabid republican on one and a bleeding heart democrat on another.
Here's some suggestions I have not yet encountered in this thread:
:-)
- Go out during lunchtime. You will get some fresh air.
- Even better: if your office has a shower (in the Netherlands, this is required for large companies), you can do some sports during lunch breaks. I used to run 5 miles twice a week in the afternoon. It kept me awake during long, boring work days. Afterwards, you *do* need the shower. Otherwise your colleagues will complain.
- If possible, ask your boss for something else to do. Help your colleague with *his* project for an hour or so. It will shift your attention for a while. Less boredom. Works for me.
der Joachim
Geek runner, motorcyclist and professional know-it-all
I always carry around my pick set and a masterlock. When things get slow at the office, and when I am sitting on the train to and from work I practice the fine art of bypassing locks.
There's an online poker site I play (with play money) that has a nice alert sounds when it's my turn to play. I play it in the background while coding, and flip back to it every time I hear the alert. It somehow keeps me relatively sane.
_______
2B1ASK1
A little of this:
http://kingdomofloathing.com
Coffee and this in the morning and you're good to go.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Red Stapler....
:-)
Seriously if your workplace is boring, find a few cube gadgets to keep you amused. Find people online to chat with (meet a girl online if you're single even...) if you have Internet access and the right to bring stuff in from home to your cube, I fail to see the overall problem. Or just post on Slashdot regularly, that helps me a lot
...in bed
I see we've touched on all the main ones. A good mp3 player, audiobooks, reading news, slashdot, learning new languages (I've gained 3 new ones in my current job). If it get's to the point where all of the above aren't helping, I suggest you start job searching becuase your current employment isn't furthering your career.
Make up a list of other things you want to do. Here are some thoughts:
Email an old friend.
Add something to your website.
Research a weekend trip.
Check out a new gadget via web research.
Read some trade/industrial websites in your field.
Research something of interest to you, your hobbies or a potential interest.
Then when you have that list, just every 20-30 minutes (or whatever interval) switch over to one of those tasks for 5-10 minutes, and then switch back to your work tasks. The day will go *MUCH* faster.
If the job is really that bad I would work on tasks or accomplishments that move you to a different position, whatever that may be but it's your list. It will be like giving you positive feedback at regular intervals. The drudgery should just slide by.
Hope that helps!
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
A few years back, the hype surrounding Extreme Programming got me curious, so I tried the style of development known as Test-Driven Development. It makes development less frustrating and more fun, so I'm a lot less likely to wander off to places like Slashdot.
Basically, the way it works is you sit down, figure out what you're going to do next, and write a few line of test code that don't pass yet. You write a little code to make the test pass. Then you expand the test a little, and make that pass. And so on. There are two main rules: don't write production code without a broken test, and try to keep the time between cycles pretty short, say under 10 minutes.
The short cycles and alternating viewpoints make it feel something like playing chess against yourself. Since everything you write is tested, bug rates are very low, and using the debugger becomes very rare. And although I thought my code was pretty good before, I think it's better now. By starting out thinking how it looks on the outside, the APIs are cleaner and easier to use.
Create little homemade darts using just office supplies and see how many I can get to stick in the ceiling.
Your question here seems to be very poorly structured, and the range of answers people are giving reflect that. Many of the suggestions (read, watch DVDs) assume that the problem is that too much of the time the job is merely to be physically present. If what you need is an answer to how to fill up the idle hours, and you love to program, I'd suggest that no NOC I've ever seen has all the tools that it really needs. Consider what kinds of tools would make your job easier when problems occur (or tools that can analysis the available data and identify potential problems before they occur) and write them.
If your problem is that you're already programming and you've got plenty to do, but there's no "human contact" in the way the job is done, try to add some. It might be as simple as adding informal design reviews -- "Hey, Bob, can we get together for 30 minutes on Tuesday so I can describe how I'm structuring this, and get your opinion about it?" When I had programming tasks, I always found that having such reviews sometimes led to people pointing out better ways to do a task, and always clarified my own thinking about what I was doing.
1. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.
2. Send e-mail to the rest of the company telling them exactly what you're doing. For example: "If anyone needs me, I'll be in the bathroom."
3. Every time someone asks you to do something, anything, ask them if they want fries with that.
4. Put your trash can on your desk. Label it "IN."
5. Make up nicknames for all your coworkers and refer to them only by these names. "That's a good point, Spike." "No, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you there, Sparky."
6. High-light your shoes. Tell people you haven't lost them as much since you did this.
7. While sitting at your desk, soak your fingers in Palmolive liquid. Call everyone Madge.
8. Hang mosquito netting around your cubicle. When you emerge to get coffee or a printout or whatever, slap yourself randomly the whole way.
9. Put a chair facing a printer. Sit there all day and tell people you're waiting for your document.
10. Send e-mail back and forth to yourself engaging yourself in an intellectual debate. Forward the mail to a co-worker and ask her to settle the disagreement.
11. Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair-dancing.
12. Feign an unnatural and hysterical fear of staplers.
13. Send e-mail messages saying there's free pizza or donuts or cake in the lunchroom. When people drift back to work complaining that they found none, lean back, pat your stomach and say, "Oh, you've got to be faster than that."
14. Put decaf in the coffeemaker for three weeks. Once everyone has withdrawn from caffeine addiction, switch to espresso.
15. Find out where your boss shops and buy exactly the same outfits. Wear them one day after you boss does. (This is especially effective if your boss is of a different gender than you.)
You know that mediatation about having the strength to change what you can, and the serenity to accept what you can't? This sounds like one of the former.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Run one lap around the office at top speed.
Groan out loud in the toilet cubicle (at least one other) 'non-player' must be in the toilet at the time).
Ignore the first five people who say 'good morning' to you.
Phone someone in the office you barely know, leave your name and say "Just called to say I can't talk right now. Bye".
To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your ears and grimace.
When someone hands you a piece of paper, finger it, and whisper huskily,"Mmmmmmm, that feels soooooo good!".
Leave your fly unzipped for one hour. If anyone points it out, > say,"Sorry,I really prefer it this way".
Walk sideways to the photocopier.
While riding in the lift, gasp dramatically every time the doors open.
Say to your boss, "I like your style" and shoot him with double-barreled fingers.
Babble incoherently at a fellow employee then ask "Did you get all that,I don't want to have to repeat it".
Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle (there must be a 'non-player' within sight).
Shout random numbers while someone is counting.
At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to conclude with the singing of the national anthem (extra points) if you actually launch into it yourself).
Walk into a very busy person's office and while they watch you with growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off 10 times.
For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as "Bob".
Announce to everyone in a meeting that you "really have to go do a number two".
After every sentence, say 'mon' in a really bad Jamaican accent. > As in "the report's on your desk, mon". Keep this up for one hour.
While an office mate is out, move their chair into the lift.
In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and mutter, "Shut up, damn it, all of you just shut up!".
At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again".
In a colleagues diary, write in 10am: "See how I look in > tights".
Carry your keyboard over to your colleague and ask "You wanna trade?"
Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person:"Do you hear that?" "What?""Never mind, it's gone now".
Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say, "I can't talk about it".
Posing as a maitre d', call a colleague and tell him he's won a lunch for four at a local restaurant. Let him go.
Speak with an accent (French, German, Porky Pig, etc) during a very important conference call.
Find the vacuum and start vacuuming around your desk.
Hang a two-foot long piece of toilet roll from the back of your pants and act genuinely surprised when someone points it out.
Play chicken with the fire alarm. Start small fires and see how long you can let them burn before the alarm goes off. Note: This is not recommended in halon-protected facilities.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Suggest that beer be put in the soda machine.
Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair dancing.
Determine how many cups of coffee is "too many."
Develop an unnatural fear of staplers.
For a relaxing break, get away from it all with a mask and snorkel in the fish tank. If no one notices, take out your snorkel and see how many you can catch in your mouth.
Send e-mail messages saying free pizza, free donuts etc... in the lunchroom, when people complain that there was none... Just lean back, pat your stomach,and say, "Oh you've got to be faster than that."
Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark 17 inch paper, 99 copies.
In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sexual favors."
If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.
When driving colleagues around insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions "to keep 'em tuned up."
Reply to everything someone says with "that's what YOU think."
Practice making fax and modem noises.
Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and "cc" them to your boss.
Finish all your sentences with the words "in accordance with prophesy."
Disassemble your pen and "accidentally" flip the ink cartridge across theroom.
Adjust the tint on your monitor so that the brightness level lights up the entire working area, and insist to others that you "like it that way."
Staple papers in the middle of the page.
Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a croaking noise.
TYPE ONLY IN UPPERCASE.
type only in lowercase.
Dont use any punctuation either
Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute the company staff as they arrive in the morning to a nearby competitor's carpark.
As much as possible, skip rather than walk.
Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin.
When nearly done, announce "no, wait, I messed it up," and repeat.
Ask people what gender they are.
While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.
Sit in your car in the carpark at lunch time pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
Ask your co-workers mysterious questions and then scribble their answers in a notebook. Mutter something about "psychological profiles"
Find work things to do. You are being paid to work. Revisit some things you've already done to see if you can make them better. Identify problems and draft proposals. Get motivated. Help a co-worker with a project they are working on. Read up on the company. How it's doing. Identify waste. Check your machines out to make sure they are patched correctly. Concentrate on a new programming language or research a new technology that can help you get a raise or promotion. Treat work like the ultimate competitive game. Learn the game well. Worst case, if you REALLY can't find something to do, ask your boss for something to do. They rock at handing out work.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
"Hi-lite" your shoes. Tell people that you haven't lost your shoes since you did this.
While sitting at your desk, soak your fingers in "Palmolive".
Put up mosquito netting around your cubicle.
Arrive at a meeting late, say you're sorry, but you didn't have time for lunch, so you're going to be nibbling during the meeting.
During the meeting eat five entire raw potatoes.
Insist that your e-mail address be "zena_goddess_of_fire@companyname.com"
Decorate your office with pictures of Cindy Brady and Danny Partridge. Try to pass them off as your children.
For a relaxing break, get away from it all with a mask and snorkel in the fish tank. If no one notices, take out your snorkel and see how many you can catch in your mouth.
Buy a little TV capture card from Hauppage with FM capability like this one. Plug it into your linux box and use xawtv's streamer application to record Loveline every night (or whatever your favorite radio show is). Then use lame to convert that to MP3.
Then, listen at work. I've been doing this for years. Its not great for productivity, but it keeps you from getting bored and getting even more off task.
Yet another place where linux rules for simplicity and functionality! The box doing this is a PII/333MHz, which also records video (a la Tivo).
Also, you can tune into Shoutcast's various comedy channels.
I generally only listen to WSB out of Atlanta for Neal Boortz (a libertarian) in the morning (through 12 PM CST) and Sean Hannity in the afternoon (3-5 CST).
Linux users: After 5:00 I generally listen to our local NPR station to keep things balanced and interesting.
If it's news you're into, these few links are more than I can possibly read during the day:
http://news.google.com/
http://slashdot.or
http://fark.com
http://linuxgames.com/
http:/
Other links...
Comics:
http://userfriendly.org/
http://gpf-c
http://reallifecomics.com/
http://pvp
http://ubersoft.net/
IRC quotes:
http://bash.org/?latest
http://qdb.us/?
Cheers
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
See I read this a little too quick. Missed a bit: ... a co-worker
get something to drink, hit
Which would be understandable if you worked in a place that had a bar. Or the WWE...
-jim
Get some security cameras that let you see the outside world. Put up the satellite weather image. Put up a display of Internet traffic worldwide. Keep CNN with captioning on a screen. This gives the impression you're on top of things.
I say go for it if you've got enough people to play, just make sure you're the top-hat (it's the best piece)....oh wait, I thought this thread was called "workplace monopoly". /humor
From a distance, English text in a text editor looks (or can be made to look) very much like source code. Hammer out the words when you've nothing better to do, mail it to yourself at home, clean it up and send it off to a publisher. You too could be paid to write a best-seller!
Of course, if there is an intellectual property rights agreement between you and your employer, you may find that they can fire you for doing this, or (worse) that the book's copyright belongs to them. If the book is successful, they might sue you for a share of the royalties.
I'm writing a book in this manner. I use my own PDA for it, so the book is neither stored on nor passes through any computer that the company controls. I write only during my lunch hour and when I'm travelling to and from work (I commute by train), so I'm never writing when I'm supposed to be working.
Just another wannabe fantasy novelist...
Not necessarily together (although, that is amusing as well).
I find that nerf guns work well not just for frustration, but for boredom as well... Especially if you have a good target at a decent distance -- whiteboards are particularly good, as you can draw various sized pictures to shoot at.
If people take objection to guns, or the noise of the darts hitting targets, you can switch to shooting rubber bands.
But I also keep a few 260Qs (the standard size for twisting balloons) on me, for those times I'm really bored. However, some people take issue to the squeeking noise, or are afraid of them popping, so might not look kindly on it. You also get odd looks from people when you do it in an airport waiting lounge. [but I can't carry tools on me to knit chainmail at the airport, like I used to].
Balloons also come in handy when you find out at the last minute that it was someone's birthday, or some other occassion.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
One word
I am glad that someone with mod points modded that up because it has some truth to it. While I certainly would not condone the use of heroin, crystal meth or Crack at work I do know that there are plenty of really strong and legal hallucinagens (salvia, fly agaric, etc.) that one can buy over the internet.
I had to come into work when everyone else was on vacation because it was the perfect time to bring the servers down for some upgrades, so being alone in the building I ate about 2 caps of Amanita Muscaria (perfectly legal) and had all kinds of fun. What could have been a really monotonous day sitting in front of a monitor watching progress bars slowly move turned into an amazing adventure on par with Alice in Wonderland. I highly recommend it.
Having an open minded girlfriend who works near you is always a good choice.
The idea is that you find another job that looks interesting, and then leave. Not the other way round.
I've smuggled a monkey into the office and trained him to do my job. Now I sit around all day with my feet up throwing him peanuts. hehe....it's fun!
A good game of Russian roulette can give you, on average, three really big endorphin boosts. That might be enough to get you through the day.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
i'll be getting my coat then... adios
Before adopting WHATWG, read the moonlight.NET EULA [http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/moonlight.mspx]