Slashdot Mirror
A Study On Time Wasted At Work
Animesh Pathak writes "C|Net News has an article about a survey of people's goofing off habits at work. From the article: 'It's interesting to note that the Internet was cited as the leading time-wasting activity. It goes to show how integrated it has become to the daily functions of our personal and professional lives,...Today, there are so many useful tools and Web sites on the Internet that have enabled people to become more efficient with accomplishing multiple tasks in a shorter amount of time.'"
I believe the article was about time wasted... at work.
Area IV, here I am
I'm not exactly famed for my work-ethic, so here are a few of my favourite ways to waste time at work:
1. Sleeping. Pretty obvious. Just go to the canteen, or some obscure place, and have a good kip. Works best when the machines are down on a night shift when no-one gives a shit. Make sure it's somewhere really obscure so you can't be accidently found. This only works if your job isn't one which is important.
2. Sweeping. Just get a brush, and pretend to be sweeping up. You can stand about with it, and it looks like you're working. Occasionally, say every 5 minutes, sweep some stuff up. That's all you have to do, and you have an alibi when some supervisor asks what you're doing.
3. Working. Work incredibly slowly, so by the time you're done, it's time to go home. It doesn't matter if you haven't really done anything, all that matters is that no-one can say you were skiving.
4. Get an easy job. Some jobs involve just standing there. Say when you're on a machine, you just stand there until something goes wrong (which is rare). Or security, or something equally non-eventful.
5. Time eating. Just think of some tasks, and then do them incredibly slowly. For example, think of something you need to do which is at the other end of the site. You can spend a few minutes 'preparing' to go, then you can slowly walk over, do what you have to do, then prepare to go back, then slowly walk back. If you're caught, you've got an alibi, you're in the middle of something. Also, you can go to the toilet, change your equipment, move some pallets around, do some paperwork, anything that doesn't really need doing, but eats up time.
6. Go to the bog. Take a book, paper, whatever, sit on the john for a good half hour. No-one's going to disturb you.
7. If you work in a place as filthy and run-down as I do, there's always something to clean up. So there's always an excuse to hang about sweeping up stuff, cleaning surfaces, hoovering up dust, anything really. You don't even have to be making any progress, as long as it looks like you're busy.
Your post is insightfull, but for me not havving enough work happens every month. You see I work in accounting, and at month end and the start of the month we are slammed with work. On the other hand, from the 22nd to the 28th the office dead. We will get our back filing done, and prep work done for the next month but when that runs out it's time for slashdot!
We are the Borg...
"Nazi" should be in quotes, you immense dunderhead!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
The SlashTitle made me think of:
...
1. Extended meetings where people aimlessly mull and nothing is produced
2. Following ingrained procedures which triple the time to do simple activities
3. Reinstalling failing software and OSes
But then it's about what people do with their spare time?? I want solutions to the above!!!
8-PP
She CLAIMED the accounting could be done in 45 minutes. I did not believe that.
As for answering phones, there was an average of 20 phone calls and hour and those involved maybe 4 dispatches per day to work crews.
SOMEONE had to be there to answer the phones, people hang up on answering machines, fact.
And hang ups = lost business.
The real pisser was that she was more interested in playing the games than answering the phones, dispatching or doing the accounting.
When I walked in, she was hypnotized by the stupid computer. When I would talk to her, she would just keep playing and sort of throw answers back to me, after long periods of silence. It was like talking to an autistic person.
I litterally had to tell her to turn the screen off while talking to me. She was obsessed with the computer games to the point that she was pretty much non-functional in her office duties.
Cell phone service here was very spotty then, towers were few and far between and service was very expensive. Not at all worth the expense. They finally began to install more towers and brought in competitors, service improved and prices went down.
I finally got cell service when the expense of the secretary outweighed the expense of shutting all but one phone line down and forwarding all numbers to my cell phone so I could be in the field and run the office on the road.
You people have no idea what a screwed up deal it was, there is no way that anyone can understand unless they were there to live it. Family businesses are always a pain in the ass. DO NOT HIRE FAMILY MEMBERS!!
Was it a perfect scenario? Hell no. Don't sit there and nit-pick me to death, it was how it was. I learned some hard lessons in those early days of my personal small business. You live, learn and move forward.