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Down Time At Work — What Do You Do?
An anonymous reader writes "I work in IT and find fairly often that I have 'down time.' I'll usually browse the web (Slashdot) or try to find something informative or educating to read. Sometimes, I even get caught up working on my personal webpage or other project that isn't exactly work related. What does everyone else do during these times, and how much time do they spend on non-work related things while at work?"
Talk about self-selecting for "I read web forums"...
Ce n'est pas une signature automatique.
Documentation documentation documentation and more documentation. I always bitch I never have enough time for documentation and then I find myself trolling /.
It's not the most fun thing to do but it certainly something that can always keep you busy and you can never have too much of it as long as it is well written AND well organized.
"Keep at least 3-6 full bottles of hard alcohol on hand, a 2 week resignation notice,..." - Poetmatt
You really ARE new here.
Besides, you are more productive if you take a break every now and then. So what you're saying is that you would rather LOOK like you're brown-nosing, while you're in fact making yourself LESS efficient, rather than taking time to talk with co-workers, etc., which improves the lines of communications in a company, and ultimately contributes more to the bottom line in terms of increased efficiencies.
Don't forget those new TPS reports. And your 35 pieces of flair.
Kevin Smith on Prince
If I have enough down time to get wrapped up in my own personal projects, I better start looking for another job. Positions with full-time pay and part-time work get out-sourced or eliminated, I'd expect.
Besides, while I don't like having way too much to do, being busy providing value to your employer and yourself is more rewarding than being paid to be paid.
Sounds like you don't like the down time or feel guilty about it. Go find another job or create a better one where you are.
Research and Development.
/., etc...
/., read about some new tech, etc... you will have earned it.
Always it's this.
Things don't reach a state of running very well without people thinking about how to get there. Your downtime is a chance to explore an idea, setup test environments, write scripts to nail annoying and recurring problems, work on your budget justification, yes --surf some
Ongoing investment in these things pays off. You are surprised less, plan better, and leverage your people, hardware and software better.
Don't worry, you won't get all the way there. Software update cockups, user error, and entropy in general will keep you busy. But, having done these things, the real downtime you get after that is rock solid! Listen to a few mp3's, surf
Blogging because I can...
Since I was hired to help understand the systems better, I spend a lot of time poking around and seeing what's what. Generally I find more work (like drives that have been complaining for 2 years).
:) ).
:)
I also document and help others on the team document their knowledge.
There's nothing worse than wanting to advance in the company and not being able to because you're the only one that knows the super secret way everything works together (or you're hit by a bus
I do a lot of reading as well. Slashdot being one but I also have a subscription to Safari so I can keep up on books without having to overload my library.
But I also pop out to hobby forums or read non-work related text. I have pdfs of most of my RPG books so I can have it open in the background and poke around in there. I also work on my web site from time to time. Since it's somewhat technical anyway, I can generally get away with it although I try not to be too obvious about it
[John]
Shit better not happen!
Downtime is for those projects that nobody will officially let you start, nobody "wants" and nobody will pay you to implement. Then, when you spend all that downtime putting it in, you pretend that you did it in your own time alongside your normal work, and people suddenly discover that all the projects that they considered a waste of time become something that they can't live without.
At least, that's how it's worked everywhere I've ever been employed.
For example, in a Windows-only school at which the only person who'd ever heard of Linux (the IT manager) treated mention of it like some kind of first word from a child ("Oh, you use Linux. That's cute. Tell me when you make something 'useful' out of it."), I had a few hours of downtime. Found a spare "obsolete" PC. Found a couple of network cards. Was tired of the "Linux being nothing more than a toy" digs.
In three hours (including install, configuration and a lot of testing) I implemented a caching, transparent proxy/filter which to this day is still filtering the Internet (with zero configuration changes either on the clients, servers or any other devices) for over a thousand users without anybody noticing any difference and saving the school in question several thousand pounds on buying their own filtering appliance (from the prices we were quoted). I implemented it in an afternoon and it went into full live service when school finished that day and is still there churning away. It's zero-maintenance (unless someone wants a particular website blocked, in which case they just stick its name into a plain text file), "invisible" to the network users so, unlike some of the other network equipment, the kids don't try to "hack" it and even if they do only the squid port actually does anything.
It's never been rebooted, never caused a problem, is the only thing standing between the kids and the nasty side of the Internet, is now the de facto and only Internet filtering within the school and if it ever "breaks" it has a Cat5-coupler taped to it with instructions - couple the "In" Ethernet cable to the "Out" cable and, without doing anything else, you bypass the filter without anyone noticing more than a seconds downtime. Obviously, it's in a secured cabinet so that only the IT manager can do that, but the demonstration of "now we're filtered, *click*, now we're not, *click*, now you're running off my proxy, *click*, now it's all back how it was before today, *click*"... was enough to silence the Linux-critic once and for all.
Then there's the school running a Jabber IM system that they "would never use". Then there's the school running the PHP helpdesk for which they had no use. Then there's the one whose IT department are running their own recording CCTV computer which nobody but the IT department know about, which emails them movies of any movement in the IT office overnight or when nobody is supposed to be in - it's already caught several "wanderers" who just happened to walk through the locked IT office when they had no need to and "just looked" at the pile of laptops hidden away. That system later got re-used to record classes for approximately £500 less per camera then our usual CCTV supplier.
All the best projects are done when you let the people who know how just let loose with their own ideas and not worry about whether the end product will be useful. Downtime is perfect for this and turns the most boring moments into the most interesting, especially if you have a large IT team who can all "show off" to each other.
Negative reinforcement sucks but after taking crappy jobs and leaving IT several years ago it made me realize how lucky I had it.
..". It motives me to appreciate my boss and work to make sure I stay where I am and give them my best even if its not ideal. There are lots of crappy things you can be doing for little pay which is true even with a college degree.
Whenever I goof off at school or work I just think "well I am sure OfficeMax or that amusement park I used to work for picking up trash at 5:30am needs my help. Maybe I should give them a call
Perhaps your job is not ideal which is why you keep daydreaming? Or your unchallenged? Then you need to accept more responsibilities at work or try something different elsewhere? Life is too short.
http://saveie6.com/
That is a little pretentious of you. It sounds like you feel your job is stressful, since you don't feel like someone else could hack it. Parent apparently found a job with some downtime. That doesn't say anything about whether he would thrive or wilt in a high stress job. But if he has such an accommodating job, why on Earth would he want to deal with your situation? We don't all have to tolerate bad working conditions.
Dude, calm down. Perhaps if you took a break from your work once and again, you wouldn't be so stressed out. I work 50 hours a week on average, and sometimes in the middle of the day, I'll take a break from working (oh noes); sometimes when I've worked 4 12 hour days in a row, I'll take a day off, a weekday! Work is not slavery, nor servitude; you provide a product to your employer, for which you are duly compensated - that's it.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
That's hard to believe, either you're fresh out of school with no responsibilities or are headed for getting laid off. Seriously, there is always something to do. Sometimes you need to take a break, that's different. Let me put it to you this way, you had better find something to do or your boss will. The latter, no matter what it is, you won't like it and may involve things like, "Nothing to do? Oh really, I've got a great project for you. First I'll take those keys and swipe cards. Next I'll get someone right over to watch you clean out your desk. Don't forget to stop by HR and sign a bunch of documents before we send you your last check. Have a great weekend!" Oh and please don't apply to my company when you're looking for a job, I don't need deadbeats like you.
I depends on if the job is accommodating or if the worker is just slacking. Even if there is no immediate issue that needs attention or long term project to work on, you can normally be doing SOMETHING useful for the company. And maybe that is trying something / learning something new, but it certainly isn't posting on slashdot.
This is why I spend my "down-time" scripting away my job to generate more down-time.
And that's exactly why you'll never go very far in your career.
I bet it's not you. I'm talking about meetings that drag on into their 3rd or 4th hour, when they were scheduled for one. There are 15 people in the meeting. The last 3 hours are basically a big mutual masturbation fest with the four biggest blowhard ass kissers in the room.
They're not trying to understand, they're trying hard to show the boss that they understand the MOST, or at least more than the other three schmucks who are also trying to show that they understand the most.
Meanwhile, I'm getting hungry because it's 6:30 and nobody's ordered the takeout yet. Man, just thinking about it is making me CRAZY. I sure am glad I don't work there any more.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
This must be what you guys are doing when you *should* be doing quality and stress testing on your machines.
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