You Call that Work?

There is an unwritten rule somewhere that a certain percentage of the time you spend at work doesn't involve working at all. We all know that no one can be productive for 8 hours straight without suffering some kind of a complete mental breakdown. The human mind needs diversion. A chat, a cup of coffee, a quick surf of the internet (every office worker's best friend). I'm not talking about an illegal amount of distraction, just enough to get you through your day. Some people smoke, others go for a walk. Some people spend all day emailing their friends while others wander the halls looking for office supplies and bothering their colleagues along the way. You can think of this time as unproductive, but that would be shortsighted. Sure, those fifteen minutes didn't close any deals, create any new opportunities, or cross anything off the task list, but (let's not lose sight of this) it was refreshing. It picked you up enough to keep going until you could safely turn off your monitor and head home. Employers should never overlook the benefits of "wasted" time.

However, that said, there are certain distractions that are difficult to justify. Yesterday, as I walked down a hallway, I saw a colleague rearranging the push pins on her corkboard. There was nothing on the corkboard save for about two-dozen multi-coloured pushpins. She was placing them into two neat rows at one end of the board. From what I could tell, there was no colour coding going on, the point seemed to be the alignment rather than any discernable pattern. Now, I've done my share of surfing, chatting, and emailing in my illustrious career. I've rearranged the papers on my desk to avoid making a difficult phone call. I know about avoidance techniques. But in all my years of gainful employment, pushpin art has never figured into my repertoire of diversionary tactics. Possibly because when someone walks by your office and you are surfing the net, they can’t really tell that you aren’t working. You could be doing research, looking up a number or a word or doing any number of the other work-related tasks that are facilitated by the web. It’s pretty hard to mistake playing with pushpins for anything else. Play at work, people. Play all you want as long as you can still get your job done. But, for your salary’s sake, if you are going to play, at least play smart.