Timewaster Of The Week-Oct. 15 Special Edition
It's YOU, America!
That's right, you're all a bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing professional timewasters.
And if you're reading this blog on company time, you're underscoring the point.
Last week, I attended a workshop in which I and other Enterprise managers learned just how much time American employees waste across the land.
The average worker wastes 2.09 hours per eight-hour work day, according to a survey by America Online and Salary.com.
The No. 1 timewasting activity, of course, is Internet surfing, with 44.7 percent of those surveyed calling it their top work distraction. Socializing with co-workers came in at 23.4 percent, with conducting personal business on company time a distant third at 6.8 percent.
Some 3.9 percent listed simple "spacing out." I'm not sure how someone does this. If I saw a reporter sitting at her desk and blankly staring at the wall, I'd probably call an ambulance or a psychologist from human resources. If she's going to waste time, she needs to do it right.
Other distractions were running errands, making personal phone calls, applying for other jobs (snicker), planning personal events, arriving late/leaving early and a curious "other" at a chunky 12.5 percent.
I can't imagine what that "other" would be. Maybe it's toilet time, although I often like to make the most of it by reading a newspaper.
Some 33.2 percent cited lack of work for allowing them to wander off in timewasting directions, while 23.4 percent vindictively wasted time for being underpaid. Maybe if they worked harder, they could get a raise or a better job, eh?
The survey said men and women wasted about the same amount of time, but younger folks tended to waste more time than their elders. For example, those born between 1980 and 1985 wasted 1.95 hours daily, compared to 1.19 hours for my age group, born between 1960 and 1969.
Salary.com calculated that all this timewasting added up to $759 billion per year on salaries for which real work was expected but not performed. Texas ranked the 13th worst timewasting state. Missouri ranked No. 1, while South Carolina wasted the least amount of time. Laid-back Hawaii ranked a surprising 49th.
I'll admit to wasting some time here and there, but I also work well beyond 40 hours a week. I'm really busy from when I arrive around 8:15 a.m. to noon, but unless there is barn-burner news story going on, I sometimes have to find things to do in the early afternoon. I use this time for employee reviews, coordinating and following up on long-term projects, seeing how reporters' stories are coming along, adding to this blog and, yes, surfing the Internet, usually checking out TV and other newspaper web sites for breaking news or story ideas. My reporters also seem to like it when I come out and chat 'em up. They've even complained in their job reviews about me not doing it enough. I guess they find me entertaining at times.
Ironically, I look for timewasters to add to this blog, so I'm not helping the problem much. Occasionally, I'll get an e-mail from someone disgusted with themselves for getting addicted to a timewasting game I posted here.
However, from an business-opportunity standpoint, maybe there's a big untapped market in chronic timewasters, so the more time-killing opportunities we offer them at beaumontenterprise.com, the better. We'd love for them to spend a lot of their work day indulging in our outstanding products.
Journalism is a little like war. It can be highly busy and intense, or it can hit slow stretches where we polish our guns and look for productive ways to kill time.
I like to be busy. There is nothing like the adrenaline of being in the middle of covering a mammoth news story. We were crazy busy during the recent Hurricane Humberto.
I like my employees to be busy, too, but I'm not going to get lathered up if they have to make a quick run to the mall to buy a birthday present for their mom. When news breaks, I know they'll be on it like the Chicago Bears defense. And speaking of football, just look at how much time those guys spend standing around. If they played constantly for four quarters, there would be few, if any, survivors.
Like my boss sometimes says, what you lose on the apples you make up on the bananas. There'll be points during the work week where they're going at a sweat-shop pace, or maybe they have to sit in some boring school board meeting all night.
If they need a mental coffee break and want to spend a couple of minutes checking out The Onion online, that's OK, as long as it doesn't become excessive or chew into story quality and productivity.
If it does, I can always spend a couple of minutes surfing the Internet and coming up with something interesting for them to do.
So that's it for today.
GET BACK TO WORK NOW!!!!
That's right, you're all a bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing professional timewasters.
And if you're reading this blog on company time, you're underscoring the point.
Last week, I attended a workshop in which I and other Enterprise managers learned just how much time American employees waste across the land.
The average worker wastes 2.09 hours per eight-hour work day, according to a survey by America Online and Salary.com.
The No. 1 timewasting activity, of course, is Internet surfing, with 44.7 percent of those surveyed calling it their top work distraction. Socializing with co-workers came in at 23.4 percent, with conducting personal business on company time a distant third at 6.8 percent.
Some 3.9 percent listed simple "spacing out." I'm not sure how someone does this. If I saw a reporter sitting at her desk and blankly staring at the wall, I'd probably call an ambulance or a psychologist from human resources. If she's going to waste time, she needs to do it right.
Other distractions were running errands, making personal phone calls, applying for other jobs (snicker), planning personal events, arriving late/leaving early and a curious "other" at a chunky 12.5 percent.
I can't imagine what that "other" would be. Maybe it's toilet time, although I often like to make the most of it by reading a newspaper.
Some 33.2 percent cited lack of work for allowing them to wander off in timewasting directions, while 23.4 percent vindictively wasted time for being underpaid. Maybe if they worked harder, they could get a raise or a better job, eh?
The survey said men and women wasted about the same amount of time, but younger folks tended to waste more time than their elders. For example, those born between 1980 and 1985 wasted 1.95 hours daily, compared to 1.19 hours for my age group, born between 1960 and 1969.
Salary.com calculated that all this timewasting added up to $759 billion per year on salaries for which real work was expected but not performed. Texas ranked the 13th worst timewasting state. Missouri ranked No. 1, while South Carolina wasted the least amount of time. Laid-back Hawaii ranked a surprising 49th.
I'll admit to wasting some time here and there, but I also work well beyond 40 hours a week. I'm really busy from when I arrive around 8:15 a.m. to noon, but unless there is barn-burner news story going on, I sometimes have to find things to do in the early afternoon. I use this time for employee reviews, coordinating and following up on long-term projects, seeing how reporters' stories are coming along, adding to this blog and, yes, surfing the Internet, usually checking out TV and other newspaper web sites for breaking news or story ideas. My reporters also seem to like it when I come out and chat 'em up. They've even complained in their job reviews about me not doing it enough. I guess they find me entertaining at times.
Ironically, I look for timewasters to add to this blog, so I'm not helping the problem much. Occasionally, I'll get an e-mail from someone disgusted with themselves for getting addicted to a timewasting game I posted here.
However, from an business-opportunity standpoint, maybe there's a big untapped market in chronic timewasters, so the more time-killing opportunities we offer them at beaumontenterprise.com, the better. We'd love for them to spend a lot of their work day indulging in our outstanding products.
Journalism is a little like war. It can be highly busy and intense, or it can hit slow stretches where we polish our guns and look for productive ways to kill time.
I like to be busy. There is nothing like the adrenaline of being in the middle of covering a mammoth news story. We were crazy busy during the recent Hurricane Humberto.
I like my employees to be busy, too, but I'm not going to get lathered up if they have to make a quick run to the mall to buy a birthday present for their mom. When news breaks, I know they'll be on it like the Chicago Bears defense. And speaking of football, just look at how much time those guys spend standing around. If they played constantly for four quarters, there would be few, if any, survivors.
Like my boss sometimes says, what you lose on the apples you make up on the bananas. There'll be points during the work week where they're going at a sweat-shop pace, or maybe they have to sit in some boring school board meeting all night.
If they need a mental coffee break and want to spend a couple of minutes checking out The Onion online, that's OK, as long as it doesn't become excessive or chew into story quality and productivity.
If it does, I can always spend a couple of minutes surfing the Internet and coming up with something interesting for them to do.
So that's it for today.
GET BACK TO WORK NOW!!!!
posted by Brian Pearson at 10:14 AM
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