What to do at work besides working

Shouldn’t you be doing something else right now? Anyhow, if you’re wasting your employer’s time, you’re not alone. According to a survey by AOL and Salary.com, “the average worker admits to frittering away 2.09 hours per eight-hour workday, not including lunch and scheduled break-time.” How do people while away the hours when they’re supposed to be working but aren’t? The chief diversion is surfing the Internet for personal use, a sin to which 45 percent of the survey’s respondents confessed. Some of them were probably wasting time reading blogs. Other unproductive pastimes include socializing with co-workers (23 percent), conducting personal business (7 percent) and the ever-popular “spacing out” (4 percent). Apart from an intrinsically slothful character, why does a worker waste time? The top reason given was “don’t have enough work to do” (cited by 33 percent). For others, it’s a deliberate blow against the capitalist exploiters, as 23 percent said they waste time because they’re underpaid. One obvious caveat to the findings: These are the opinions of people who had the time in their not-so-busy days to answer a bunch of questions about time-wasting.

—Posted by Mark Dolliver

July 12, 2005 | Permalink