BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 11:55 AM

I only waste time at work betwwen Mudcat sessions!!

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 11:41 AM

Just a slight exageration, I haven't read everything at Gathersburg. Mostly folk songs and ballads. But most good stuff is in the reference section, like some folk, a few editons of Grove's Dictionary, old pop songs and old plays-e.g., the dates that Kitty Clive sang her Gaelic "Aileen Aroon", and Mr. Birkhead's "Jack on the Green" was performed (very popular tune later). I've also used the reference book there on libraries to find contacts, and got the tune "Peggy Darby, or the Dandies' [best known as "Bonnie Lass of Fyvie, O", opr "Constitution and Guerierre", or Judge Learned Hand's "The Iron Merrimac" (Merrimack in Levy collection] now) in vol. 3 of Aird's Airs from the Forbes Library in Northampton, Mass.

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Greyeyes
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 11:03 AM

Lunch break only, apart from occasional posts that are work related (to do with resources in the music department). My line manager is an occasional lurker on the Mudcat and knows my online moniker, so I have to be conscientious.

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Bernard
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 10:35 AM

I rarely look at Mudcat at work, there just isn't time. I deal with the odd personal email if it's 'urgent', but that's the exception rather than the rule.

I'm a 'home' Mudcatter, as my phone bill will prove...

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: GUEST,Nancy King at work
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 10:29 AM

Bruce-- Sure, we have a few good books at Germantown, though if you've really "exhausted" the resources at Gaithersburg (the largest library in Montgomery County) you can consider yourself very well read indeed! Come in and see us sometime!

Cheers, Nancy

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: gnu
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 10:12 AM

Work ??? !!! United and Liverpool have just kicked off !!! No work for at least two hours ! Go Liverpool !

gnu

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: John P
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 10:05 AM

Wow, you folks need to find new jobs! I can't imagine spending all day, everyday, doing something so stupid and boring that you are able to convince yourselves that ripping off your employer is really in their best interest.

How about trying this: find things to do at work that are interesting and profitable, and encourage all your co-workers to do the same. Take over your department, whether you have a "manager" or not. Become a self-managed workplace. Set higher quality standards. Improve the product. Find out why and where you have all this slack time, and find out the same about your co-workers. Figure out how to combine all that spare time and use it to do your manager's work. Go to your manager's boss and tell him or her that your department can get all your manager's work done even if the manager is gone. Get a raise for eveyone. Better yet, go work for a small company where people acutally get treated like people. It usually doesn't pay as well, but it is worth it.

Come on, folks, you spend most of your time at work. It sounds like many of you are getting bored, discouraged, and ethically challenged by being completely disconnected from what you are doing all day. You might have better lives if you were to engage in what you are doing, or go do something else that interests you in any way.

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: GUEST,(jo)
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 07:56 AM

on the days im asked to work at all, i have to sit in front of this computer
and wait for people to just maybe ask me a question
with two staff and four public computers, it doesnt happen often :)

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 07:15 AM

I am and I'm supposed to be on my Easter hols - addictive this Mudcat !!!

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: GUEST,Blues Killer
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 10:25 PM

I quit my job so I could "waste" more time on the Mudcat!

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 09:02 PM

Any good books where you work Nancy? I've exhausted the Gaitherburg branch, and can never find a parking spot at the Rockville main branch. Silver Spring is farther than I want to go unless it's very special. The converted house library that I went to when I lived in Kensington is long gone.

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 08:47 PM

Most of my questions to librarians have to do with finding the xerox machine or the microfiche reader. Phones don't work for that, I need a real person.

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: GUEST,Nancy King at work
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 07:14 PM

I am a public librarian, and about half my working time is spent at the public information desk. Unless we're really busy, a good bit of that is spent just waiting for the phone to ring or someone to come up and ask a question. So here I am with an internet-connected terminal in front of me -- Mudcat definitely fills the void. I can easily switch to the catalog or whatever other site I need in order to answer a question, and switch back when I'm finished. I suppose I could explore wonderful new reference sites, and occasionally I do, but Mudcatting is better for my attitude...

Cheers, Nancy

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Chester
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 02:32 PM

Werk???!!!

My muther tot me knot to say four letter wurds in perlite sosiety. Speshully four letter wurds endin in K!

Sew kornsider yerselph roundly kastergaited fer sich langwidge. 'Sides, eye dont due that in publick ennyways.
Chester

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: JudeL
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 01:07 PM

Access to the net at work - chance 'd be a fine thing - access to the net at home - only after applying a crowbar to the kids, that or bribery

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Morticia
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 11:47 AM

Oooooh, look, just another waste of time Guest on the forum.liz, hope you're okay, ring or message me, yeah?

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 11:34 AM

Just another waste of time thread on the Forum.

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 Mar 01 - 11:32 AM

Not me - firstly I don't have access to the outside world via the Net - have to be a grade C2 or above for that..... and secondly, I've been signed off sick for 2 weeks!! So I'm wasting time here at home instead..... luckily illness is in my head, rather than physical.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Peg
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 08:46 PM

I used to surf the net a lot at work before I got laid off...also cuz I did not have internet access at home.

Now I teach part-time and surf the net whenever I want! That includes Mudcat.

I am in agreement: happy employees are productive employees. I think we should make afternoon naps the norm, too; too many employees are bleary-eyed from lack of sleep and try to beat the mid-afternoon slump with coffee and sugar; this is not healthy.

Think; why do so many offices need next to no excuse to get a cake to celebrate someone's birthday, etc.?

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: GUEST,Pete M at work
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 08:15 PM

I don't waste my employers time at work, I am not responsible for their actions nor how they use their time.

Like a lot of other people above I waste an awful lot of MY time whilst at work dealing with issues that could have been avoided by the application of that ultimate oxymoron "common sense" by my employers.

As RichM and DTG have pointed out the whole concepts of 'wasted time', 'loss'(as in a fictional gap between a percieved theoretical maximum and actuality, as opposed to a real drop) 'value' and 'success' are so value laden as to be meaningless in discussing anything to do with businesses. Because an organistaion hires me to do a job does not imply that I accept or conform to their value system.

One of the perks of my job is being able to point out to "successful" organisations that measures based on much vaunted financial criteria like "performance pay" are demonstrably counter productive. Of course this is heresy and normally ignored, but that doesn't alter the figures.

Pete M

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Morticia
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 07:10 PM

The very idea of having even a few moments spare to Mudcat at work is completely foreign to me....I don't have enough time to cover what I need to get done even with overtime, Mudcatting would be an impossibility.

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Spud Murphy
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 05:11 PM

Beg pardon. Should have said "CONTAINS a non sequitur." Forgive me.

Spud

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: GUEST,kimmers at work
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 05:09 PM

Well, I'm the boss, so I can waste time if I want!!

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Spud Murphy
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 05:04 PM

The caption of this thread is a non sequitur.

Or is it an oxymoron?

Spud

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Melani
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 04:28 PM

Having worked TOO MANY hours in March, I have had the luxury of being home alone in the daytime since Monday. That's pretty much the only way I"ve been able to get computer time at home lately, with stiff competition from three other people. At work I often only take 15 minutes for lunch, so I figure that entitles me to 45 minutes of Mudcat time. But I try to take it in 15-minute pieces, to maintain the illusion of industry.

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: LR Mole
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:44 PM

" One of the signs of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."
Bertrand Russell. This certainly has cyber-shopping beat.

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: GUEST,bbc at work
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 11:48 AM

only during my lunch (half) hour. I have to admit I Mudcat rather than being social w/ 3D people. Bad me!

bbc (unwinding from a morning of teaching grade 4-6)

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: mousethief
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 11:39 AM

Well, I come over here when I have long programs running. Much more interesting than watching the mainframe count the hundredths of a second it's devoting to my code.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Kim C
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 11:29 AM

Me.

My job is such that there is not always much to do. Some days there is a LOT to do. It all gets done. I work in a small office and employees getting online has never been an issue. If it should ever become an issue, I will comply with whatever they set forth.

The face of the workplace is changing, though. Several people in my office have laptops paid for with agency money, but they get to take them home and use them for whatever. My boss's kids do their homework on hers, and another took hers on the airplane so she could watch DVDs.

Someone else mentioned that they give thought to work-related matters while not at work. I promote the work my agency does every chance I get, and I often come up with some very good work-related ideas while not at work.

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From:
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 09:32 AM

Work is wasting time. This is worthwhile.....

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 09:21 AM

Im off sick at the moment, so I'm allowed to waste my own time. But when I am at work, we dont have internet access on our own computer because of the confidential data held on our local network. We have a seperate computer hooked up to the net, but can really only use that at lunchtimes etc.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: gnu
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 08:45 AM

Pax said.... I would just like to encourage everyone to study up on National Stress Awareness Month (April)....

RATS ! I forgot ! It's only four days away and I'm not prepared ! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO ????!!!! I can't ready in just four days. There's just not enough time. Ah well, I'll just stay here on the 'Cat and forget about it. No sense in getting stressed.

gnu

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 08:37 AM

I totally agree that it's good for morale and to relieve stress, improve productivity, empower self-motivation, etc. However, understand that your employer could be looking - on their screen - at exactly what you're looking at on your screen. There is definitely audit/monitoring software that lets them view not only your screen, but can keep an audit log of whatever you key.

Think about this the next time your desktop freezes up. Could be too many users active there. You can actually check out what's also running (like auditors), if you know how.

Everything you post here can also be viewed. Big brother may indeed be watching, and there is most likely someone watching in today's business environment. It's considered prudent.

Luckily, I voluntarily left all that behind, and am now happily "retired" and on my own time. God only knows what creatures are still peeping at my hard drive!

Here's a previous thread that also discusses the topic:
Work Cheats

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Michael in Swansea
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 08:21 AM

I HAVE to Mudcat from work as I'm not on line at home.

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: MMario
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 08:18 AM

what Julie said.

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 08:03 AM

*from a poster on the Underground but true nevertheless*

in the greater scheme of things 99% of everyones work is irrelevant

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: JulieF
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 05:59 AM

Quite often - I'm watching something run on the computer and dipping into the Mudcat off and on. I'm not wasting time just doing something productive with the other half of my mind. Sometimes I am eating my sandwiches - I can truely multitask

All the best

Julie

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Firecat
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 05:54 AM

Weeeeellllll, I'm on a free period at college at the moment. BUT, I haven't got any work to do so I'm not wasting time. I'm actually being good while I'm waiting for my boyfriend!! So there!!!

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 04:34 AM

There's wastes of time & wastes of time. Yes, I'm wasting company time if I'm mudcatting - but its not such a complete waste of time as the work I am supposed to be doing...
I suppose, given that the Co. pay for my time then they can do with it what they will - but really!! I find it very depressing to be developing truly rediculous mobile phone applications that are completely futile & that no-one in their right mind will ever use.
Hmph!
Mudcatting is a waste of resource from the company's point of view, but definitely not from my point of view.
Anyway - I'll justify it the same way as P Mitchell, because there is definitely a trade-off & I do tend to mull work-related things over in my own time (especially if I'm getting to work on one of the non-futile projects).
Kris K

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 04:28 AM

I'm on the computer all day anyway in work - but since I'm just a research student I manage my own time - that is, I manage to be on Mudcat on my own time. Some days I'll be too busy to give it more than a cursory glance, but other days I'll be a bit over-zealous with the "refresh" button and will re-read every thread on the list. Besides, I can always claim it's useful to my work (ha!).

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:56 AM

Well, I tried working this evening, and found it a total waste of time. I couldn't get the company laptop to boot, so it was a good excuse to quit and wait until tomorrow. It reminded me how much I used to hate doing the stupid things a government contractor has to do, and now I'm having trouble finding the patience to do only two days of stupidity a month.
I have to work the whole day tomorrow, at least four hours. Darn.
But my Mudcat time is very productive. I harvest lots of songs, and learn lots of stuff.
-Joe Offer, mostly retired-

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Gervase
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:27 AM

Wasting time? It's never a waste of time!

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From:
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:26 AM

I feel it's a fair trade off. I get ideas for work in my spare time, I give thought to the things that need to be done at work on my way in and on my way home. So, it feels OK to spend a bit of time at work on non-work stuff in return.

Paul

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:17 AM

I waste LOADS of time at work. All the time I could be doing something sensible, like mudcatting, I find myself designing high availability systems, specifying mass storage requirements and visiting customers....

Must put a stop to it one of these days so I can do something important.

NOT joking BTW. I find the concept of business being important daft, and even dafter that people feel they need to run their computer systems 24 hours a day to make these businesses work. It sure as hell puts food on the table though....:-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 03:16 AM

Yep!. In breaks and between "clients" as we have to call students nowadays. Need to keep sane somehow!
RtS

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Amergin
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 01:25 AM

I am only able to check out the 'cat in between screwing up peoples computers for them......sometimes the in between stretch is longer than others though....

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: wdyat12
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 01:12 AM

We can't get on the computers to go to sites like Mudcat. Bath Iron Works builds ships for the Navy and the FBI is watching the computers. We waste alot of the company's time talking about Mudcat. Does that count?

wdyat12

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 12:50 AM

If most companies didn't approach employee relations like Nazis, business would be even more successful. Stress at the workplace is the number one preventable cost to employers in the United States. - It also leads to causing the second most preventable cost - stealing (by the way, statistics show that management level types are 30% more likely to steal than regular workers).

Hence the reason I now work at home. I don't make as much money as I used to, but I find that I do better work, get more work done during the hours I do work and I can go back and forth between work and personal time when ever I want. I regularly work until 2 or 3 in the morning and wake up at 10 or 11 am - and that appears to be my regular sleeping schedule.

When I am working and I feel like tha I've accomplish a lot, I reward myself by doing things like visiting Mudcat. (It is better than eating ice-cream).

The odd thing is that while I make much of my living by research on the internet and compute writing, I still spend a lot of time on my computer - I guess that's how you can tell if you like your job, if you do similar things to kill time.

OK, that's a longer message than I planned to share.

I would just like to encourage everyone to study up on National Stress Awareness Month (April) and see if you can do something to de-stress your workplace - your bosses will appreciate it once they finally see the increased level of productivity and the better attitudes of their slaves - I mean, loyal employees.

Pax yall

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: RichM
Date: 28 Mar 01 - 12:11 AM

Putting a "value" on time lost by businesses is fictional.
Humans are incredibly adaptable. We can compress work efficiently to perform it during a shorter time, or stretch it out to fill the hours.
In any case, the work gets done.

Subject: RE: BS: How many of us are wasting time at work?
From: Callie at work
Date: 27 Mar 01 - 11:27 PM

Well I hope my employer has learnt something about the movable B7 chord in that case!

I used to feel guilty about Mudcatting at work.

If I stopped Mudcatting, I would be a sad, unproductive employee, so I reckon I'm helping my organisation by Mudcatting.