Office survival
Friday, February 10th, 2006 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanYes, Gentle Reader, I am wasting my time with LJ again instead of working. Between you and me, this is a lot more interesting way of spending time than dealing with all the paperwork that comes across my desk.
I’m not sure how many updates there will be today (as if it mattered), or whether or not I actually have anything to say, but the appearance of working is important, and provided that I type in Word, occasionally pausing to look baffled or concerned (both of which come naturally to me anyway), I can get away with this for some time before actually doing anything productive. In a few minutes, my cigarettes and I, in the company of the sudoku pages of The Times will disappear downstairs for a few minutes’ break.
It’s a hard life.
Later on today I shall write a little more of the NWO character I’m working on, and then to finish, I may excavate the Pre-Cambrian levels of my in tray to see what got labelled as urgent but was forgotten and had no repercussions. This is an important task, for it enables me to prioritise my time wasting. The ability to spot something somebody purports to need immediately, but in fact is of no consequence either to them or anyone else is a vital time management skill. Similarly, there are monitoring exercises which can be filled out in advance, provided that you take care to leave a little room for improvement, by which I mean try as you might, some stuff will miss deadline, so you just have a believable failure rate which isn’t too large to cause criticism and is big enough to allow for improvement. That should fluctuate over a seven month cycle, adjusted for the comparative quiet of mid July and all of August, so that that no-one notices a repetitive pattern building up.
You can do that on a spreadsheet, if you try to be creative enough.
You know, until I wrote it down, I never realised what hard work it can be, being lazy.
I’m off for a smoke and some sudoku action.
I’m not sure how many updates there will be today (as if it mattered), or whether or not I actually have anything to say, but the appearance of working is important, and provided that I type in Word, occasionally pausing to look baffled or concerned (both of which come naturally to me anyway), I can get away with this for some time before actually doing anything productive. In a few minutes, my cigarettes and I, in the company of the sudoku pages of The Times will disappear downstairs for a few minutes’ break.
It’s a hard life.
Later on today I shall write a little more of the NWO character I’m working on, and then to finish, I may excavate the Pre-Cambrian levels of my in tray to see what got labelled as urgent but was forgotten and had no repercussions. This is an important task, for it enables me to prioritise my time wasting. The ability to spot something somebody purports to need immediately, but in fact is of no consequence either to them or anyone else is a vital time management skill. Similarly, there are monitoring exercises which can be filled out in advance, provided that you take care to leave a little room for improvement, by which I mean try as you might, some stuff will miss deadline, so you just have a believable failure rate which isn’t too large to cause criticism and is big enough to allow for improvement. That should fluctuate over a seven month cycle, adjusted for the comparative quiet of mid July and all of August, so that that no-one notices a repetitive pattern building up.
You can do that on a spreadsheet, if you try to be creative enough.
You know, until I wrote it down, I never realised what hard work it can be, being lazy.
I’m off for a smoke and some sudoku action.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 11:23 am (UTC)It makes me blood boil that I have to slave away, idling at my desk from dawn (no earlier than 9:15am) to dusk (finished reading /.) to support the likes of you.
Only consolation is that when you've dragged yourself to retirement age (yes, just over the crest of that-there hill mate) and settle down to a life of repose, you'll find that you've already reposed so much you won't be able to find anything non-constructive to do that you are not alredy bored with.
At that point, I win... Something...?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 11:36 am (UTC)The net effect is we cannot get mortgages as big as people with similar responsibilities elsewhere.
I will never get bored with repose, or prodding you on the forehead for your impertinent comments.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 11:45 am (UTC)Oh, and a great big hammer
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 11:54 am (UTC)Must dash - off to the Battersea Beer Festival, where I will drink your index-linked health!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 12:02 pm (UTC)This is work of grate delicacy, requiring care and attention. It ain't toffee brittle you know!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 12:22 pm (UTC)*passes over pastry brush and creeps softly away*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 01:56 pm (UTC)Now, if you can just do something about the arrogant bollock-heads who think I should bow and scrape attentively to their every utterance...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 03:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 06:01 pm (UTC)