bored bored bored bored

[tielan]

My brain is dead. I think it’s because I have nothing to do around here right now. If I could take a day off and just write, I would. I just can’t right now because I’m waiting to hear back about defects found in testing.

That’s the thing about work: even if you have no work to do, you’re supposed to look like you’re doing work. The appearance of working is as important as the work itself. It’s actually kind of exhausting.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m so lazy that it’s just that I can’t work for more than about 4 hours a day. Or if I’m that efficient that I can get things done in a day when people think it’ll take 2 or 3 or 4 days. Or it might just be that I do things badly and they need more time to catch up.

If I knew I could go home when my work was done, would that make it easier for me to focus?

All right. I’m going home ‘early’ today because there’s no point in sticking around if I don’t have anything to do.

I guess I could write my MCU Exchange letter...

Comments

[beatrice_otter]

The thing is, they've done research, and ... it turns out that human beings are capable of about six hours of concentrated work in a day on average on a regular basis. Or, at least, six hours of productive work at their greatest efficiency (whatever that happens to be for their job). It may not be all in one chunk, mind, but that's about the average. So for anybody working an 8-hour shift, yeah, at least two hours of it is going to be faffing around. (That may not be two hours of faffing around all at one time, but rather broken into chunks of ten minutes here and there, mind.) When you reduce the workday to six hours (as the Scandinavians have done) you lose absolutely nothing in productivity.

(Yes, in a do-or-die situation, humans can work longer! ... but then we burn out quickly, it's not sustainable, especially for anyone older than about 30.)

[tielan]

I could absolutely get my work done in 6 hours quite comfortably. And it would leave me with a touch more time to do things that I otherwise don't get to do.

...a pity I can't find a workplace that will accept that. Same amount of work, fewer hours...

[beatrice_otter]

Alas, it's one of those things you have to do as a society, pretty much, just state what full time is going to be through legislation or widespread collective bargaining.