Workslacking: good for you, good for America
By Jenny Bundock
It’s pretty much summertime. Exams are finished, applications to schools are done, all the final essays and assignments are handed in, and if you are like me this means you’ve suddenly got a hell of a lot of time on your hands.
For me, this means that I’ve start making lists like crazy; dazed by my ability to ration my time differently, I set lofty goals for my summer months. I eagerly write out wish lists of things I’d like to, or need to do, like “get wisdom teeth out,” “visit mother,” “get weird mole checked out,” or “read three fiction books.” Having made the list, I am satisfied, and I proudly tack all 30-odd listed tasks onto the wall of my room to be scratched off as the hazy days of summer roll by.
What I seem to forget every single year is that day-to-day tasks like “do the laundry” and “wash the dishes” that never make the summer list — and despite my “free time”, I don’t end up doing anything that I thought I would do, and look back in August and think, “besides this tan, what did I do over the last couple months?”
In fact, I would go so far as to assume that we all have this kind of an attitude towards future free time. It’s this mythical 4th dimension that we know exists, but that we cannot quite conquer or bind into submission in order to complete tasks.
My latest encounter with “future free time” was in planning my trip to Europe, which is coming up in a little over a week. I caught myself in the classic assumption of “I’ll do it on the plane.” I stupidly thought that I would summarize the book I just finished, start and possibly finish my new book, and maybe get my address book in order so I know who to send postcards too. I mean, I’d have eight hours right? Eight sweet, sweet future hours.
The problem with this train of thought is that I have been on enough planes to know that the only thing you ever can really stand to do on a long flight is sleep. I have learned this so well that my carry-on for use in flight now consists of a walkman (yep, I still have a walkman), a half-done book, $5 for a magazine, Werthers Original for take-off and landing, a pen, and my moleskin.
Gone are the days of three books, two magazines, a to-do list, my day planner, my laptop, a deck of cards, six packs of lifesavers, and other food colouring-laden candies to make me hyper. One trip to Australia in first year taught me that the plane is for sleep and a book to make you sleep. That’s it.
So why do we do this? Why do we assume that the future will be a leisurely romp through all the things we didn’t have the time or interest to invest in when we were:
Employed; in school; living at home; living with a roommate; going out for pub night; getting ready to leave for vacation; planning a trip to the cottage; dating that person; friends with that person; part of that club; in that play; working on that article; eating that dinner; studying for that exam; or any other thing we see as only a temporary distraction from all the shit we’ll be able to do when it goes away.
Perhaps this is growing up? Maybe this is why the baby boomers are reluctant to retire — because they know it’s a scam. We scam ourselves into believing that we are merely one small obstacle away from endless joy and insanely efficient productivity. See the boomers, they know it’s a joke; they were the Freedom 55-ers. They retired a decade ago, then realized it wasn’t all hot stone therapy, sipping margaritas on a white beach with their best friends (not the ones that tie up all their time), or reading every book they thought looked interesting, and being totally caught up on LOST.
They got to that beach, realized the drinks were $11.50, the books were just as long, everyone wanted a piece of their time, and that LOST is just too damn hard to follow even if you watch it end to end, and they went back to work.
So what is the solution?
Slacking off at work.
Hear me out. I think we need to reclaim OCCUPIED time. Occupied time, now that is true productivity time. Think about it: if you are say, at work, and you are alone, and there is a computer there, then you will answer the 30 emails that have been sitting in your inbox without even thinking about it.
If you are supposed to be studying for your exam, you are damn right you’ll finish your fiction book, and blog about it too! If you are in a lecture, and it is the same women’s studies lecture you’ve already heard 50 times on essentialism, then damn right you can research your entire environmental policy paper in those three hours, and email your best friend about how lame that lecture is during break.
I believe that the true ticket to free time is feeling like you don’t have any and that you are slacking off on the stuff you are supposed to be doing. For this reason, I am offering my services as a life coach. I will bombard you with a bunch of tasks that you must complete, despite their stupidity and tedious nature, and force you to sit in a place you hate for hours on end. If you haven’t finished all the shit you wanted to do by the end, I’ll give you a full refund.
I estimate that this is the precise strategy that the US has employed in Iraq. Afghanistan wasn’t enough of a resource pit, so they had to get busier and spend more money… then finally, one sweet day, a young slacker with a spring in his step would wander off to some cave to text message his optometrist, and BAM — found Osama. You heard it here first.
Simply genius.
YES! JENNY FOR PRIME MINISTER!
EXACTLY! imagine all this shit I could get done if I was supposed to be running the country… you may be on to something there!