Times A-Wastin'

Most jobs have dead spots during the work day when workers have nothing constructive to do. Instead of risking being caught doing nothing and either being chastised or given pointless busy work to do, some workers have mastered the art of creatively wasting time. That is, they know how to look busy, while actually doing nothing.

Having worked in many jobs with lots of dead time, I've pretty well mastered the fine art of time wasting. Which method I use depends on the type of job and the expected amount of downtime available.

On the police force, in patrol cars, there's not usually a whole lot of actual downtime. But as we were assigned to particular zones and not the entire city, sometimes on a quiet second or third shift night, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot to do after driving through our zones, checking things out. Though we'd ride through and check the area more than once, in between rounds there were opportunities for a bit of goldbricking,which typically took the form of stopping at convenience stores and chatting with the clerks, returning to the station to chat with the dispatchers and jailers and taking our time in the bathrooms. There were some on third shift who even pulled into secluded alleys to park and catch 40 winks. I never slept on duty, but now and then I did engage in a few quickies on a dead night, an example of which you can read on my explicit blog.

When working the desk, there were plenty of ways to waste time. Because there were few higher ups in the station on second and third shifts, one could waste time while not worrying about looking busy. As long as someone remained at or near their posts, inside workers were free to read books, use the phone, play gameboys, etc. Of course, if someone came into the station needing help, we were to stow all the evidence of nonworking activities immediately.

In plant/factory jobs, the tactics differ somewhat. In a plant, when there is a downtime, either because of a machine being repaired or simply waiting for more work to arrive, usually those waiting are expected to clean their area. Usually, the area was already clean from recent previous downtimes, and all that needed to be done was a minimal amount of sweeping. Once we were done with that, there was nothing to do but wait. The higher ups, who'd never worked at our level, couldn't quite get this, and couldn't stand to see people not doing anything, even if there was nothing to do. So, we all found ways to look busy so not to attract any supervisor's negative attention.

There were those who walked around with clipboards, brooms, pallet jacks, carts, etc looking like they were doing something. The key to success with this maneuver was not to stay in one spot too long, but to keep moving around the plant, avoiding supervisory types. If one happened by, one swept a bit, stopping when they were out of sight. If one had nothing in their hands to mime working with, you could always bend over and pick up a piece of invisible trash.

Another key to successful time wasting is to stay out of sight. In addition to keeping moving, avoiding supervisors as mentioned above, one can take extended bathroom breaks and simply hide until the downtime is over. I would find a newspaper, lock myself in a stall, and settle in for awhile. Judging by the amount of people coming in and out, I could usually guess when it was time to return to my station.

Still another tactic was to visit human resources and ask them questions about various things: your insurance, apply for a different position in the plant, whatever. This was one where you couldn't get into trouble, as we were encouraged to bring our concerns to HR at such times.

One could also visit the medical station to get an aspirin, bandaid, whatever. As this station was on the opposite side of the plant from where I worked, this involved a nice little walk, where I could also stop in the bathroom, visit a vending machine, chat with those in other departments, etc.

In the plant I worked at, a visit to one's car was also a possibility. This was a favorite tactic of smokers, who went there to smoke or use their cell phones.

These are a few of my typical time wasting tactics. What are some of yours?