The 11% Solution A rebuttal to DAS SPOT by Alex Isgut "Working late one night I checked the counter on Mary Ann's solitaire game. It stood at an amazing 476 games played, over 30 hours of solitaire. Amazing, considering we only worked 35 hour weeks and only had the game for about 2 months, leaving Mary Ann playing solitaire almost 11% of the time she was sitting down." -- DAS SPOT Published July 1997 In defense of Mary Ann: I work for a small HMO out in Colorado. They don't have a lot for me to do here. I'm not sure why they hired me, and I have been on the verge of asking my supervisor, "So, Scott, when are you going to fire me?" But I play it honest. I don't hide the fact that I don't have work to do, and sometimes I even complain. It works for about 3 hours, then I'm out of things to do again. It would be preferrable to just leave work and put in fewer hours. At my last job as a reporter covering a bed-room community of bankers and stock brokers, I would put in 30-35 hour weeks. All that came of it was my editor nipping at me, "You're going to cost me this position." [Connecticut newspaper economics eventually cost her that position.] But it seems that small HMOs work differently than small newspapers, and 30-hour weeks are not acceptable. They don't want to fire me. They don't want me to work part time. And they can't give me enough work to do. And even though my supervisor is aware that I have nothing to do, it's not good politics to have an employee publically flaunt his corporate uselesness. So we play a game. The game is called, "Making forty," where I try stretch infinitely small projects into a 40-hour work week. Here's some of the more uncreative tactics I've adopted to win this game: 1. Talking to other cubicl'ers: This is a good social activity. It also gives you the image of a "team player." And if you don't talk to the same person for two hours, you can actually seem busy. Hint: Carry a notepad with you. 2. Surf the Web. If you don't have web access, it probably just means that the IT people forgot to add it to your desk top. Click 'Start' on your 95 Menu, Select Find Files, look for 'iexpl' (or 'netscape.exe' - ed) and make a short cut to whatever you find. Hint: Also add a corporately useful web-site to your Favorites,, like www.usps.com. Ever business has something to do with the mail, and if it doesn't, make something up. You may have to defend your newly-discovered web-access to the IT staff someday. A special bonus of web surfing is that you'll easily be the ceiling on the coolest desktop wallpaper on your floor. (Or just ask the intern in the computer department to hook you up. He' s probably not busy, either. - ed.) 3. E-Mail friends. I often ask myself the Dilbert question, "How did people ever look busy before computers?" 4. Write letters to e-zines throughout the day. On second thought, Mary Anne was a dumb bunny. Never play games at work. It wrecks the illusions of productivity that people want to believe in. If you're writing e-mail, you're writing, and it looks professional. If you're surfing the web for information, you're looking for information, that's professional and looks fine. But if your swivel-turning and slide-shuffling to blow away Doom critters, you're playing the wrong game. Unfortunately, that means I can't play "Stick it to the Man." Damn.

If there were a world where everyone had too much time on his or her hands, they would still have Alex to make fun of.       Contents | Regarding Huey | Stick It To The Man! | DAS SPOT Write Spite at whines@spitemag.com Copyright 1997 Will Hines