The Proper Etiquette For Wasting Time

Here’s another essay whose original version was written earlier this year. It got sent to a variety of outfits (see previous blog posting-8/19/16), with no luck for the piece seeing the radiant light of publication. I figured what the *%&&, so here it is. Getting the piece out there for the readers.

On a brighter note, I’m currently getting my permanent writing website together. I’ve had a temporary version since mid-February, but this one will be more web friendly for those who want to take a look at the various links available. One of those will be providing access to the blog postings for visitors to the website. If all goes well, it’ll be up and running by the end of September.  I want the website to grow, change, and evolve as my writing career progresses. Here’s hoping all you readers out there in Internet-space have a good Labor day holiday.

Word Count: 891

The Proper Etiquette
For Wasting Time

You know the type of person most folks despise with a special brand of hatred reserved exclusively for mass murderers, child molesters, and nerd types.

Let’s avoid some confusion. If this individual is still in the kid years, they always do all their homework, eat every vegetable on their plate, mind their manners, and never even think about playing hooky. The kind of kid that’s some sort of unnatural cyborg spawn. We now have documented evidence to prove these children do exist in case you’re wondering. Maybe you’re not, but we’ll tell you anyway.

Since some of these people are now Adults, they pretty much show up exactly on time for everything. Usually always do the job right, and 95% of the time this individual gets the project in before the due date-at or below budget no less. Not only that, the ingrate uses every moment of their measly existence to its maximum efficiency. We know precisely what you’re thinking, sick bastard, and totally agree with you on that by the way.

Thank God you now have someone who’s looking out for your welfare. The type of person who can give you a clear set of standards for using your life to its maximum inefficiency. You’re bored, and that’s good, but let us waste more time by going over these rules with you. The “Dos” (you should probably consider this), and “Don’ts” (maybe you should avoiding these).

There are 4 clear-cut standards you must adhere to:

1. Always go about your day putting forth the minimum amount of energy in order to achieve your goals. If you’re at work (and hopefully it’s a job you despise more than your ex-wife), there are a number of tasks you can carry out.

Here’s an example.

Find out where that utility closet is and beg, borrow or steal a key from the janitor. Then hide inside it and envision ways in which you can avoid doing your job, but still manage to get one of your colleagues to carry out the task at hand.

Figure out a way to take credit for finishing the project, then tell your associate they’re giving away free samples down in the lobby, or maybe have them pick up coffee and pastries right before the big management meeting takes place. The minute they walk out the door, lock it behind them so they can’t get back in, and then bathe in the glory you’ll be showered with when you tell the CEO and his Yes-men just how difficult it was coming up with a scenario for the project to succeed. Sit back and smile as they discuss your impending raise. Oh yes, take an alternate exit from that of the colleague you locked out when you leave for the day.

2. Pretend that project you just completed looks exactly

like the drawing in the owner’s manual (even though it

probably doesn’t).

Imagination is tremendous, and you need to take advantage of this fact. You’ve just finished building that book shelf/computer desk and it looks nothing like the picture you went off of during the construction phase. Maybe that’s because you’re like most males and totally disregard having to follow any sort of instructions and/or directions. Instruction manual? The first thing you did upon opening the box is squarely deposit it in the corner round file. Of course you did.

Rather than increasing your blood pressure levels and possibly “Going Postal” when you compare your finished product to the instruction manual drawing, use your imagination to envision the correct way it’s supposed to look. Let’s take it another step. Your version, which you hopefully put forth the minimal amount of energy to build, is a better rendering than the original model. You’re a genius, and even as we speak the design engineers in Silicon Valley are knocking down the door to get a crack at your services. Like I said, never underestimate the power of your creative energy. This takes a minimal amount of muscle power to pull off, so that’s another plus.

3. When at home, squander as much of your time as possible.

Do this in a manner that guarantees you’ll have a maximum

amount of leisure moments for napping.

Fortunately, modern society has provided us with a multitude of entities for achieving this objective. All sorts of wonderful distractions, including video games (a tremendous tool for those of us in the millennial generation), listening to music (don’t do too much of this as it can lead to visions of creating your own harmonious discord-ask your doctor), and the king of all distractions – watching television. Not just any TV viewing either. Reality television is always best, and don’t watch anything that results in you thinking beyond what you’ve just viewed. Nothing educational like PBS (God forbid), and only network News (that’s fairly obvious isn’t it?).

Distractions during the show you’re watching are permissible. By this I mean commercials. In fact, this is encouraged since the more sponsor breaks the better. Network sponsorship interruptions create a nice zombie-like stare in the subjects viewing the program.

4. There are really only three main points to adhere to when maximizing your inefficiency. Our estimable research department did say there were four, but coming up with one more sounded like too much work.