Doing non-journalism piddling while working

I start this wondering aloud ... I am at a MAJOR college football game right now. And one of the papers who are considered the hometown papers for the visiting school has two folks here -- one of whch is idly pecking away at his keyboard while the other is checking his e-mail, playing solitaire and firing up this site.

Meanwhile, the other 200 of us up here are keeping notes, blogging, and, well, DOING OUR JOBS.

WTF, people? Is it that hard?

rb

 

If you're doing your job how do you know what other people are doing? And aren't you on this site too?

 

During the MIGHTY LONG tv timeouts, yes. While I blog and keep stats and talk to the other writers here from my paper.

rb

 

I see. I see. What's the score?

 

At halftime, and after two more blog posts, 14-9.

rb

 

Auburn-Alabama, nice.

 

Maybe others don't have to blog. And with roughly 17 minutes between plays...there's only so many notes one can take.

 

People work at different paces, with different methods, even on the same assignment. "Piddling" to one may be "organizing your thoughts" to another, even if it seems wasteful from an outside view.

 

I'm checking in here during the breaks, but my eyes are on the field when play resumes. Honest.

 

Who gives a crap? Do your job and stop worrying about how other do -- or don't do -- theirs. Unless they're being loud and distracting I really don't see the point of this.

 

Had a boss once who loved to play online trivia during work.
After catching him red-handed one day, I worked up the nerve to ask why he plays trivia when there is work to be done.

His response: "I work better when my mind isn't overloaded and every hour or so, I just need a quick escape."

That might sound like total BS (and to most of us, that response would be), but he worked better under pressure and hardly ever missed a deadline.

So ... goes to show you, everyone has their own work methods. There are plenty of folks who should be working when they are piddling, but, no one ever said everything is fair.