Wasting Time at Work: A How-to-Guide

It's 6:00 am and your alarm rings. What are your first thoughts upon waking up? How am I going to waste time at work today?! Well, those are my first thoughts and this is the how-to-guide from me to you on exactly that. If you follow this plan you'll do about an hour of actual work and who doesn't like avoiding actual work?

Let's say you have to be to work by 8:00am. The smartest of workers arrive at 8:05am, citing a slow moving bus or a busy elevator as their excuse for being tardy. Don't have an elevator in your place of business? Blame your delay on a bum knee and a parking spot that was as far away as possible.

Now we'll take the rest of the day in steps starting with...

Coffee: Everyone knows you have to start your day off with a cup (or two, or three) of coffee. Don't drink it black, because then you won't gain the valuable time wasting seconds that it takes to open up the creamer and stir in the sugar. I use three creamers, because I'm hardcore into wasting time. But only one sugar, as I have to watch my girlish figure. After coffee everyone knows that it's time for step number two.

Bathroom Break #1: That coffee goes straight through you, therefore giving you the perfect excuse for a bathroom break. Pretend like you're in kindergarten and get distracted by the five dollar paintings of different colored flowers in ceramic vases that hang on the wall. This should easily buy you an extra five minutes.

'Important Phone Call': and by 'important phone call' I mean calling your cell phone voice mail from your work phone, or perhaps calling up that credit card company and checking how much interest has accrued your way over-due balance (this usually allows extra time for crying). And if you get completely desperate you can always call up Grandma and swap oatmeal cookie recipes.

15 minute break: This one is pretty self explanatory. You could go outside, walk around high five-ing your coworkers, or there's always banging your head up against the vending machine that decided to eat your last dollar.

Chat with co-workers: What was on TV last night? How long should you microwave your popcorn, so that it won't burn in the microwave circa 1970 that sits in your employee break room? Ask a co-worker, they're good for something after all.

Cigarette break #1: You can usually round up a few co-workers to complete this step with you, which will only serve as an even greater time waster. Inevitably one of them will pour out the story of their impending divorce and how their children never talk to them anymore. Sorry about their luck, but if it gives you five extra minutes to waste then be a friend and lend that listening ear.

Bathroom Break #2: If for nothing else you need this bathroom break to wash the sweet smell of time wasting success off of your hands that step number six left behind.

30 minutes (maximum) of working: I'm sure you can find something productive to do with this half hour other than organizing your post-it notes. Try real hard, you can do it!

LUNCH: Now depending on where you work you'll get thirty minutes or the grand prize of an hour. However, you don't get paid for this, but if you really concentrate you can trick yourself into thinking that your employer is going to pay you back for all those 'subs of the month' at the end of the fiscal year.

Bathroom Break #2: Since it's right after lunch this bathroom break is an absolute necessity. Earn an extra two to three minutes if you brush and floss your teeth and then explain to the person washing their hands next to you how mint-y fresh running a piece of string in-between your teeth makes your mouth feel.

Important Phone Call #2': Use this time to call up one of those 'Joke of the Day' hotlines. If you're married then use this phone call to harass your significant other about what's for dinner.

Writing personnel memoirs using Word: Feel abandoned as a child because no one bought anything from your lemon aide stand? Use this time to exercise the demons.

30 minutes of work: You're on the home stretch. Thirty minutes of work and you're free. Well not technically. You still have a good two hours of being at work, but no one ever said you had to actually work while you're there.

Cigarette Break #2: Let's pretend like you care about your lungs, even if it's just a little bit, so you're not going to actually smoke during this cigarette break. But remember that guy with the impending divorce? Ask him if he knows a good lawyer and you'll quickly solidify cigarette break number two with him. While he's telling you how Bumble and Dumble are taking him for everything he's worth act really interested, while secretly humming Rick James' Super freak to yourself.

Text message friends and set up Happy Hour meeting place: Yes you've made it through another day, and what do people do when they make it through another day? They celebrate with many, many gin and tonics. With fifteen minutes left you have the perfect amount of time left to text message a friend or two and meet up at the local bar where you spend way too much of your time. Congratulations.