I feel like Peter from Office Space when I say that in any given work day this summer, I probably accomplish 20-30 minutes of actual work. While the total worktime is certainly greater than that, it begs the following question: What do I do with my time at work?
The best way to go about this question is to layout my average day of work. A disclaimer: I am not a worthless employee, nor do I enjoy "stealing" the company's money. I have been rendered this way by a mind-numbing internship that has had little to no work for me to accomplish. You can only ask people for more work so many times before you start to annoy them, or your dignity is comlpetely destroyed. But I digress. See below...
Arrive at workThis is an average arrival time. As you statisticians know, an average is subject to significant skew in the presence of extreme data points. Early in the summer, I was that eager intern, routinely showing up around 7:35, 7:50 at latest. Anymore, my alarm goes off at 6:20, I hit snooze until, or reset the alarm for, 7:00. This effectively eliminates any sparetime in the morning; as a result, i haven't shaved, eaten breakfast, and made lunch in the same morning since May. I haul ass to work through a maze of idiot drivers and horrible signage (thank you Commonwealth of Massachusetts), and if i'm lucky, i'm at my desk by 8:45.
Email/myspace/espn/cnn/NYTimes/denver post sports/etc (the morning arrival routine)...This is a list of my first activities of the day. Obviously you have to check email; i have 5 different email addresses, i only use 3, but i still check all 5. Makes sense, right? I hate myspace, yet i'm addicted to it. It's not like I do anything fun or interesting with my profile, but i'm beginning to hoard myspace friends like i'm getting a commission on each. ESPN has all of the sports news I need ad nauseum, but I have to read every single headline article and see each baseball linescore from the previous night, there's no debating this. Then I check CNN and NY Times to get my daily encouraging dose of world news. Then I have to read my local news (I'm a Denver transplant), so I read the denver post, specifically the sports section. Then i do miscellaneous googling of various topics currently on my mind. This whole routine takes approximately 45 mins - 1 hour and is repeated daily, in 10-20 minute increments (one or twice every couple hours)
WorkEvery once in a while there is actually something for me to do. However, because I have been conditioned to do little work this summer, I do not have the focus to stay working for more than 30-45 minutes at a time. Each work spurt is followed by a 20-30 minute morning arrival routine.
LunchSo depressing. I sit with the other interns at the intern table, and almost every single one hates the place. I say almost because there is one intern who fits in perfectly with the company and never has a single bad thing to say about anything. Anytime a conversation shifts into something non-work appropriate, he tries to switch subjects. I had to put an end to that one day by reminding him we were not yet done with the topic of "how do strippers claim their income to the IRS?". This is not even that racey of a topic, and inquiring minds need to know, damnit! Anyway, whatever, some people hate fun and make me mad. Lunch usually lasts the full hour, but that doesn't factor in the 30-45 minutes of post lunch internet...you know, I have to get my head right before I can work again.
Then I go back to work and repeat the above listed routine, never leaving after 5pm on the dot. A day can also include 3-4 trips to the bathroom, mainly to change things up. I also spend 20-30 minutes talking to other interns at their desks, not to mention the bulk of the day I spend instant messaging them and other friends toiling away at similar internships. Grand total, i say I actually accomplish 2-5 hours of real work in an average day. That isn't too bad, I guess. Whatever, judge for yourself, that'd be GREEEEEEEEEEAT.
