Laziness is chemical.
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MineSweeper
I am presently working at a Head Start program, which means Federally Funded Preschool
for Poor and/or "Challenged" kids. This includes Hmong children who have,
as a rule more than 9 siblings and all of them live, with both parents, in a 2-bedroom
Project apartment. Anyways, since this is a Federally Funded Program, that means
it's pretty much a government job which means . . . . yep, you guessed it: My times
on "Minesweeper" have radically improved. I'm looking at 19 seconds
for the Beginner's board, and 135 seconds for Intermediate.
So far it has not been prudent to attempt the "Expert" board, because I keep getting interrupted
by phone calls and other employees. I had to take up Minesweeper because the
speed at which I was accomplishing my Data Entry tasks was freaking out the Secretary
(Barb) who is my boss.
Even working at 1/3 speed (I exaggerate not a bit, we're
talking 5 minute to finish a 3-minute form, then 8 minutes of writing my play or playing
Minesweeper and/or Solitaire) yeah, even at 1/3 speed, everybody thinks I am going
alarmingly fast. Add to this that I spend some of each day explaining to
my bosses how their software is SUPPOSED to work, plus the fact that I have been
advisd to answer most over-the-phone questions, "Uhmm, I dunno, maybe you could
call back next week," and you see that I am stuck in another Kafkaesuqe Office
Environment. This Head Start job is measuring up to my worst Government Job
stereotypes (except I am not so far aware of anybody embezzling the balance of the
operating budget, but I ASSUME).
The other day I answered a phone call asking for Jack, the Finance
Director. I said, "He should be back Tuesday Morning" (This was
already an improvement on the standard "No. He's not here.") Then
the lady asked me some very long, long involved questions about this insurance bid
that they were turning in next Wednesday for some big Social Services job or
something. I pretended I was authoritative and I gave her what I fancied was
definite, specific advice, whenever she solicited it. As far as I understand it,
I chose the second of two very complicated procedures, with a further stipulation
that she itemize each type of insurance, guaranteeing the breakdowns as well as
the total bid price. By the end of the conversation, the woman seemed much
relieved and very happy, so I figure it can't be all bad.
Still Playing Computer Games
On Company Time,
Matt
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* * *
Matt's description of office temp life rang ever-so-true. However, Matt, your
Minesweeper scores leave much to be desired. In order to join the ranks of
the true office slackers, you will have to come close to:
Beginner: 8 seconds
Intermediate: 52 seconds
Expert: 150 seconds
Here was my day last Thursday, which was pretty typical:
8:00 a.m. Arrive. People who live in Virginia have already arrived, since
they were closer by, and this way they can leave earlier. Between 7:00 and 8:00,
they have chatted and taken an extended coffee break downstairs.
8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. Work. Our Stuff To Do By Friday had been handed
out on Wednesday, and I had done half of it Wednesday afternoon. I'm checking
existing html screens for errors both grammatical, technical, and functional.
I do this for all but two scenarios.
9:00 a.m.-9:30 a.m. I decide to save the remaining work for after
lunch. Using the password of our grand-poobah supervisor unbeknownst to him,
I scoot past the firewall and surf the 'Net for a cool game or two. The
weirdly-configured NT platforms, unfortunately, make a lot of games (like Quake)
unplayable. I finally locate Fury, a 3-D fly-around-and-shoot-things sort of
game. Very slick. I install it.
9:30 a.m. - 9:35 a.m. I maximize Netscape and call up one of the two scenarios
that I still have to revise. Then I plug my headphones into the speakers and
start playing Fury. I'm angled in such a way that I can see if someone is
approaching our little corridor of cubicles. This happens numerous times, at which
point I quickly alt-tab over to Netscape and scrutinize the html closely, furrowing my brow.
9:35 a.m. - 12:00 a.m. On and off, I play Fury. At one point Robbie comes
in for a progress report from everyone. He is extraordinarily happy that I only
have two scenarios left, although I assure that one of them is rather drawn-out and
complicated and will "probably take me a lot of the afternoon."
The end of the shareware version of Fury has this cool cobra-like mechanical thing
shooting fireballs at me as swarms of fighters shoot missiles, too. I unload
all my heat-seeking missiles at the thing and fly up past the cloud cover to lure
the fighters after me. Then I do a 180 and plummet toward the fighters,
guns blazing. I finish things up right before lunch.
12:00 a.m. Lunch is supposed to last half an hour. We take Ken's car to
the Hard Times Cafe, a five-minute drive away. It is a fine place and
these are, for the most part, fine people.
12:00 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. We have lunch.
1:15 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. I do one of the two remaining scenarios.
1:30 p.m. Jennifer realizes that she left her paycheck at the Hard Times
Cafe. She realizes that she better go right away and get it, but she's not sure
how to get there, so I offer to tag along. It's a lovely day, so we decide to walk.
2:15 p.m. We get back. Robbie asks me how things are going, and I tell him
I only have one scenario left. He's happy.
2:15 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. The last scenario really IS big and complicated, and it
DOES take me a long time to do. But I do it.
4:00 - 4:30 p.m. Most other people have left, so I hang out and chat with
those who remain and play Minesweeper.
That's about it. I guess that's not necessarily a TYPICAL day. No,
it's more like the most laid-back day we've had so far. But still.
Gah. That was too long, but having written it, I impose it upon you.
Cheerio,
Nate
* * *
* * *
I am truly truly in awe of Nate and his job habits. It will take a lot of industrious
hours at my next temp job to get anywhere CLOSE to those Minesweeper scores. I am
hoping to land myself a job at Minnesota Power, because some of the jobs are described by
the temp people as . . . Just Answering Phones. They stress the word "Just" in
such a way that I (knowing their detail-hungry software-loving hearts) am sure that I am
not expected to even write anything down. Just say, "Hello," and transfer the call.
My final day at Head Start proved only one fully weird moment. It was about 4pm, i.e.
into the last 1.5-hour coast to the finish, when Dave (the Big Director Guy) gets a phone
call. He then has a brief meeting with Barb. Then Barb comes out and
says, "Uhmm, can you go back and enter all the ENROLLMENT information now?"
Well, I should have been on my toes and said, "Sure, but it will take some
time." Because, you see, the Enrollment info takes twice as long
(2 minutes) as the Application info (1 minute), per child. But the fact was that
I had already entered all the Enrollment stuff along with the Application stuff. BUT
THEY DIDN'T KNOW THIS!! Now, if my math is correct, it becomes apparent that while I
was working at 1/3 speed, they THOUGHT I was working at 1/3 of THAT speed, thus I had an
apparent speed 1/9th of the speed I could go if I was still being mostly lazy and
unmotivated. This boggles my mind. At any rate, I left on good terms, everyone
was happy, I even remembered to return my keys. Did I mention that I had keys to the
whole place? I bet you can't top THAT, Nate. On my first day of work I was given keys
to the entire office building. Weird.
Doing Nothing and Not
Even Being Paid For It,
Matt
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