Public sector fairytales

The Loafer, the Neighbour and the Passers By

Once there was a loafer. He did his share of work, but he did more than his share of loafing, if that's possible.

The loafer's work was desk-based, and not just desk-based, but desktop computer-based. As such, his preferred method of loafing was grazing on a varied diet of websites, including but not limited to media outlets, blogs, discussion fora and twitter accounts.

Now, the loafer lived, err sorry, worked in an open plan office. Open plan offices had desks but no walls (and by extension, no doors, for you cannot have a door without a wall). However, para-walls were built from desk partitions, extensions of the desk that rose upwards two or three feet and gave the appearance of a wall while the occupant was seated.

Within open plan offices there were two kinds of desk (and computer screens) - those in sight of the eyes of passers by and those not thus exposed. The loafer sat at a desk and computer screen that were indeed in sight of passers by. However, the loafer was at the more favourable of two other types of desk - those that give warning of the imminent arrival of passers by and those that do not.

If it so happened that the loafer noticed an incoming passer by, which happened a dozen or more times a day, and the loafer happened to be loafing, which also happened a dozen or more times a day, he was able to quickly close, minimise, or switch from the internet browser tab to which he'd been attending (depending on a complex constellation of factors such as unread length of article, ease of relocating the tab, the presence of other work-related tabs, the presence of other active programs and the existence of other activities on a second screen or separate laptop) before the passer by was able to see that the loafer was indeed loafing.

The passer by had not a clue that the loafer had been loafing, and the loafer needed only wait a moment for the passer by to pass by, whereupon he could resume loafing.

Seated on the other side of the loafer's partition was a fellow worker who also did his share of working, but struggled to fill his share of loafing. While seated at his desk, he had no view of the loafer, the loafer's desk or the loafer's computer screen. However, he did have a view of oncoming passers by. He also had an observant nature.

Over time, the loafer's neighbour began to notice that sometimes when a passer by approached, a single mouse click could be heard from the loafer's side of the partition. Further, most of the time this mouse click was accompanied by a second mouse click some 5 to 10 seconds after the passer by had disappeared.

The neighbour approached the loafer with his theory, which I'm sure you can guess, and which the loafer confirmed with a mixture of surprise and shame.

For some time afterwards, the loafer's telltale mouseclick was nowhere to be heard when people passed by.

The neighbour at first assumed that the loafer had ceased loafing. But as time passed, and with the neighbour himself unable to resist loafing from time to time, he decided this was not possible.

The neighbour at first suspected that the loafer was somehow obscuring the noise of the mouse click, but ruled that out as being technically implausible. He then realised that there were other means of obscuring non-work related websites, such as by keyboard shortcuts or (much less likely) switching the monitor off or (very much less likely) throwing some kind of garment over the screen.

Even more diabolically, the neighbour wondered, could the loafer be employing a random mixture of mouseclicks, keyboard shortcuts and screen switch offs, so as to evade detection by the neighbour?

At last, the neighbour could take it no longer, and confronted the loafer. How had he been obscuring his loafing?

They both glanced at the loafer's screen, upon which a sports website was loaded, and the loafer said that he hadn't been obscuring anything. 

All of which goes to show, somehow, that

it is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all

On Time

Who was the first ever person to be on time?

Who was the first ever person to be late?

And what were those situations? Some caveman, agreed to meet a cavewoman at sundown? He got there at sundown and she got there at sunup?

Or did it happen much later? Much, much later, in fact? Indeed could it have been, that prior to about 200 BC, no one had ever been late or on time? I'll have to check with literature and folk tales of the time, but I wouldn't rule out this daring, breathtaking hypothesis.

And an argument, if not in favour of this, then surely not against it, is that I can't think of a single Aesop's fable about promptness or tardiness. I know, I know, the hare and the tortoise. To which I'd reply: are you sure that's by Aesop? And even if it were, it's not really about punctuality. It's a race, dammit. People have been racing since they were bacteria, at least chasing and chasing ain't far off racing, I should think (as my daughter likes to say).

And what is with being late and on time (preferably not at the same time)?

I'm generally pretty good with being on time, but I'll cut it fine a-sometimes.

There's the cut it fine crew, then those that do complete lateness blowouts. 30 minutes, an hour, even more. Of course by specifying those times it's clear I'm not talking about a contract to build a spaceship of the sea or anything of that scale.

And some are late, until they phone their meeter, then they're on time again, but will often then become late again for a second time!

And it's far less of a thing to be early. Far less spoken about, really. Underrated, even?

So it's something about people's attitude to their own time, and other people's time. Is it a possession? Something to keep, guard, use? A currency, something to spend or save? Is it a dimension, something to move around in? I think that each and every one of us has our own peculiar perception of time and the role we have to play in maintaining some kind of mastery over it. Or not.

And so I propose to found the Journal of Lateness, accompanied by the Blog of Lateness, and the hip reality show My Lateness Rules. We must document, catalogue and study this phenomenon until the cows come home, on time or not.

ps there may be a spinoff Journal of Cancellation

Hammertime's Brog Apologises

I am very sorry that there have been no brog posts in the last year. Believe you me, I've been wery busy.

But. Now that has changed. I'm not busy no more longer!

So. You can look forward to many more posts this year of our Lord 2015.

~~~

Screen Shots - an incomprehensibly colossal idea for a tv series / doco

It's a series of short (5-15 min?) vignettes of different people at their screens. After all, screens dominate our lives nowadays, to the point that Arcade Fire sings about 'we fell in love and now I'm staring at the screen'.

I was initially thinking office block folk, but we could expand to phones, tablets etc.

So what would happen? I'm glad you ask. We'd meet the person. See them doing what they do. See their issues. See how they use their screen. Their common programs. The extent of complaint/frustration/love\hate relationship with their screen. Importantly, the cleanliness of their desktop. And finally their stance towards updates.

eg me

- flip open the laptop once i've found a seat on the train
- startup is pretty quick. if i'm not careful the sound is up, playing that stupid mac startup sound, even worse if i'm on a quiet carriage
- frequently found flexing my wrists
- try to gaze off into the distance in between screenstares
- love my keyboard shortcuts - switching between programs
- generally have music on in the background. sometimes aids concentration, sometimes abets, sometimes ahinders
- got my little list of things to do in notepad. no formatting, no bullshit - never crashes!
- got my random writings folder
- got word. bloody word. obviously great at some things, but what's been getting me lately is the inability to work with two docs at the same time. found an answer of sorts - turn one into a pdf!
- working with matlab, ncl
- reading pdfs
- got personal photos scrolling thru on background, will intermittently upload from phone via bluetooth
- there's magic in opening up a computer; similar to magic in opening up browser. of course i know the crushing reality, but that magic isn't completely gone. it's the possibility of something more, something new. an adventure. wow, so it's come to this. this is what passes for adventure these days.

Wouldn't you watch this show? Don't you feel it'd capture something fresh and vital about our horrible, catatonic addiction to our screens? And that it might help people become more aware of their sickness, that they might cast off their chains, in favour of overhead projectors?

I shouldn't get too ahead of myself, it's physically impossible.
~~~

Kind regards,

The End