DAY
OF THE LIVING DEAD
(...
Or how to spend 8 hours in the office without doing a
tap) by Sue Leonard
|
Pamela
Anderson - still a big hit with internet users during
working hours |
You're
in work but you're bored. You have a routine report
to write, but first you check the weather in Moscow
or Helsinki. Then, your mind wandering, you surf
pictures of Pamela Anderson. Uplifted, you check
airline sites for bargains, order a present for
you sister from Amazon, send a few jokes by email,
or play internet poker. Suddenly it's lunchtime
and that report remains unwritten.
Sound
familiar? Are you are one of 'The Living Dead'
- a breed identified by UK author David Bolchover?
There are, he says, an ever-growing community
of workers who go to their desk every weekday
at the same time, leave at the same time, and
in between do, well, precisely nothing. The statistics
are alarming. In one US survey 14.6% of workers
admitted they surfed non work-related internet
sites. That works out at 10,220,000 people. In
another workers spent, on average, 8.3 hours a
week surfing for pleasure.
But
that's America, right? In Ireland, surely we're
more obsessed with our work? Wrong. A report carried
out last year by the HR centre Candidate Manager,
showed that 30% to 40% of all internet surfing
is done by people in work.
A
single employee will spend an average of 220 hours
a year surfing the net. This represents a loss
of approximately €146,000 to a company that
employs 100 people. If you doubt the figures,
type in 'Bored at Work' on Google and select 'Pages
from Ireland'. 71,600 items come up.
|
There are other reasons
for indolence at work. Some 48% of young professionals
surveyed in England admitted being the worse for drink
on at least one working day a week. Two-thirds had called
in sick due to hangovers at least once in the preceding
month. This is one huge problem here in Ireland. Alcoholism
and drug abuse are costing the Irish economy close to
€1bn a year, according to a 2003 report by former
Kerry VHI executive Paddy Creedon. He argues that addictions
are the greatest challenge for corporate Ireland. Here,
though, the problem isn't so much hungover workers failing
to turn up. The greatest cost is caused by employees who
duly turn up at nine o'clock, but who cannot function.
"This is known as
presenteeism," says Rowan Manahan, managing director
of Fortify Services, a Dublin-based outplacement and career
management firm. "And it can happen because workers
have too high an expectation, and that expectation is
bumping headlong into reality. You would not believe the
number of people who tell us they got into law because
they watch Ally McBeal or read John Grisham novels. They
say 'that sparked my interest,' or 'I'm in medicine because
ER is just the most amazing thing and I wanted to work
in that environment'. That naive mindset meets the ugly
reality of the world."
But it's not all about
worker apathy - employers can be to blame. "They
dress up jobs and make them sound wonderful in order to
woo the best employees. They say, 'we will call it executive
marketing assistant', and what they really mean is PA
to the marketing department." Manahan believes that
with all the paring back that has happened in companies
it would be hard to get away with constant internet surfing.
But that doesn't mean that employees feel any more alive.
"In the early 1980s you had a secretary and you were
handwriting stuff, and redrafting it - research took a
humongous amount of time, but it was usually up to the
junior to take care of that, leaving managers free to
have time to themselves. They could think brilliant thoughts
for 20 minutes a week. Now, even if you have a PA, you
are doing the bulk of the correspondence and the donkey
work yourself."
However, there is no
denying that there is an awful lot of inappropriate internet
use. "Any report shows up money spent on sex lines
and on family emailing," says Rowan Manahan. "And
it is no different than thieving. Using the internet in
your employer's time is like unplugging the computer,
tucking it under your arm and walking out of the building.
Sitting there and doing nothing is theft. It's morally
questionable, it's bad work ethic and it's career suicide.
But much more important than that, it will eat away at
most human beings."
So what can you do to
get out of that desperate predicament? "The first
step is to acknowledge that your situation is miserable,
and terrible. That it is awful, and that is the scariest
step of all. You have to ask yourself, 'how has this happened?
I am down, I am depressed and my self esteem is getting
battered. How have I ended up in this drudgery and this
repetitious work? Why am I working for two hours a day
and spending another six hours gazing at pictures of Pamela
Anderson?'"
What it comes down to,
Rowan says, is commitment. "Your first commitment
is to yourself. You have to tell yourself that you are
worth a good senior role and that you need a job that
challenges you. You have to acknowledge that you are not
there yet, but that you want to get there in two, three,
five or seven years." He believes that you must motivate
yourself by learning new techniques and skills. "You
can build up a network of people who will be useful to
you, and surf trade magazines to bone up on any area you
see yourself working in. You turn a mental switch and
decide when and where you want to go. It needs change.
And whether that means change of responsibility, a change
of team of boss of company, or a complete change of direction,
change has to happen. And you start with the things that
you can control."
Job coach Greg Dalton
is well aware of computer misuse in work. "Whenever
you walk through an office with a manager you notice workers
clicking their mouse off a site." Greg was part of
the 'living dead' for almost 20 years. "I got into
sales at 20 with a fantastic salary and company car,"
he says. "I got good at it, but I didn't believe
in it, and I got tired. But it was hard to change when
I had a mortgage and bills to pay. I was scared to get
out. I was bloody terrified." He finally left three
years ago, and now gets enormous job satisfaction.
If you're utterly tired
of being one of the living dead at work, it could be worse.
You could end up as one of the 'dead dead'. In January
2004 a Finnish tax auditor died at his desk and for two
days not one of the 200 people who worked on his floor
noticed.
original
article here
