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Boredom Interminable
Mar. 10th, 2004 04:59 pmI began this week with about two hours' worth of work to do. It's done. It's been done in increments of five or ten minutes, here and there, over the past three days. I could have done it all by noon on Monday, but that would have left me with nothing to do. So I spread it out.
I can't spread it out anymore. It's done. And I am bored.
This is not a good thing to allow. I think of examples from the animal kingdom - various intelligent animals become really seriously destructive when bored. Dogs chew the furniture and pee on the rug. Horses may literally chew on their stall partitions and suck air through their teeth; it's called "cribbing," and it's a sign of a dangerously bored and unhappy animal. If the cube frames weren't metal, you could see the tooth marks on the partitions.
I've also done just about everything I can think of to alleviate the boredom. I've caught up on little administrative tasks, like recording my per diem expenses (to better track my spending). I've back-tracked through LJ and filled in some history for the month of January (because I discovered yesterday that it's been about two months since I updated my 10+ journal). I've checked my e-mail. I've read several online articles, of various levels and degrees of interest. I've booked my flight home for Easter. I've organized and reorganized my task list.
What I'd really like to be able to do, right now, is just curl up and take a nap, or pull out my knitting, or perhaps just read a book. Maybe play an innocent game of Solitaire. I wish I dared.
But the last thing I need is for somebody to come up quietly behind me, here in my cube, and discover that I'm sitting here on my Fujitsu laptop goofing off instead of getting work done. Even though there is no work to do.
And it's ever so slightly worse than it was prior to Monday, because now I don't dare even do this (compose LJ entries) online on the desktop computer. I have to compose here, offline, and then log on via dial-up if I want to post before I get home to the apartment here. It isn't so bad; in a way, that's a slightly greater freedom - it allows me to access all my e-mail, and do other things I simply wouldn't dare do on the client's computer. But it does tie up my extension (meaning people get voicemail instead of me if they should happen to call), and I don't entirely trust that the line isn't monitored somehow (though I'm not just sure how that could be). And it means that if I'm going to do the "busy looking" things that will alleviate boredom, I have to do them conspicuously on the laptop and not on the client's thoughtfully-provided (monitored, locked-down) computer, so it's more obvious that whatever I'm doing is probably private. On company time. Which I'm merrily billing them for.
IM(NS)HO, I should be billing them double for making me sit here idle and wasting my time and what goodwill I had left. When I think of the time I've spent here, bored to tears, by myself, when I could have been home with my husband and my cats...!
It is almost enough to make me declare a rebellion, buy a last-minute ticket (and soak them for it) and go home this weekend - even though Don's visiting just next week, even though...all kinds of things. Almost enough. Except for the raging head-cold and the consequent stuffy head that make me not particularly want to fly or even really ride in a fast elevator right now...and I'm tired, and I do like the parish here...sigh...
The only other thing I can think of to do is finish arranging the tracks for the seasonal anthologies I'm hoping to burn. Except that this would really absorb my attention, and it would not look at all "busy looking." It would look like somebody goofing off playing with music on the laptop instead of working. Which is what it would be, except that if there were even a reasonable modicum of work to be done, it wouldn't be happening. But the fact that it would absorb me completely once I started means I wouldn't necessarily be quick enough to respond if somebody came by who shouldn't see me goofing off instead of working, even though there's no work.
I hate politics. I hate travel. And I hate being bored!!!!!
I can't spread it out anymore. It's done. And I am bored.
This is not a good thing to allow. I think of examples from the animal kingdom - various intelligent animals become really seriously destructive when bored. Dogs chew the furniture and pee on the rug. Horses may literally chew on their stall partitions and suck air through their teeth; it's called "cribbing," and it's a sign of a dangerously bored and unhappy animal. If the cube frames weren't metal, you could see the tooth marks on the partitions.
I've also done just about everything I can think of to alleviate the boredom. I've caught up on little administrative tasks, like recording my per diem expenses (to better track my spending). I've back-tracked through LJ and filled in some history for the month of January (because I discovered yesterday that it's been about two months since I updated my 10+ journal). I've checked my e-mail. I've read several online articles, of various levels and degrees of interest. I've booked my flight home for Easter. I've organized and reorganized my task list.
What I'd really like to be able to do, right now, is just curl up and take a nap, or pull out my knitting, or perhaps just read a book. Maybe play an innocent game of Solitaire. I wish I dared.
But the last thing I need is for somebody to come up quietly behind me, here in my cube, and discover that I'm sitting here on my Fujitsu laptop goofing off instead of getting work done. Even though there is no work to do.
And it's ever so slightly worse than it was prior to Monday, because now I don't dare even do this (compose LJ entries) online on the desktop computer. I have to compose here, offline, and then log on via dial-up if I want to post before I get home to the apartment here. It isn't so bad; in a way, that's a slightly greater freedom - it allows me to access all my e-mail, and do other things I simply wouldn't dare do on the client's computer. But it does tie up my extension (meaning people get voicemail instead of me if they should happen to call), and I don't entirely trust that the line isn't monitored somehow (though I'm not just sure how that could be). And it means that if I'm going to do the "busy looking" things that will alleviate boredom, I have to do them conspicuously on the laptop and not on the client's thoughtfully-provided (monitored, locked-down) computer, so it's more obvious that whatever I'm doing is probably private. On company time. Which I'm merrily billing them for.
IM(NS)HO, I should be billing them double for making me sit here idle and wasting my time and what goodwill I had left. When I think of the time I've spent here, bored to tears, by myself, when I could have been home with my husband and my cats...!
It is almost enough to make me declare a rebellion, buy a last-minute ticket (and soak them for it) and go home this weekend - even though Don's visiting just next week, even though...all kinds of things. Almost enough. Except for the raging head-cold and the consequent stuffy head that make me not particularly want to fly or even really ride in a fast elevator right now...and I'm tired, and I do like the parish here...sigh...
The only other thing I can think of to do is finish arranging the tracks for the seasonal anthologies I'm hoping to burn. Except that this would really absorb my attention, and it would not look at all "busy looking." It would look like somebody goofing off playing with music on the laptop instead of working. Which is what it would be, except that if there were even a reasonable modicum of work to be done, it wouldn't be happening. But the fact that it would absorb me completely once I started means I wouldn't necessarily be quick enough to respond if somebody came by who shouldn't see me goofing off instead of working, even though there's no work.
I hate politics. I hate travel. And I hate being bored!!!!!
