I have been working for a fair number of years now. I have often been hard working, sometimes been hardly working, I have been at times happy, unhappy, passionate, unbelieving, looking to move, looking to stay – the usual ups and downs that any employee would go through in a company. But recently I realized that some people have it really hard all the time. My neighbour is one of those people who have been consistently wronged at the workplace. I know now because he told me. In great detail.
This neighbour that I mention is one of those know-it-all people who have a slightly whiney voice, always know everyone (CEO downwards) in any company they have ever worked in, even if all they did there was an internship over summer. In addition to this, such people always know about whatever it is that is being discussed. And not only do they know of it, they are an expert in the field.
Getting buttonholed by this gentleman is sometimes interesting and mostly painful.
This neighbour that I mention is one of those know-it-all people who have a slightly whiney voice, always know everyone (CEO downwards) in any company they have ever worked in, even if all they did there was an internship over summer. In addition to this, such people always know about whatever it is that is being discussed. And not only do they know of it, they are an expert in the field.
Getting buttonholed by this gentleman is sometimes interesting and mostly painful.
You see, he doesn't smoke and doesn't drink coffee (or tea, for that matter). Just because of these two uncultivated habits, he feels he is being discriminated against, economically.
I shall let him present his case:
"A person who smokes has about four smoking breaks during the day, each lasting about ten minutes. This totals up to forty minutes every day. Most people who smoke, drink coffee as well. Add to their already numerous smoking breaks, two breaks for coffee. Now I have seen that coffee breaks are typically longer than a smoking break, lasting about fifteen minutes each on an average. The time spent on coffee drinking comes to another thirty minutes. Now total up these minutes from all the breaks during the day and you have 70 minutes during the workday as break-time. SEVENTY minutes!!! Can you BELIEVE that?! And all this is ACCEPTED break-time."
"On an eight hour workday that amounts to 14.5% of non-working, non-productive break time. Amazing, don't you think?"
It was amazing. I had to marvel at his ability to speak in capital words and to demarcate excalamations in speech. I had never come across a person with such talent. He wasn't finished yet.
"I have also seen that a typical person makes between eight and ten trips from their desk to various parts of the office every day. These could be nature breaks or trips to the printer or to go to meetings, or even to get coffee, for, believe it or not, this typical person refills his mug 2-4 times a day and here is the truly amazing part - this refilling the coffee mug is in addition to the long coffee breaks!"
It was truly remarkable. I had never seen anyone speak in italics before.
"Plus," he went on, "Our office has 'chatty' people and normal people. He said 'chatty' as if it were a contagious disease prone to being the root of epidemics, decimating populations in its wake. A 'chatty' person takes an average of three minutes more to return to her desk from each such excursion than a normal person like myself. Taken into consideration, this 'corridor chatting time' amounts to another thirty minutes. And I have seen that on the whole, these coffee drinkers and smokers and 'chatty' people are the same people!" His voice had now reached what could only be described as a conspiratorial-whining-stage-whisper-crescendo.
"Now add everything together - the forty minutes and the thirty minutes and the other thirty minutes and you get a round one hundred. ONE HUNDRED! MINUTES!! So their smoking breaks and their coffee breaks and their chatting non-breaks are more than a fifth of the time of a workday. 20.8%, to be exact, of additional break time that normal people like you and me don't get."
We were getting too pally here I thought. I did not wish to be tarred with the same brush as him, but he was, at that point in time, unstoppable.
"I am forced to work through the day only because I don't have any such defective habits. What if I decided to label my matchbox collection for an hour and a half every day during office time? How would people feel then?"
I admitted he had a point. I wasn't too sure whether labeling matchboxes was a defective habit or not (what is a defective habit anyway?), but it sure did sound very close to being one. On the other hand, I thought, if I were not forced to watch him do his labeling, I didn't care.
"So what next?" I asked him.
"26%," he said enigmatically. "Do the math. My next raise should be a minimum of 26%."
I asked him to state his case, as lucidly as he had to me, to the powers that be.
Someday we might hear more of him, but hopefully no more from him.
"On an eight hour workday that amounts to 14.5% of non-working, non-productive break time. Amazing, don't you think?"
It was amazing. I had to marvel at his ability to speak in capital words and to demarcate excalamations in speech. I had never come across a person with such talent. He wasn't finished yet.
"I have also seen that a typical person makes between eight and ten trips from their desk to various parts of the office every day. These could be nature breaks or trips to the printer or to go to meetings, or even to get coffee, for, believe it or not, this typical person refills his mug 2-4 times a day and here is the truly amazing part - this refilling the coffee mug is in addition to the long coffee breaks!"
It was truly remarkable. I had never seen anyone speak in italics before.
"Plus," he went on, "Our office has 'chatty' people and normal people. He said 'chatty' as if it were a contagious disease prone to being the root of epidemics, decimating populations in its wake. A 'chatty' person takes an average of three minutes more to return to her desk from each such excursion than a normal person like myself. Taken into consideration, this 'corridor chatting time' amounts to another thirty minutes. And I have seen that on the whole, these coffee drinkers and smokers and 'chatty' people are the same people!" His voice had now reached what could only be described as a conspiratorial-whining-stage-whisper-crescendo.
"Now add everything together - the forty minutes and the thirty minutes and the other thirty minutes and you get a round one hundred. ONE HUNDRED! MINUTES!! So their smoking breaks and their coffee breaks and their chatting non-breaks are more than a fifth of the time of a workday. 20.8%, to be exact, of additional break time that normal people like you and me don't get."
We were getting too pally here I thought. I did not wish to be tarred with the same brush as him, but he was, at that point in time, unstoppable.
"I am forced to work through the day only because I don't have any such defective habits. What if I decided to label my matchbox collection for an hour and a half every day during office time? How would people feel then?"
I admitted he had a point. I wasn't too sure whether labeling matchboxes was a defective habit or not (what is a defective habit anyway?), but it sure did sound very close to being one. On the other hand, I thought, if I were not forced to watch him do his labeling, I didn't care.
"So what next?" I asked him.
"26%," he said enigmatically. "Do the math. My next raise should be a minimum of 26%."
I asked him to state his case, as lucidly as he had to me, to the powers that be.
Someday we might hear more of him, but hopefully no more from him.
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