Re: What do you do when there's nothing to do?

["Edgar D' Souza" <edgar -dot- b -dot- dsouza -at- gmail -dot- com>]

On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 2:18 AM, Lauren <lauren -at- writeco -dot- net> wrote:
>  > freshnews.org
>  > dilbert.com
>  > userfriendly.org
>  > and lots of other stuff on the Net.
>
>  I think it might have been implied that Sarah wanted to know what to do
>  *without* getting fired.

Oh, dear - different strokes... I didn't mean to be flip in any way; I
have an enlightened employer who understands that one can't work
ceaselessly and needs intervals to let the brain get some rest. In
fact, we encourage some "mind-coasting" among writers, especially
after lunch - browse a few good sites. Once in a while, we knock off
work early and have a little snack session and play board games, word
games or other fun stuff... The boss even lends us books, especially
those which educate and inform... Working in a tiny company has
advantages too. :)

Actually, after I get back from lunch, I make it kind of a routine to
hit freshnews.org, and scan the series of feeds there for interesting
news. Interesting doesn't mean just to me; I've gained useful info
from there, and other sites, which has been used in the office. Sounds
strange that throwing time into an apparently non-productive activity
can actually benefit the office, but 'tis true... I wear more than one
hat, so to speak: tech writer, tech editor, tech consultant for other
writers, sysad for our Linux fileshare/caching-proxy/gateway server,
ideas guy for improvements in our computing setup... so while a lot of
feeds are just "news," some of them are valuable new facts to stow
under one of those hats!

The Dilbert and UF are mostly a matter of a couple of minutes - it's
not like I'm reading comics for hours on end - and it improves
morale...

And anyway - IIRC, the original question was what to do to fill in
when you have "bench" time or downtime - without any
assigned/scheduled work. That rarely happens where I work, since the
work pipeline is usually filled out for the next couple of months...
but we can and do take it easy for a day or two after meeting a
deadline - especially if it involved significant stress and overtime.

Regards,
Ed.
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