From the Trenches – End of the Day Fun!
March 28th, 2009
Here’s a story from the trenches we’re sure y’all will appreciate:
Why is it that in the last 30 minutes of the day I get tasked with 90% of my work load? For example, all day today I have pretty much been doing nothing so I have to find things to fill my time. Our office manager went home at 3pm which should guarantee that no no work comes in. There is three very low priority items in my queue so it should be smooth sailing to the weekend. Sure enough, at 4:30pm today I will get 10 new items in my queue from random people asking me to do projects due early Monday morning. Why in the hell are they sitting on these things until the absolute worst time to push them along to me?
In any case, they will all wait until I am good and ready to get at them. To quote Father Mulcahey from M*A*SH “If you hang onto a task long enough, eventually it will become someone else’s problem”
Ahh, yes, Grasshopper, I, and I’m sure, many a dear reader, can all relate with the dreaded “oh, by the way…” that always seems to bear its ugly head at 4:59pm when you’re due to clock out at 5pm. Most of us think “awesome, something to look forward to” when we have a few low priority agenda items in our “to-do” queue, much like you mentioned, until we’re tasked with the “YOU-GOTTA-GET-THIS-DONE-NOW-OR-IT’S-ARMAGEDDON!!!”-type of request. Of course, those usually happen on a Friday afternoon.
I can totally relate and appreciate your outlook. Father Mulcahey’s got it going on and is absolutely correct!
This happens to me every day. People come to work, make coffee, eat breakfast, read the paper, talk to each other, then go to lunch/shopping and don’t get back until 3. Then it takes a while to get settled and start looking at their work, they write their work orders at 4:45 and go home. My email dramatically surges from 4:50 to 5:05. Especially on Friday.
Kinda reminds me during that scene in “Office Space” when Peter Gibbons admits that he only does about 15 minutes of real work a week. Personally, I think that’s probably stretching it with many a people.