Chuckle #503 | March 20th, 2013
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I can be really focused. Give me a deadline and watch me give any
project a ninja butt-kicking. Give me a surprise
snow day - where I make pancakes for the kids and stay in my PJs until noon - and
watch me waste a cosmic amount of time Googling images of unaffordable 50 foot catamarans
and beaches in Tortuga.
A day spent like this inevitably leaves me wracked with
guilt. I could have knocked 10 things off my ‘to do’ list, but instead, I wandered
aimlessly through the internet wasteland, achieving a soupçon of nada.
The ‘doer’ in me finds this kind of behavior extremely
distressing.
Here’s the problem. Lurking
deep within my highly efficient self is my slacker-self,
the black sheep of my recently self-diagnosed split personality disorder.
My slacker-self does stuff like troll Realtor.com and watch re-runs on the
Food Network when what I should be
doing is writing this column. My ‘doer’
self then wastes even more time and energy despising my slacker-self.
I know; it’s complicated.
I’m no Sybil, but I’ve clearly got some kind of epic alter
ego battle raging in my head. My slacker-self
is my petulant side; the id to my ego, the Thor to my Loki, the Rove to my Maddow. I need my slacker-self like I need my hot
bath on Sundays. It’s a question of balance. Without a bit of harmless internet escapism,
aka downtime, I couldn’t possibly keep up my ‘doer’ pace.
But I also can’t afford to spend my life distracted by dog
vomit, pretty magazines and Pinterest. When
the need arises, I’ve got to be able to stuff my slacker-self back into
Pandora’s Box and get cracking.
Not so easily done when you work from home, as Marissa Mayer
discovered in the trenches at Yahoo.
Personally, I think Yahoo employees should be grateful to
have a taskmaster like Marissa. If I had
the benefit of someone breathing down my neck - forcing me to maximize every nanosecond
of my day – I’d be on that catamaran right now instead of just daydreaming
about it. With a tough boss and a padded
room for my kids, I could have been somebody, maybe even another Marissa Mayer.
Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a place to go
where someone other than me is focused on my productivity. The only 'collaborating' I get to do now is with my dog. And let me tell you, nothing
breaks up a ‘creative huddle’ faster than funky dog breath.
I like being my own boss, but that puts me in the awkward
position of having to police my own ‘time theft’. Seriously, I must cost myself a mint. I blatantly break my own rules about accessing
personal email and certain sailing websites during work hours. And I can’t seem to stop myself from staring
at the contents of my fridge five times a day, which eats up a lot of my time.
I hate to say it, but the personal calls from my husband are
the worst time suck of all. We babble on
like newlyweds, saying things like “What are you doing now?”, “How’s the dog”, and
“Did you hear from the plumber?” Simply
texting ‘luv u’ twice a day instead of picking up the phone would save me at
least an hour. But at what cost to love?
When I saw the CEO of Yahoo making such bold moves in order
to prevent midday sock sorting and breastfeeding, I was inspired to do the same. But in my quest for self-discipline and
success, I’ve become a nearly intolerable boss, a real shrew. I can barely stand myself.
There are days when I’m seriously tempted to either quit, or
fire myself. Would I be better off
without me? It’s hard to decide.
So I waste a little time once in a while, don’t we all? It’s part of a balanced lifestyle. You can’t always
‘lean in’. As long as I get the job done
quickly and done well, I don’t see the harm in looking at sailboat pictures
whenever I want – off the clock, of course.
Do you think my Marissa Mayer alter ego will agree, or will she make me let myself go?
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