Lies Business Told You - Time Thieves

Business tells you a lot of lies. But there is one special lie that is particularly insidious to wage slaves with a personal code of ethics (that's everyone, FYI).

There are two muses for this post: Citizen Radio and me 20 years ago. Poor little me, so earnest, so eager to please, so gullible -- hugs and kisses, but no, feelings are not truth. Facts are truth. Be armed with facts. Facts fuck feelings until feelings pass out from the joy of knowing. copyright. today. me.

On an podcast episode some time ago, Allison and Jamie were riffing about their soul-crushing jobs at Borders back in the day. How someone was taking a 15 minute break and gasp, went over the allotted break time and was caught! Oh noes! The manager told one of them, I think Allison, that she was a time thief guilty of stealing time from a company that paid her to work. Of course, listeners were all "corporate assholes, fuck you," and Allison and Jamie were all "soul sucking fuckers suck our souls no more!" But that's from a distance and in retrospect -- most people of conscious care if someone accuses them of wrong-doing. Allison and Jamie cared and felt bad at the time (and a little residually, you bleeding heart progressives), you would care too and feel bad, I'm pretty sure (that's what progressives do, feel bad). But You do Not Have the Facts. I have the facts and I will give them to you.

The biggest time thieves of any company are not hourly workers, it is revenue-drivers, the people who make the money. Hey, guess what! When IT did a audit of computer use in a certain hospital I was working at, guess what the doctors (hospital money makers) spent oodles and oodles of time doing?? Hey, stop it, you will never guess. You think they were talking, or drinking, or golfing, but no! They were watching porn on their computers. For hours each day. Oh, yes. Guess what other money makers are doing? Going to strip clubs, prostitutes, expensive dinners with $100 bottles of wines, and of course, surfing the net for porn. The second biggest time wasters are management. Yes, that's right. The woman who accused you of stealing five minutes typically steals two hours a day. Update: four hours a day.

Never feel bad for stealing five minutes, ten minutes or an hour. It's a drop in the bucket and it's bourgeois and that's the last thing you are.

Links: Citizen Radio