A Counting School - Hardcore Chartered Accountancy

since 1494

New computer time, er, the risks of writing when you should be working

I've been insanely busy yet productive lately. The side effect of this has been a steady accumulation of longer, more 'interesting' or 'amusing' stories to share but not enough time to do so.

Fortunately the audit job I'm on is winding down rapidly which should give me more time to write. And, more importantly, I'm scheduled for a laptop upgrade this morning - which will mean I can do everything faster, giving me even more time to write. And work.

I was going to rave a little more about my new gear, but there'll be time for that once I have it in my hands - first, the whole thing about writing reminded me of an article in the current issue of CA Magazine: a small featurette on people who were fired for blogging about work - the usual reason was that they were doing it while on work time.

One guy was silly enough to brag about the fact he was being paid to sit around and do that instead of his real job.

And that's just stupid - he admitted to fraud - stealing time/money from his employer. A direct link to the fired writers featurette is here.

Professionals at least have the same advantage as taxi drivers: you can go 'off the clock', so to speak, when you're not doing 'productive' "work work", i.e., taking a break to run errands or type your personal online journal or whatever. People who keep 'regular hours' on the other hand don't have that luxury.

I wouldn't say that the CA Magazine article smugly puts down the unfortunate souls who had to go job hunting again because of their mistakes - although saying that someone had an audience of roughly 10 people before he was fired does sound a bit haughty.

Sidenote: welcome, Dennis, to the list of sites on that handy bar to the right.

Comments

scoutmom said:

OMG, you mean I'm NOT supposed to do my blog from work!?  Man, I am SO in trouble.  Just kidding, although I have found a tendency to do a click here or there and take a quick glance at something I might use in my blog.

And just so there is NO misunderstanding.  No, I do not get paid to do it, except in the wonderful reward of friendship from all the great folks at Steeple!
# January 25, 2007 7:30 AM

madrigalia said:

I was always <i>very</i> careful not to blog at work, read my blog at work, or even peruse sites that linked to my blog. Let's just say researching pop songs that came on the radio because a bit of an obsession. Now, I count that as "work"; as enhancing my general knowledge of the music industry/technology, and also applying critical theory on the fly to potential case study material.

Either grad school is the greatest time write-off ever, or it's all-consuming labour that never really ceases. I spent the afternoon talking gender theory while hammered, but I'll spend tonight reading psychoanalytic film theory, perfectly sober...
# January 26, 2007 6:29 PM

annadams95340 said:

Hi.  There's even a word for it.  It's called being "dooced".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dooce
# January 27, 2007 12:56 AM

Krupo said:

Ah, thank you for the synonym - I read about it recently - I think the CA Magazine article even mentions it - but had a mental block preventing me from typing it out - perhaps because I've never used it in any conversation myself. :)

Grad school sounds simply awesome.
# January 27, 2007 11:00 AM