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No Time For You …
Many months ago, my employer felt that it would be a good idea to have us attend a meeting on personal productivity — another way of saying that they’d like to work even harder than we already do with no raises or incentives.
Most of the meeting was a big blur to me, as most meetings tend to be, but one part made me perk up a little bit. This was the part of the meeting where they tell you how to avoid or handle interruptions. Here are just a few of the little nuggets they sprinkled on us during that meeting:
Set up a signal that lets everyone know that this is NOT a good time for a friendly “Hi” or chat. Uh huh. Because God forbid someone can come over and say “Hi” to you for two seconds. But then they go on to give examples of signals you can give, like:
– Displaying a “Do Not Disturb” sign
– Furrowing your brow (like they are bothering you)
– Keeping your hands on the keyboard while they say hello
– Glancing at your watch before you make eye contact
– Hesitating for a moment before turning toward the visitor.
I know people like that and don’t like them. In fact, I don’t talk to them. Why? Because they are rude ass mofos. If someone “furrowed their brow” at me, I’d walk away and never talk to them again. So, I guess it does work. You won’t have anyone talking to you anymore, and you can spend your days working on your job that seems to be oh-so-important to you. Beeeeeeeeatch. Maybe we should take this one a step further and strap duct tape all over the front of your office so no one can even get near you.
Minimize an interruption that you can’t avoid. In other words, the guy didn’t get the signal when you “furrowed your brow” at him, and must’ve missed the duct tape and Do Not Disturb sign, so now what? Well, they suggest that, first off, you don’t invite them to sit down. And if you are sitting, you stand up. If standing up doesn’t give them the hint then you are supposed to leave your workspace. I suppose you could also just say “I don’t have fucking time to listen to you babble on about your damn personal life”. Or maybe not.
They basically provided all this wonderful information in book form, so that we could take notes and revisit it when we felt we had some time. Personally, I felt that I could have been more productive had I not attended that meeting and instead spend the three hours at home scrubbing my bath tub.
More corporate crap for you.
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3 Responses to 'No Time For You …'
I can totally relate. I deal with the same crap at work. I think they send you to these trainings because they actually think your getting something out of it. YEAH RIGHT. Why don’t they save their money and send me to lunch. I would definitely cost less. Has anybody thought of the idea of “Hey I would love to dicuss or chat that but I have a ton of work I need to finish by the end of the hour. How about we get together later and dicuss that.” It is called open communication.
You mean… actually talk to your coworkers. Oh God no. That would be way too easy. Signs are way more impersonal.
They think they can teach in a single class what it’s taken me a lifetime to perfect. 😉