Killing time at work, the final installment

The final installment of how I manage to make it through a do-nothing workday:

9:00 – I arrive in the conference room designated for our health insurance screening. It’s a good-sized meeting room featuring a large table surrounded by about ten executive chairs at the front, then another 40 or so straight-back chairs aimed toward the table. The two free-lance nurses sit at the table and direct those arriving to sign-in, weigh themselves, fill out an information sheet, and take a seat to wait their turn. My pre-set appointment time apparently means nothing, as there are about a half-dozen people signed in ahead of me. The whole scene does very little to reassure anyone who might be concerned about privacy as they discuss their health matters at the table. You basically have an audience watching as your blood-pressure is checked, your finger is pricked for a cholesterol test and you answer questions about your most private history. The numbers revealed in the screening will be used in an online questionnaire we’re required to submit as part of our insurance sign-up. Patients with the one nurse are moving pretty swiftly, but the second one has retained her patient for a good bit of time. We all wonder what loathsome condition her poor patient has that requires so much discussion.

9:45 – I finally get called up to the stage, er, patient table. I feel a little like Tom Hanks greeting David Letterman, though fortunately there’s no applause from the crowd. I’ve got the elderly nurse and, though a little slow, she plods through the procedures fairly well. I ask if the blood test will also measure blood sugar, which was included in previous years’ tests, but she says “not this year. I guess they’re trying to save a little money, but it doesn’t really make sense since we can use the same sample.” Apparently, making sense is something that’s done in the healthcare field. Interesting. My numbers are just a couple of points off what they like to see, so she goes through the pre-programmed routine of giving me advice on how to hit the numbers right on the dot. I need more salmon, preferably Pacific or Alaskan though Atlantic is still better than flounder, which is not as good as cod. She tells me where salmon can be bought, how it can be preserved, and how it can be cooked but, unfortunately, not how to afford it.

10:15 – I’m out of the screening and pleased with how it went. Normally, you might be annoyed to get tied up well over an hour for a medical appointment that could’ve taken ten minutes, but I’m just glad I’m that much closer to the end of the day. Perhaps a little dazed from the blood loss (or maybe it’s the thought of all those dead fish), I stumble into Dora in the hallway, the manager who wants me to review our training website. I tell her I’ll take a look after my lunch break.

10:25 – We’re supposed to have a total of 60 minutes of breaks each workday. Believe it or not, at one time there was a posted schedule of who was to go when and for how long. For example, I was required to take 15 minutes from precisely 6:30 to 6:45 am, despite the fact I had arrived only 90 minutes earlier. Fortunately, our corps of smokers, who were allowed to take their breaks in ten 6-minute sessions, undercut the master plan. Now, I typically take about 40 minutes to sit and drink coffee in a Greek diner. It’s the only nearby commercial establishment besides a heavy equipment rental outfit, and at the moment I’m good on front-end loaders.

11:00 – Back from my break, I need to make a vacation request so I can have a day off tomorrow. Rather than simply ask my manager, we are required to submit what’s called a “schedule variance form”. This overcomplicated piece of needless paperwork has no less than five places to enter a date and three places to include your name. You have to specify the type of day off you want: vacation, what’s called a “floating holiday” (though it can be used for activities other than floating), and “other”. I have 15 vacation days, plus these mysterious holidays designed I think to let people take off for personal religious days like Yom Kippur, Good Friday, or migraine headache day. We have no “sick days”, per se, just paid and unpaid time off. The bottom of the variance form has five full lines set aside for comments. We’ve given up on using the spot to complain about this perverted system, and instead add things like “please, please, please!” or “I think my dog is dying tomorrow”.

11:30 – A loud rhythmic shriek repeats a half dozen times from across the room. It’s not that Kim has discovered an even cuter cross-stitch pattern, but rather a test of the weather emergency radio. It goes off every day, so we’ve learned to ignore it as well as the tornado warnings it might be indicating.

12:05 – As I pass my supervisor’s office on the way to my mailbox slot, she calls out to me. Sandra has developed this failsafe management technique that allows her view to prevail in virtually any discussion. She has the patience and tenacity of continuing a conversation until your filling bladder or desire for food forces you to give in. In this case, she also uses the advantage of being seated at her desk while I’m forced to stand in her doorway. She wants to resume a talk we had a few weeks back about how a particular error was committed, which evolves into a dialogue about some similar errors, which turns into an exchange about coworkers we both know from other sites, and somehow eventually ends up focused on the Yuletide favorite “Away in a Manger”. Within 20 minutes my legs have tired to the extent that I’m literally slumping against her wall, taking every tone of her voice that seems to signal the end is near to inch further away. Ultimate, I give in to her position that errors are bad and Christmas is good.

12:30 – My loud, talkative neighbor is at it again: “When my neighbors get home from work, our dog runs over to sit and watch them.” Then, “we bought a ham last week.” Then, “isn’t orange juice good for settling you stomach?” Then, “Happy birthday, Bob. Are you 29 again? My husband says our daughter cried when I sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her as a baby.” No doubt.

12:35 -- I’m thinking it’s time to take my last break of the day. I’ve discovered a secluded spot featuring a few large boulders near the back of our office park. It’s shaded, has a nice view of a parking lot for semi trailers and can just barely be seen from the road or sidewalk. I’ll take a book or newspaper down here to use up my last 15 minutes reading. My only concern is that I’ll be discovered by passing coworkers, a fear that is nearly realized when I start back to the office and pass Kim and Linda on the sidewalk. Kim would definitely find it worthy of loud commentary should she discover me in my spot. “You were sitting on a rock,” she’d doubtless observe. Her efforts to point out the obvious might then spiral out of control, noting how I have brown hair, that there’s a cloud up in the sky, and “we’re on the Earth!”

1:10 – Dora comes back to me desk to talk about the website review assignment. I’m ready with my all-purpose assessment – “looks good to me” – but before I can get it out, she tells me to put the project on hold, until she’s sure I’m looking at the latest version. Once again, my delaying tactics have paid off.

1:45 – Kim announces “fifteen minutes till you leave.” For the only time that day, I’m glad to hear her.