trust me, i’m a pro January 20, 2012

Patrick's got the right idea.

So I’m at the office and I’m getting paid a comfortable hourly rate to print paperwork and highlight the parts my clients are supposed to fill out and sign. It’s not difficult work, but the other two residents of my cubicle didn’t show up today, and it’s both tempting and easy to type nonsense into an e-mail template so that it looks and sounds like I’m being super-productive. This, combined with longing thoughts of my upcoming three-day weekend and the book in my bag that I had to stop reading halfway through a particularly exciting chapter, has led me to make an executive decision: today, I will procrastinate.

I’m a master of procrastination. You could even say that I’m a ‘pro’. (See what I did there?) Whether it’s at work (oh yeah I’m totally on hold there’s no way I’m just listening to an empty dial tone and mindlessly doodling pictures of mooses (meese?) on my message pad), at home (I can’t be bothered hanging my washing out so I’ll just put it on a seventh spin cycle), or at uni (watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother is totally related to the essay I’m meant to be writing about post-apartheid literature), I can find ways to avoid doing pretty much anything. The critical point of this arrangement is that when I’m feeling productive, I’m very, very productive. I can work at a speedier pace than my more consistent counterparts. I can get the same amount done in half the time, effectively allowing me 4 hours in every day to loaf aimlessly around the tearoom deliberately taking 800 minutes to make an instant coffee or “go to the bathroom” and spend half an hour leaning against the hand-dryer texting my housemate (my co-workers must think I have a severe digestive disorder)*.

Procrastination, however—like any fun thing—has its drawbacks. There is nothing like procrastinating to kill workplace morale. Once you’ve procrastinated, you can call it a day. There’s no coming back from it until you start fresh the next morning. If you do it enough, you might get reckless, and find yourself openly browsing Tumblr on company time, not caring who walks past and sees you salivating over a Scanwich. Eventually your cubicle buddy is bound to notice that you’ve been working on the same payment for the last hour and a half, or that your phone has rung twice while you’ve been “on hold”. The dishes you’ve been putting off washing will eventually become host to a small family of cockroaches. You’ll find yourself desperately clawing at Wikipedia because by the time you got to the library all the critical texts on your topic had already been taken out by more diligent students. Life will crumble around you and you’ll figuratively and perhaps literally drown in regret and self-loathing. Procrastination, kind of like tequila, is what I like to call a Sometimes Activity. Frequent use is dangerous. You might not end up puking cactus from your nostrils, but the consequences of procrastination are just as dire. Nobody likes to get fired, do they? Unless they’re Lano and Woodley, in which case, hell yeah.

Anyway, having written these completely useless paragraphs of blatant time-wasting, and having, twenty seconds ago, survived a close call with my boss who (I hope) actually believed that this was an email to a client, it’s probably about time for me to recuperate over lunch and get stuck into some highlighting. Maybe. Or I could go lean against the bathroom wall and watch episodes of Lano and Woodley on Youtube. Decisions.

*I feel that at this point, it’s necessary for me to make a disclaimer. If you are a potential employer and you are reading this, please note that all procrastinatory tales herein are exaggerated for (admittedly poorly) comedic purposes, and that I am actually a very efficient employee. I might steal some biros and tissues from your supply cupboard, and I never wash my own coffee mug, but I never procrastinate until my job is done. Srsly.