If a tree falls down in the forest and there's no one there to hear it...
Lately I've been feeling that way about work. As in, if I'm doing work but no one is paying any attention, does it count as work?* I mean NO ONE knows. I could sit here all day and do NOTHING. And no one would be the wiser. The only people I see all day other than Josh (who leaves for work all day, of course) and people who I never talk to at the gym (except for the friendly check-in guy and one trainer who reminds me of Jeff) are my neighbors who on occasion walk past my apartment window to see me sitting in front of my computer day in and day out. But I could be looking at porn. Or shopping. Or on line chat-rooming. Or obsessively searching for good oily-skin skin care products. Ok, I do actually do that one. Without much luck, may I add. And I occasionally shop, but not so much since Christmas. Anyway, it's weird to have no one pay attention. I talk to Gary on occasion, but I think he's online gaming or something while we're on the phone or sleep-talking or something. He's been rather fly-headed on the phone lately. Or always. I don't know. But I don't really want people to be all on my case about work. I know I should be thankful for that. My life is not particularly difficult. I can be just about as slow as I like. And slow I am considering it took me, oh, all day not to totally finish coding a variable for my diss. Maybe that's the problem. If works happens so slowly that at the end of months (or years, in the case of my re-re-re-revised thesis) you have not so much to show for it, is it actually work? And again, it's 4:30 pm and I'm thinking about starting on the work for the Gary-related people who've been ignoring me for 2+ months. So I blog instead. B/c sometimes you pay attention. At least I've got that!
*Shout out to Connie for suggesting I blog about this.
posted by Careyoke @ 4:28 PM
4 Comments:
I've struggled a lot with this. The structure of sociology, I think, doesn't help much with this. Nor does the ease with which academics can "work at home" and now can be very far into some weird Internet world even when seemingly dutifully at their desks in their office.
"Fly-headed"? I'm not familiar with this phrase.
I can share your frustration. I do leave my house nearly daily to come to campus, but I'm home by 3pm almost every day. Now that I'm teaching classes I already taught, my lectures are already written so I don't have much class prep to do.
You'd think this would lead to me already having revised my diss into some articles, and making huge progress on my Latino immigrant study and such.
You'd be wrong.
I have managed to texture and paint my dining room ceiling. And I take frequent naps. Other than that, I'm honestly not sure what I do with my time. It's definitely not spent socializing, as I still only have 1 friend that I hang out with regularly, and she's my roommate so we mostly just hang out at home. And she makes me feel lazy cause she works 70-90 hours a week in addition to being a full-time geology student.
Hmmm...Now you've gotten me all disturbed about how little I accomplish on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.
NOOO! No being disturbed! That was not what I intended to do! I just wanted some attention. And some sympathy. Or someone to yell at me to get over myself.
Btw, "fly-head"=airhead.
Yeah, it turns out I am better suited to working in an office where I can be easily monitored. Otherwise I do things like, well, spending nearly three weeks writing a grand total of 25 pages. And not a single other sociology-related thing. What do I do during the 23 hours a day in which I am not writing? Who knows.
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