The Fine Art of Wasting Time

I’ve been working at cough a large home-and-garden warehouse cough for several months now, part time. I only get two or three days a week on my schedule, but on the days that I am in, I have to get up at 4 to be ready to head out the door and be at work at 5am. Being a morning person isn’t my cup of tea, so I take a caffeine pill every morning that I work that early. The only problem with that is that I become a whirlwind of productivity.

You may not see that as a problem, but it really is one.

See, I’m scheduled from 5am to 2pm, with an hour lunch, that’s 8 hours. The problem is that there are about 4.5 hours worth of work to be done in the vault, which is where I work. That means that even when I don’t take the caffeine pill and I’m dragging my feet and making mistakes right, left, and center, the longest I’ve been able to drag out my work is until 11am. The conundrum is that I need the hours and the pay, so I need to make my day last longer. So I’ve come up with an extensive list of things to make my day’s work last longer.

1. Make sure my shoes are tied.
2. Check my work schedule for the next three weeks, even though I have it memorized.
3. Check the weather report.
4. Print out necessary paperwork.
5. Count the strips and make the deposit.
6. Drink water.
7. Enter deposit info into computer.
8. Re-tie my shoelaces.
9. Fold up my sleeves.
10. Get some chewing gum.
11. Pack everything up, lock the vault, go to the bathroom.
12. Spend extra time in bathroom checking my phone.
13. Unlock vault, get everything back out.
14. Count money.
15. Drink water.
16. Put on headphones and play music.
17. Sing along.
18. Dance to music.
19. Re-tie shoelaces due to dancing.
20. Enter money count into computer.
21. Answer the phone, but let it ring three times first.
22. Speak very slowly on the phone.
23. Hang  up, drink more water.
24. Fill out paperwork with left hand (I’m right handed.)
25. Drink more water.
26. Make up self check out register.
27. Remember To Do list, and write it out in neatest cursive possible.
28. Pack up vault and go to lunch for an hour.
29. Unlock vault and get everything back out.
30. Put on lotion.
31. Adjust thermostat.
32. Make faces at the CCTV camera.
33. Walk backwards for all remaining tasks of day.
34. Drink water.
35. Make new tills for the next day.
36. Screw something up in computer, half deliberately.
37. Spend 25 minutes “figuring out” what I did.
38. Straighten paperwork, eeeeeexactly, before stapling.
39. Drink water.
40. Have to pee – pack everything  up and lock vault. Go pee.
41. Unlock vault.
42. Drink water.
43. Skip songs on phone until a good one comes on.
44. Double check that everything is ready for tomorrow.
45. Send extra cash bags to registers.
46. Call HR supervisor and see if she has any extra tasks. She doesn’t.
47. Take shoes off, pull up socks, put shoes back on, and re-tie.
48. Blow nose.
49. Use hand sanitizer.
50. Use lotion.
51. Spit out gum, get new piece.
52. Find envelope that needs a stamp and send it out.
53. File paperwork.
54. Sweep.
55. Drink water.
56. Check work schedule again, in case it changed.
57. Check clock. Still only 10:30am
58. Give up.

Yes, folks, that’s about how my day goes. I do other stuff too, like make sure every single bill in the vault is facing the same direction. Sometimes I wash every surface in the room with disinfectant wipes, especially if I heard someone cough in there. Sometimes I go to the bathroom literally just to walk somewhere and come back. Sometimes I sharpen a dozen pencils. Sometimes I laminate things that maaaybe don’t need to be laminated.

It’s ridiculous.

But hey. I need the hours.