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Business: Work Break
Low productivity days   (+19, -3)  [vote for, against]
Feeling fuzzy?

So you get out of bed first thing in the morning. You fall over, as something seems slightly awry with your sense of balance. You think you're maybe a little ill...or maybe it's because you had a bit too much to drink last night...or you didn't sleep very well...or perhaps this is the beginning of your slow but sure descent into insanity (but not so much as to prevent your inexorable rise to be managing director of a multinational corporation).

It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that you're not feeling 100% today. But you're not feeling that bad either. You know you could turn up to work and get something done, but on the other hand you're feeling a bit too fragile to have people piling work on you, and your boss shouting that you're slacking. So you call in sick.

If such a thing existed, you could instead take a low productivity day. This would mean that you'd still turn up for work, but that people wouldn't expect too much from you. You'd most likely spend a lot of time staring into space, drinking coffee and counting the number of tiles on the ceiling. But hopefully you'd also do some non-intensive work-related activities, like answering e-mails, proof-reading stuff, inputting numbers, or whatever the hell it is you people do at work.

Obviously the employers don't gain from giving you your low productivity allowance on top of your sickie allowance, so the two will have to be balanced somehow - say 2 low productivity days to one sick. Hopefully by giving people an officially-approved route to being a bit hazy, it will encourage them to come into work on days when they can still usefully get things done. Or they could just do a sickie.
-- -alx, Jan 21 2002

...at half pay?
-- phoenix, Jan 21 2002


Would I still be allowed to visit the halfbakery on a low productivity day?
-- beauxeault, Jan 21 2002


Yes, but you can't post any brilliant ideas.
-- phoenix, Jan 21 2002


Seems as though much of the content of this Web site is built upon low productivity days. I wonder how much the content of the œ bakery has cost employers worldwide, taking in the cost of salaries of the bakers posting on company time using company resources. It is easy to imagine that it is a lot of money.
-- lummox, Jan 22 2002


Or alternatively, lummox, how much extra would companies have made worldwide if half-bakers spent their time coming up with innovative ideas for their own companies rather than the hb?
-- goff, Jan 22 2002


If I knew I had a day of inputting numbers ahead of me, I'd be more likely to phone in sick and let someone else do it.
-- angel, Jan 22 2002


In a slightly odd turn of events, I woke up today feeling fairly out of it (with a slightly sore throat), and not really up to a full day's work; though not so bad I'm incapable of doing anything (reading and posting on the HB for example).

I phoned in sick.
-- -alx, Jan 22 2002


Something like this happens in India. It's called desk leave. You go in and sit at your desk but aren't really expected to do anything if you don't feel like it. I'm not sure of the details of how the system works, or rather doesn't, as anybody who's encountered Indian bureaucracy will understand.
-- Gordon Comstock, Jan 22 2002


The half productivity day sounds like my every day...hope this idea doesn't catch on or I will have to start losing sick time on a daily basis. Either that or we can implement the 1/8 productivity day where you just show up and nothing at all is expected from you after that. Now that's an idea!
-- Haywood J, Jan 23 2002


Funny, my peers call them "school days"...all right, I'll shut up now.
-- Galileo, Jan 24 2002


[Steve DeGroof]: Well, then, I just had a Monday, today. Come to think of it, yesterday was Monday, too.
-- Guncrazy, Jan 24 2002


Yes, he's in his office, but he's on sabbatical.
-- hello_c, Jan 24 2002


In my office these are called "Fridays". Sitting at your desk but really dreaming about the weekend.
-- bluerowan, Jan 25 2002


This is a cracking idea, but open to abuse. In my office, for example I have 2 engineers who live close to each other. If this idea was implemented we wouldn't have noticed recently that they were actually bringing life-like dolls of each other into the office every other day, thus working a 2 or 3 day week. Because we expected them to do menial engineer things anyway it wasn't spotted for 6 or 7 months, but this is just giving them an excuse.
-- TypographicErrot, Jan 25 2002


One could always search for that low production job. :) This is a good idea though, if atleast only for certain jobs.

"You ran two red lights and went 90 in a 30 zone. You're lucky that I'm in a low production day. Heck, I didn't even bring any tickets with me."

"We here at emergency medical response can only take one call at a time due to a few of us on a low production day. Please hold."

"Did he have to take a low production day during the Semi Finals? Our team sucks!"
-- sartep, May 20 2003


Can you guys imagine George Bush on a low productivity day??
-- irinel, Feb 16 2004



random, halfbakery