The Art Of Zombie-ing

Zombie-ing is a difficult art. You try to pass the day simulating work while really doing nothing of significance. The start of the day is easier with the customary prep work. First there is the calendar check to see if you were invited to a meeting. You summon a smile when you find one you might like to attend. There is the influx of miscellaneous fyi emails that fills your inbox. You delight as the unread ticker rise and pray it goes past double digits so you have more to run through. Occasionally you find one of relevance and you take your time to compose a response. The rest you stretch their worth by reading from end to end and then simply discarding whatever morsel of meaningful data from your consciousness. If you are lucky you would have gone past the hour and a half mark by the time you are done.

Next comes the harder part of the day. You have nothing on hand to occupy your time, at least not the official ones. So you fill the screen with multiple spreadsheets, word documents and pdfs., preferably work related ones so it looks authentic. On a good day, you figure you can blog about something … like this post. On other days you drink lots of water and go for potty breaks every half hour just so you can move away from your computer. Thankfully it usually isn’t long before you reach the lunch hour to enjoy the much needed reprieve from the ruse.

Then you return in the afternoon with a full stomach and nagging wants of a soft bed to rest your heavy head. You try to shut out the thoughts of sleep and do more of the same as you did before lunch. But the day seems longer and all energy is sapped from your limp body as you fight away the onset of boredom.

There are times when you try to work on personal assignments, but those require you to look at nice pretty financial reports which draw attention to your screen. So you try to keep an ear on your surroundings and your fingers close to the Alt-Tab keys. It’s tough going as you need to surf the net for research. And surfing is a dangerous thing so you try to keep it to a minimum. Slowly you get some stuff done, though at an unproductive rate. With that you shave off another hour or so from the day.

There are also those days where you simply stone. There is the inane fear of being caught doing nothing yet you can’t seem to summon the energy nor motivation to do anything other than staring blankly at your screen. Typically the rock-mimicking routines span several minutes at a time and with good skills and a dose of luck you take another hour off your shift.

Much effort has been spent to pass the day of eight hours. But even with proficiency you are more tired doing nothing than doing something. You can only look out the window and dream of the near future when you can call it quits and move on to the next adventure. Well at least you comfort yourself with another day clocked towards mastering the art of zombie-ing. And then the same day starts again tomorrow …

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It’s killing me, I’m dying from boredom. It’s tiring playing this cat and mouse game. Sadly I can’t help it, I have to go against my natural instincts to survive. Already they are waiting intently for me to leave the company. I fought against their wishes and cling onto the desk. My natural sense tells me to source for improvement opportunities, ways to streamline processes, upgrade the templates, build continuity, help out the team in their tasks, deliver more.

But I need to keep away from these … the people here do not deserve it, nor will they appreciate it even if I do contribute. So I find myself sitting here honing my undead skills and wait for the opportune time. I wait to go back to a fast pace industry where changes abound and you are constantly on your toes looking to the next challenge.

I’m sure many will say I’m silly to be looking when this job has little pressure and pace is slow. But the problem is that I’m not that sort of person. So again I’m waiting to move to the next challenge. Hopefully I would not bore to death before I find the right opportunity.

P.S. Writing this post took three hours off the day. The three hours include four bio breaks, two trips to make green tea, a trip to the nearby café for coffee and a sandwich. It would be nice if I have another topic to do the same again for tomorrow.