Uselessness
The weather outside is pleasant, sunny and surprisingly cool, but the weather inside is a little gloomy. I’ve been in a funk the past few days, which contributed to yesterday’s no post. I was too busy finding ways to deflect responsibilities to write to y'all.
I find, when the motivation isn’t there to produce, it’s very hard for me to not produce. It takes work for me to shirk work. Unproductivity is a tough business. I can’t just launch into it. I need a plan for my futility, a course of action.
When I worked at big, 11,000 employee multi-national, I had friends who would cut out in the middle of the day to catch a movie, take a 3 hour lunch, go shopping, or go home to take a nap. They wouldn’t think twice about it. An effortless transition to unproductivity. My heros. (Update: they all lost their jobs and have since moved on to other, I imagine less-productive, careers.)
Yesterday, in my attempt to be useless, I walked around the block a few times, diligently searching for nothing to do. I was on my way to nowhere in particular when a woman broke my very deliberate stride.
She was desperate for directions. Poor thing didn’t realize she was asking a guy with the navigational sense of an earthworm.
When people ask me directions, I freeze up like racoon in a flashlight. I usually have no clue where their desitnation is. But I really like helping people, so I stand there and look off into the distance purporting the illusion that I’m picking the best route.
Sometimes, I’ll point randomly and create faux landmarks, “you see that fruit stand,” or “there was a bank over there.” This buys me a little time while I try and draw a mental map, with crayons.
We were on Bowery and 1st and she needed to find Bowery and 2nd. Easy ‘nough, that would be one street north of where we were standing. OK. Now where’s north? I unconsciously look up. Not sure why, perhaps searching for the north star? I string together about 40 or 50 uhs and ums to buy more time.
This is when I thought of pointing out something behind her and running away when she turned. Luckily somebody else heard my Bevis and Butthead imitation and saved the day.
Her destination was exactly 60 steps from where we were standing.
Now I can go back to being useless.
GM
I find, when the motivation isn’t there to produce, it’s very hard for me to not produce. It takes work for me to shirk work. Unproductivity is a tough business. I can’t just launch into it. I need a plan for my futility, a course of action.
When I worked at big, 11,000 employee multi-national, I had friends who would cut out in the middle of the day to catch a movie, take a 3 hour lunch, go shopping, or go home to take a nap. They wouldn’t think twice about it. An effortless transition to unproductivity. My heros. (Update: they all lost their jobs and have since moved on to other, I imagine less-productive, careers.)
Yesterday, in my attempt to be useless, I walked around the block a few times, diligently searching for nothing to do. I was on my way to nowhere in particular when a woman broke my very deliberate stride.
She was desperate for directions. Poor thing didn’t realize she was asking a guy with the navigational sense of an earthworm.
When people ask me directions, I freeze up like racoon in a flashlight. I usually have no clue where their desitnation is. But I really like helping people, so I stand there and look off into the distance purporting the illusion that I’m picking the best route.
Sometimes, I’ll point randomly and create faux landmarks, “you see that fruit stand,” or “there was a bank over there.” This buys me a little time while I try and draw a mental map, with crayons.
We were on Bowery and 1st and she needed to find Bowery and 2nd. Easy ‘nough, that would be one street north of where we were standing. OK. Now where’s north? I unconsciously look up. Not sure why, perhaps searching for the north star? I string together about 40 or 50 uhs and ums to buy more time.
This is when I thought of pointing out something behind her and running away when she turned. Luckily somebody else heard my Bevis and Butthead imitation and saved the day.
Her destination was exactly 60 steps from where we were standing.
Now I can go back to being useless.
GM
posted by Greg Monaco at 10:24 AM
1 Comments:
This is possibly your funniest post ever. The essence of Gregorovich.
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