To think most people aren’t 100% focused and productive the entire time they’re at work?

[stealingtime]

I was having a conversation with a coworker today, I’ll call her E I sit next to another coworker, who I consider a friend, I’ll call her K.

So E and I were on our lunch breaks at the same time. People have different lunch breaks as some people do different shifts/they want someone available to answer phones and be available in case any clients drop in.

K has an earlier lunch break to us, she works shorter days starting earlier as she has to work around her children.

Myself and E were chatting on our break, I would have considered E an aquaintance rather than a friend, but we were chatting. In the course of the conversation I said something along the lines of “yeah, I was saying about that to K this morning”

E then goes “How were you talking to K this morning? She started before you, and she doesn’t take her break at the same time?”

I was a bit bemused by that comment and said “Well, me and K sit next to each other, so we were chatting then.”

E then says that I shouldn’t be chatting to K instead of working, to which I said that I didn’t spend all day chatting, but would occasionally have a brief conversation whilst working.

E then tells me that what I’m doing is stealing time, and that she would never dream of chatting on work time.

I said to E that nobody works at 100% efficiency all day every day, we get up and make coffee, we occasionally have a brief conversation, if we need the toilet we go.

E disagreed with me and said that she and (other coworkers) would never do any of that on work time, that they would make coffee and use the toilet before work, would only chat on their allocated break times, and said that she was shocked that I thought that this was genuinely okay to do.

E is not a manager or supervisor. E and I are at the same job level, as well as K.
Do people really spend 100% of the work day on task/being productive, or is E just being holier than thou?
I might point out that nobody has ever raised any issues with my work, and I have been with the company a number of years.

AIBU to think that most people aren’t being totally productive the entire time they’re at work?

Also, it's not unproductive to have a positive rapport with coworkers, it's essential in most lines of work.

E is nuts. Some days, when I can get away with it, I work at about 20%

I'm a supervisor and chat with colleagues all the time. My team chat with each other. It's normal and healthy. It would be miserable if we were head down and silent all day.

Are you in a contact centre? That's the most high pressured job I've ever had and to be honest too much chat/making tea etc was frowned on, but even they realised staff have to communicate and have a little downtime to be anything like productive.
Great atmosphere where I work now, small, friendly, chatty office - but we work bloody hard and the finances don't suffer at all as a result!

My old boss was an E it was horrid.

My new boss is a K, it's great. Actually feel more productive and don't feel drained at the end of the day.

that they would make coffee and use the toilet before work, would only chat on their allocated break times hahahahaha!

E sounds a right barrel of laughs and is someone I'd actively avoid. I work hard, longer hours where necessary, but I also chat to colleagues. Going to work is bad enough, no need to make it miserable.

I talk to my work colleagues throughout the day and have the radio on. I do a practical job and probably 25-30% of it is possible to do while talking. If someone was concentrating on something more technical or complicated, or using machinery then we are obviously fully concentrating on that and not chatting. We have been known to have the TV on for sports events but I wouldn't try and pretend much work was happening then!

I work as a cook..sometimes we all standing around doing nothing ..We work when orders come in.
In a previous life l worked as an accountant, there is no way we worked 9-5 without chatting, making a coffee or all the social interaction you do when you sitting with the same people for years, surely everyone asks the general questions like how was your weekend ect during working time.

I work in an office and we are currently running capacity reports and we use the calculation of out of an 8 hour normal day that 5 - 5.5 hours are productive.

It depends what is meant by "productive". before I retired, I found that, for example, quick chats as I passed someone else's desk, or at the tea point, often led to me finding out things that other teams were working on that would be of interest to my team.

And it certainly helped to encourage cooperative relationships betWeen my team and other team.

As my organisation was a very large national one, inter team cooperation wasn't always a done deal, so what these chats were actually doing is now called networking.

I've definitely known a lot of people who spend more time chatting at work than the do working!
It's completely normal to have brief conversations with people you sit near. And it's definitely normal to spend time making drinks and going to the toilet too!

Chatting, being sociable, networking - call it what you will, it makes the working day more bearable and leads to a happy working environment. I bet E doesn't like her job, hence the "grit her teeth and bear it" approach.

She sounds insane, employers are well aware that no one is working 100% of the time every day and they factor that in.

E is either fibbing or a bit odd.

I am a teacher and head of department so the job is very full on. That said, I still chat to my team/other colleagues at some point during the day - it might be very brief if it's extra busy, but it's there.

You need good relationships with those you work with and a quick chat here and there helps that.

E sounds like an absolute loon. I've never worked anywhere where it wasn't considered completely normal to have a chat now and again, make tea/coffee on work time, have a little wander around the office or a smoke break occasionally. Isn't that how the whole idea of 'watercooler conversation' came about?

E's heading for burnout

Are you in a call centre or something?

E is definitely one of those MNetters who make mothers feel guilty for coming across hard times and tells them they should never have had kids they can't afford, or to LTB because he left a sock on the floor, and thought Brexit was a great idea probably.

You should gave asked what she would have done if she had the shits. Would she just shit herself at her desk?

I once worked in a company that was two YEARS behind on a project because the very inexperienced project managers had done the calculations as 'one task takes 40 minutes, and there are eight hours in a working day, therefore...'. Yeah. That went badly for them. I was one of four extra staff hired in to deal with the backlog...

I was a teacher and while school work in the adult sense of the word, when in lockdown (Melbourne) all lessons were remote and encouraged to be taught live - mine were anyway. Within a couple of months we were told to dial it back as students found it too intense and tiring. There were none of the natural breaks, the students chatting as they come into class, time to hand round papers, all the "non-working " time that's part of an ordinary lesson. Not to mention massive loss of questions from students. Because they weren't walking to different rooms, each lesson followed on from the previous one, and students lost that chit-chat time.

We designated a lesson each week for our subject which was non-taught., and went up on the days' lesson plan so parents and students could see it. No work could be set to be done instead of the live lesson, it was free. I was always available in that time to take any questions or run individual Teams meetings with students. It was so much better.

The kind of intensity E ascribes to just isn't possible and is very likely counter-productive. In any case, there will be many moments in any day when the worker's attention moves to something personal and she's certainly doing that, impossible to do otherwise.

Should read "school work isn't work in the adult sense".

😅😅😅😅
this.

E sounds like she isn’t NT to be completely honest

Depending on the type of work stuff i’ve read says about 3-5 hours of a workday is productive and sustainable. Obviously making calls and having meetings or face to face work can be more done for longer. (Although some face to face work that is also intellectually or emotionally demanding and consistently more hours than that probably leading to slow burnouts all over the place).

Out of a 7 hour day today I managed 2 hours of productive work the rest of the time I sort of fannied around my office, chatted with colleagues, did a cake run for a birthday & had a very long tea break.

No one is 100% productive for the full day every day that's unrealistic.