I could not help but overhear the conversation among young professionals, as I was patiently waiting for my turn in a payment facility. The place was jam-packed, and I was uncomfortably seated between two groups who were unmindful of the people around them. Despite showing my displeasure, they still continued to talk loudly and one of them was complaining about getting reprimanded at her workplace and was seriously considering quitting her call-center job. Her colleagues were throwing suggestions on how to go about finding another company to work for. One suggested going to a job fair, another mentioned about a job opening in her office for a quality assurance position. Not particularly interested to hear more, I reached out for my phone thinking I could just pass the time and the boredom by playing Word Mole when I heard them say to the girl “Angry Birds could really anger your boss”. Apparently, the girl’s Team Leader, caught her playing games in her smart phone when she was supposed to be carrying out her job responsibilities. It was then that I seriously found myself feeling even worse for the birds. Isn’t it bad enough that their eggs got stolen by pigs? And now they were getting blamed for someone about to get fired.
Office distractions, as I call them have been around for a very long time. Angry Birds to that call-center agent, Plants vs Zombies for me, Mafia Wars to my brother, Facebook to others...the list is endless. One time, I visited a law firm and found most of the lawyers playing Zuma in their computers. I remember one company that I worked for a few years back, they had IT department adjust settings so that the employees could not access social networking sites. Somehow the workforce still found ways to visit those addictive sites. Companies come up with restrictions and some employees simply disregard them. It is the addiction that compels them to play, surf and risk the repercussions. An Employer myself, I realize the need for the workers to enjoy any form of relaxation but should be done during their break time only. They have that fifteen-minute break in the morning, lunch break and the fifteen-minute break in the afternoon. They can choose to spend their time playing their favorite games. These forms of entertainment can offer a temporary reprieve from office demands. Most of the time however, people get addicted and simply won’t stop thus allowing their work to suffer. And we know what happens after that, as in the case of the girl.
With the growing number of people seeking for employment nowadays, it is wise to think of that and how much you have to value your jobs the next time you are tempted to help those birds rescue their eggs or in my case, protect my brains from getting eaten by zombies.
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