A Reason to Swim

Clever, clever.

(click picture to enlarge)

At one point with my former employer (ironically, at a magazine), my co-workers and I were given the task of training the newest assistant to the office. During the course of her week-long training, we each spent a fair amount of time explaining the office how-to's and our personal advice on workday survival.

For instance,
this is how you bind the presentation...
this is how you call the help desk...
this is how you make coffee...
etc.

At one point in my rambling, the girl (who was all-around confused) looked at me and asked some variation of the question, "so what do you do when you have nothing to do?" Listen - boredom in the workplace is just a reality. I knew what she was getting at. Or at least I thought I knew what she was getting at. I, of course, encouraged her to reach her potential and maximize her productivity as best as she could and that when she felt like she had some downtime, she could join the rest of us and "read news online." Which of course meant, surf the internet. She knew what I was getting at and I knew that in that moment I had just explained the most trivial (and obvious) of day-to-day boredom fulfillment. From that day forward, the notion of "news online" took on a whole new meaning. Whether or not our stories were newsworthy, my fun NY co-workers would send around articles on the vital world facts: who Brody Jenner was dating, what on earth Kate Gosselin was up to, and the latest and greatest recap on Gossip Girl...

Dan Rather, eat your heart out.