talkmagic.co.uk

Hello Marvo,

Thank you for sharing all of that. I find this so amazing and, well, amusing. It makes me wonder what other quaint customs you Brits have that the rest of us in the uncivilized world lack. I feel like such a simple country girl seeing the city for the first time.

Please, share, okay, I so would love to hear. Just give me a moment to go sit over there so I can, um, concentrate.

Love,

Amanda Angeli

Yes Amanda I think this is definitely a very British thing.

Britain may be a tenth rate country, but nevertheless it has it's civility. I mean, there's very little to worry about here. We normally have enough food, the water's drinkable and there are no tanks rumbling up and down the High Street. Us Brits actually have it quite good.

Consequently we worry about everything else. Petty things, mostly. We moan about our jobs a lot. And our health.
Most Brits simply see their jobs as a daily chore rather than something that they need to do in order to survive. This means we will do anything to avoid doing any work when we are actually at, well, work.

But we are not without our inventiveness. For example we have many and varied means for appearing to be busy when in fact we are not. Hiding in the toilet is one, walking round the office clutching a clipboard is another. This is a very popular ploy. No one will suspect you are really doing nothing whatsoever, and you can quite happily potter round all day just by looking ostensibly busy.

This is by no means restricted to the 'other ranks' as it were. It actually gets worse the further 'up' you go. Procrastination by upper management types is on a much grander, and much more wasteful scale. 'Fact Finding Missions' are very popular among these likes, as are 'expense accounts'.
Allow me to illustrate. A typical wine budget during one single business lunch is actually the equivalent of "just popping out to deliver the post" for THIRTY EIGHT hours on the national minimum wage.

And I'll quite happily pull the lever.

One of my favourites is to tag a little shopping trip onto the end of a lunch with a client.

Lady of Mystery wrote:One of my favourites is to tag a little shopping trip onto the end of a lunch with a client.

Now that comes as no surprise.

Anyhow, I'm not skiving today, but I am trying to take a quiet moment.
I am in a room full of monsters and I'm trying to find that lttle peaceful place in the back of your mind, you know, the one where you drift off momentarily and think about something nice.

I think it's very important to have these little moments when you're busy. Today I am thinking about being in the country. I like the hills round here a lot, and if I look very carefully from the top floor of this building you can just see them against the horizon.

They are about forty miles off, I reckon.

I spend less time on TM now that Im not working

I'm having a four day weekend from my high school! Friday was professional day, and today it is Columbus Day! Hooray for federal holidays!

I'm at work and I have just sharpened a box of 300 coloured pencils.

This is surely the perfect skive.

Therapeutic and I got paid for it.

I am writing this in the middle of my PE lesson, as you can tell Im working overly hard on my hockey at the moment.

Anyone who has ever seen me will tell you, it shows.