Over at the often forgotten Jeff Somers Rocks You Like a Hurrican Forums, a few folks were discussing reading at work (specifically, since this was, after all, the Jeff Somers Rocks You Like a Hurrican Forums, reading The Digital Plague at work). Work tends to be a big old package of wasted time no matter how you slice it — I’m convinced that people who complain about being busy at work simply haven’t figured out time management yet. Or perhaps that’s just my job, which can be done in about 3 good hours on a sunny afternoon while lying in the tall grass of your local park, daydreaming. When I had to troop into an office every day to accomplish my job it was a horror of wasted hours as I sat at my desk trying to look busy.
Anyway, reading at work is the Great Dream of all lazy, unambitious geniuses (like me). Before the Internet, which I know for a lot of youngin’s sounds about as far back in the past as The Great Depression, it was almost comically hard and you ended up doing a lot of things you would normally consider insane, like sitting in toilet stalls with a paperback, or photocopying a 1200-page book just so you could carry it around in a manilla folder and look busy while you were devouring a good potboiler.
The Internet made it easier, of course, as you could now find at least something to read on your computer and still appear to be borderline-productive. If nothing else you can find lots of classics at Project Gutenberg and the like. Now, today, I found this site: Read at Work. It’s a little weird, and I’m not sure if you can add content to it, but it’s a nifty idea.
There: I do my part to ruin your career and undermine the infrastructure of our great nation. Now, back to work.