Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes the best use of time is wasting it and the most wasteful use of time is working hard.

Here is a story I heard many years ago:

Story

Two computer programmers came to work. They both worked hard and programmed for six straight hours to the point of exhaustion.

The first programmer, being exhausted, wasted the rest of the day, the next two hours.

The second programmer, being more punctilious than the first, continued to write computer programs for the next two hours.

Being exhausted, the second programmer made a lot of mistakes during these last two hours. There were so many mistakes that it took the rest of the week, four days, for the second programmer to find and correct all the mistakes.

The first programmer spent the rest of the week writing new, mistake-free computer programs.

Conclusions about the Story

1. Sometimes, the best thing to do at work is to waste time.
2. Sometimes, working really hard leads to mistakes that waste time to find and correct.

Real Life

This story came to mind this week as a colleague felt ill, but worked really hard anyways an made lots of mistakes that took days to find and correct.

I suppose these little stories we hear have some truth to them.