Voices

Taking breaks is better than pretending to be busy

By Huang Yuli (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-19 08:05

Weeks ago a department manager complained to me that newcomers in his company disappear too long at lunch break. The break was until 1 pm, but quite often these "blockheads" didn't show up again until 1:30 pm.

He then added that how he always goes downstairs to the canteen late and is normally back to his seat within 15 minutes. He said he would grab food and eat in the office, but he is concerned about the smell.

"There are so many things to do," he said. "I wonder what is in these kids' heads?"

As he sat there and kept on whining indignantly, I secretly laughed inside because I am the type of person he was talking about. I always get out of the building to get some fresh air at lunchtime. When the weather is fine I even go across the street to take a stroll in the university opposite my workplace.

I know that being a half hour late is definitely not right, but the way this man treated his lunch break is not a good idea either. And he is not the only case. Many middle and upper managers, and other senior staff are apt to rush through lunch.

And it's not just lunch. Newcomers tend to leave the office right at closing hour, but seniors are more likely to stay much longer.

I don't get these people, these big potatoes. I wonder why they don't take breaks as chances to clear their head and to save energy. Isn't it stuffy, draining and ultimately less effective to stay in the same seat, in the same posture for eight or more hours a day? If indeed there is so much work to do, then these few extra minutes at lunch don't really make much differences at all.

I know that they are busy people, but once you start making room for work out of your private time and you take it for granted, then it's possible that you not only ask yourself, but also others, especially your subordinates, to follow these invisible rules.

I have heard of many workplaces where the closing hour is 5:30 pm or 6:00 pm, but people don't go until 6:30 pm or 7:00 pm because they feel they can't leave if their supervisor is still there. But these people are not working during these extra minutes or hours, they are simply staying there to impress their supervisor.

Or they deliberately save some work until the closing hour, so that they could be indeed busy even after work - as long as the manager is there to see, of course. That's a little trick a friend shared with me and it never fails, she said.

Big potatoes obsessed with habitual extra working hours should realize that they not only waste their own time and that of others, but also promote procrastination and failure to meet deadlines.

Besides, such bad habits can have unintended consequences. The workaholic manager I mentioned at start of this column called me a few days ago. He had a growth of some kind on his butt and just got rid of it through surgery. According to his doctor he got it because he sat for too long.

The doctor apparently does quite a lot of similar surgeries, mostly on middle-aged white-collar workers, who sit in their chairs all day long and don't bother to do exercises. The doctor said the number of such cases is growing.

The manager had to take a sick leave for two whole weeks since he couldn't sit at all. Nothing was wrong in his office during the time he was absent.

"It bled," he said, in a voice of deep grief.

This time I could no longer hold back and laughed out loud.