The Cult of Productivity

So I'm sitting here on yet another sick day away from work. I tried going back to the office yesterday, but this proved to be a bad move and I came home at lunch time. I really shouldn't have gone to work, and I am forced to conclude that the only reason I did was that I am really, really bored. I've slept, watched crappy TV, played solitaire, rearranged photo albums, burnt some CDs and minidisks . . . I was even starting to get this guilt/anxiety feeling about not being at work, and that is REALLY sick. Oh god, I've been brainwashed by the work cult. Being at work for the morning yesterday was long enough to prove that there was really nothing so urgent happening that I needed to be there. Apparantly I just have this need to be a useful and productive member of society. Who would have thought it?

One more day of this and I'll be sitting in an upstairs room, spying on the neighbours with a telescope. Not that we have one. A telescope I mean. We have neighbours.

Meanwhile other people are doing useful things like working, shopping, and protesting outside Howard's "Why we need to go to war" speech. I would have watched it on TV, but I'm sick enough already - I don't need that shit. I've had this idea that every household should have a supply of soft foam projectiles, like nerf, in the TV room. Then when you got really pissed off at whoever is on TV you could throw stuff at them without damaging the TV.

Oh, and I have an addition to the truly amazing computing questions I've been asked. I'm sitting at home yesterday, the phone rings, and the follwing conversation takes place:
Me: Hello?
X: Hi Marissa, it's X. Sorry to call you at home when you're sick.
Me: That's OK, what's up?
X: I need to scan something, so I need you to walk me through some easy step-by-step instructions.
Me: OK, see the piece of paper I stuck to the wall above the scanner, labelled 'Using the Scanner'?
X: Hang on . . . Oh, OK that's great. I'll follow that then and just call you if I have any problems.
Me: No worries.
Hang up. Less than 2 minutes later the phone rings again.
Me: Hello?
X: Hi, it's me again. Sorry, but I really think I need the complete dummies instructions.
Me: [Thinking I was sure those were the complete dummies instructions] OK.
X: So it says I need to start by pressing the big green button, but it doesn't seem to be responding.
Me: That's strange [about to suggest checking that all the cables are properly plugged in]
X: Oh wait, I forgot to ask, do I have to turn on the computer first?
Me: [Following long pause] Yes. Yes you do.

I mean, I understand not everybody is familiar with this stuff straight away, but surely logic should come in to play. It's a scanner - it looks like a big flat tupperware container with three buttons on it. If you didn't turn on the computer, how would the scanner know what to do? Hmmm, I, scanner, sense that you wish to scan this photograph at high resolution, make it a jpg file, name it workphoto1.jpg and save it on the C drive under 'My Photos'.

I don't understand people.