Excessive Usage

“I am aware of some internet overuse in the XXXXX section. Internet usage must be limited to legitimate business purposes only.”


I would assume this is directed at me, even though it was sent to everyone in my section. Although I can’t really speak to how much other people use the internet, I know I use it fairly regularly throughout the day.

However, I wouldn’t say that it hinders my work in any way, and I don’t go to inappropriate sites (That’s what the home connection is for). The problem is that I don’t have a linear thought pattern like most people do, at least while I’m working. If I’m designing a muffler bracket, I may start singing Total Eclipse of the Heart as sung by the band in the movie “Old School” in my head. I think, hey, I’d like to actually listen to it. So I go to google and do a quick search on eclipse heart old school. I get back that its “The Dan Band” who sings it and I then go to their website where I can listen to the song via a streaming connection. I push play and go back to working on the muffler bracket, happier than when I began and with more creative juice flowing.

Several more minutes pass and I’ve completed more and more of the bracket, and my mind starts wandering a bit and my new tattoo starts hurting a bit from the position I’m sitting in. I think, hey you know what tattoo I’d like next, a nautical star. So I hop over to google images search and I’m shown images related to nautical stars. I flip through them and as I look at them, I’m inspired to shape my muffler bracket in a way that I wouldn’t have thought of before due to the lines and shape I see on one of the images of the nautical star. I go back to my muffler bracket and reshape it with this new concept. It looks better and it may even be cheaper to manufacture now.

I continue working on the group and eventually hit a roadblock. I can’t figure out how to make this bracket mount to the engine. I think on it for a while and still nothing comes to me. I decide to take a quick break and head to Steve's Blog because he always has some crazy Republican shit to say and it generally makes me think more critically about my Liberal position on things. I read his most recent blog post, and lose all of my preconceived notions about muffler bracket mounting. I’ve maybe been reading for 10 or 15 min and I figure it’s time to look at that damn muffler bracket again. Low and behold, I now see the solution; it’s clear as a bell. I finish up the muffler bracket, quicker and more creatively than if I’d not had the internet.

So on the surface, listening to Total Eclipse of the heart, looking at nautical stars, and reading Steve's Blog would seem to not have a legitimate business purpose, but in reality, they do.

This is how Generation Y works. It’s not your baby boomers work ethic, but it still gets the job done, for better or worse.

Even so, I’ll dance for the man and cut down on the usage.