Wasted Time At Work

Morning Edition:

Even when people think they're buckling down, studies show the average office worker wastes over a third of the day. There's Facebook, of course, and the email from a friend with a YouTube link. After all that, is it time to go get coffee?
Worker pay is the most expensive line item in the budget for most businesses, which means billions of dollars are going to waste.
But here's the silver lining: It turns out lack of productivity presents a big business opportunity.
Joe Hruska is pretty blunt about how much work anyone does in a typical day.
"You're not getting 8 hours of productivity out of an employee, even though you may have blinders on and that's what you expect," he says.
Hruska is founder and CEO of , a software firm that allows users to sign up to see where they're spending their computer time. The data he collects shows — at best — a worker is productive about five of those hours.

No shit.  I would really like to have a job where I actually work the hours where I am getting things done.  The 40 hour workweek is stupid, and on top of that, most people are stuck working 45 to 55 hours.  Really, a lot of that time they just aren't getting anything done.  I would love to come in at 6 and leave at 11 or 12.  I bet I would get almost as much stuff done as I do being there from 6 to 4:30, and I would be a hell of a lot happier.  Some days I would be better off working about 3 hours and going home.  But that's not how the charade we call employment works.  It really is a waste of a good portion of one's life.