Reporter interviews people hanging out instead of working

Chris Colin, a writer for the SF Gate, was curious about the people he sees hanging out in coffee shops during the day, so he interviewed them, and asked them why they weren't working. It turns out there are a great many reasons why the people weren't working. Not wanting to work seemed to be the most popular reason of all. He reported his findings in a piece called "The Mystery of the Daytime Idle."

Going over my own findings, a surprising number of people had had something job-related happen that very day. A surprising number had called in sick. Claire, who works in quality control at a biotech company, used a vacation day to get a tattoo of a bird. Another woman took the day off to be with her dogs. ("And catch up on errands," she added responsibly.)

"John," who is 18 and was strolling through Yerba Buena Gardens one Thursday morning, laid out his typical itinerary: "Watch the grass grow, get high, hit on the ladies."

How does he pay rent? "If you ask 100 girls for $10, that's $1,000, that's rent," he explained logically.

This article reminded me of Bertrand Russell's 1932 essay, "In Praise of Idleness," which contains a funny definition of work:

What is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so.

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Reader comment:

Brendon says:

First off, love boingboing and your contributions to it. I've even learned not to dismiss ukulele music, fwiw.

Your post, "Reporter interviews people hanging out instead of working" reminded me immediately of a story on an episode of This American Life titled "The Secret Life of Daytime" that aired (the Internet tells me) on April 14, 2000. The story in question ("Act One") was titled, "Why Aren't You at Work?" and featured New York Observer reporter George Gurley interviewing people who, like in the article you linked to, just hanging around NYC. Pretty neat. I thought you might be interested, if you weren't already aware.

Thanks for your work, and take it easy.