A day in the life of an information
worker
Being an information worker is a bit like being a hunter-gatherer.
Instead of hunting for food you are hunting for information. The
life of the information hunter-gather is not easy. For instead of
wading through swamps and climbing treacherous mountains, this info
hunter-gather wades through search results and stumbles through data
fog.
John wakes up, showers, shaves, dresses and has a quick
breakfast. He gets into his car and shudders slightly at the thought
that he will spend over an hour on a journey to the office that
should only take twenty minutes.
John sits at his desk and loads up his computer. Why is it, he
wonders, that the faster his computers become, the slower they are
to load up? Must be all that important software. He downloads his
email. Only 30. John has become expert at spearing the spam into the
trash. That got rid of 9. He gives a suspicious glance at 3 others
that have no subject line, then ignores them.
There are another 5 from people he knows who suffer from a bad
dose of "cc-itis". "Cc-itis" is a disease that
is becoming increasingly common in the information worker community.
The key symptom is a desire to let as many people as possible know
what you are doing. Researchers believe that "cc-itis" is
closely related to "cover-your-arse" syndrome. John
swiftly deletes these 5 emails.
That leaves 13 emails which he opens and scan reads. 10 of these
emails he could have survived without scanning. Out of 30 emails, 3
were of real value to him. He's seen worse.
John had bought a new mobile phone. It was very fancy, very sleek,
and with lots of functionality. John regretted buying it but he had
fallen prey to 'Swiss Army Knife' syndrome. This happens when all
you need is a penknife, but you can't resist buying a multi-purpose
gadget that does all sorts of things you will never really need to
do.
John found that for all its tricks, this new phone had a poor
signal in his home. He simply didn't believe it could be the phone's
fault because it was expensive and cutting edge. You'd think they'd
get the basics right before adding all the extras, he rued. So, he
reverts back to his old Ericsson SH888.
One of the reasons he stopped using the Ericsson phone was
because of the relatively short battery life. So, he goes to the
Ericsson website in search of a battery. He's impressed with the
website. He searches. Gets to a page on accessories for the phone.
No battery information. Hunts around some more. Gets to another
accessories page which has battery information.
As he is completing the Contact form asking where he can buy this
battery, he notices that he has in fact ended up in Ericsson
Australia. There was absolutely no mention of the word
"Australia" in the pages he had searched through. He hunts
some more.
John's face goes pale. He has been trapped by a Flash virus. He
hits the Back button but can't get out. This Flash virus leeches his
time as it blows colour bubbles on his screen. An image throbs
menacingly at him. For a moment he considers a trip to Telephone
Support Hell. He needs a strong, black coffee.
Denna text kommer från Gerry
McGovern
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