04/20/24
September 21, 2004
$36.7 million a day: that's a wild-ass guess of the productivity cost of America's employees playing fantasy sports on company time. Because that's the only distraction in the workplace.
posted by kirkaracha to culture at 12:20 PM - 16 comments
My employer pays me to do a job...if my job gets done, in spite of my rampant fantasy sports teams and other myriad surfing habits, how am I costing them productivity?
posted by MeatSaber at 02:19 PM on September 21, 2004
That's pretty much it MeatSaber...if you get done what they expect to be done then what is it to them? If they want more done, ask too get more done. If we stop playing fantasy sports and surfing websites, is this "$36.7M" increased productivity going to be shown in our salaries? Yeah, right. I'd wager it would cost jobs, as the increased productivity would necessitate/facilitate mass layoffs. We are SAVING the economy, not ruining it!
posted by pivo at 02:26 PM on September 21, 2004
SpoFi: Saving the economy!
posted by worldcup2002 at 05:02 PM on September 21, 2004
$36.7 million??? That's all? I dare say that employers lose more productivity to employees using the restroom during working hours, and just try and stop that. Go ahead. I dare you.
posted by deadcowdan at 09:00 AM on September 22, 2004
Of course, that $36.7 million is taken from working hours that would have been spent working! Right? Right? I hate studies like these. If it weren't losing $36.7 million from fantasy sports, the economy would be losing that money from some other method of work avoidance. Employers who complains about this sort of thing should ask themselves why their employees are driven to avoid working in the first place.
posted by Succa at 09:52 AM on September 22, 2004
Just for the sake of clarification, it's not the "economy" that's losing this money, it's the companies. Correct? Fantasy sports actually make up a small, but growing portion of the economy. When you take time out of work to check the stats you're simply supporting that niche category. I personally find that I have trouble working straight through an entire work day. I slow down. I get bogged. When I take breaks to check an email, check some stats, or post on SpoFi, I always go back to work with renewed vigor. I think by breaking up my day, I'm actually more productive than I would otherwise be.
posted by 86 at 10:03 AM on September 22, 2004
And if you work billable hours and still bill the time you spend on fantasy sports to your clients...the business loses nothing! In fact, it gains because you still have to do the actual work, meaning more billable hours! Hooray! Sucks for the clients though.
posted by LionIndex at 10:30 AM on September 22, 2004
I just wanted to post because my username is oh so fitting.
posted by grum@work at 10:42 AM on September 22, 2004
I think by breaking up my day, I'm actually more productive than I would otherwise be. Same here. If this were 50 years ago, the only difference is that you'd break up your day by standing around the water cooler slapping secretaries' rears. This is a story because it's measurable. As to LionIndex's point, they're already paying for my bowel movements, so it's hard to believe fantasy sports would break the camel's back.
posted by yerfatma at 12:33 PM on September 22, 2004
I was in a business communications class once, back in the early '90s when I worked at a now-defunct commercial insurance company, and one of the exercises was to determine how much of an eight hour work day an information worker actually spends doing work. Bottom line: 134 minutes (out of 480), meaning this article is, like so much of the similar output, pure twaddle. But attention-getting twaddle, which is exactly the point.
posted by billsaysthis at 01:49 PM on September 22, 2004
I dare say that employers lose more productivity to employees using the restroom during working hours, and just try and stop that. Maybe employers should consider putting computer terminals in the loo so people can be more productive when they're taking a crap. Or they could check their fantasy EPL team.
posted by scully at 02:02 PM on September 22, 2004
they'd need to include disposable keyboard/mouse covers.
posted by garfield at 02:25 PM on September 22, 2004
Yeah. That's how I wipe too.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 04:50 PM on September 22, 2004
A couple of years ago I was an intranet developer for a attempted merger between two medical universities. The people I met with weren't interested in ideas for using web technology to improve productivity, they were interested in preventing the nurses from surfing porn sites. They were disappointed when I said it was more of a management issue than a technical one, and was really the same thing as if they were calling 1-900 numbers too much. They really wanted to blame the evil internet.
posted by kirkaracha at 06:10 PM on September 22, 2004
There are nurses out there surfing pr0n? Next you're going to tell me they're lonely, horny and hot. And male.
posted by yerfatma at 08:19 PM on September 22, 2004
I was just coming here to post this and point out that you people are ruining the economy (I'm not, I'm unemployed and only stealing from myself and my children).