Lately I have had to further develop and hone what had become a somewhat latent skill. I have nearly perfected the skill of discreetly wasting time.
Case in point: I am composing this blog on my Pocket PC while waiting to see a patient in clinic.
One of my choice new responsibilities in the lab is enrolling patients in a rather mundane and boring study. This means I get to sit in a room while men fill out a huge questionnaire that details their symptoms. Fascinating. Or not.
What it really means is that while these men answer 30 pages of questions about their sexual health I sit there. Most of these men are older (>60) and, to be quite honest, have to think a bit about the answers to the questions as it is a very detailed study. So the sitting usually lasts at least half an hour. With each patient. Some days there are as many as ten or twelve spread throughout the day. I can barely contain my joy.
It would be a great time to study. But that just isn't very discreet, what with me lugging a big ol' book around. And so I have rediscovered just how cool my Pocket PC is. Writing a blog, playing games, drawing (I found a very cool vector drawing program for Pocket PC), reading ebooks, listening to music and even watching some movies are all now possibilities. Some are more discreet than others (since music and movies require either headphones or will make noise), but even the music and movies aren't an issue when I am simply waiting for patients to show up.
So my slacking has reached new levels, but at least I'm not bored out of my mind like I used to be.