What me, worry?

The Web Fire Escape is a simple device which has been designed to allow readers of weblogs to instantly replace a Web Fire Escape equipped blog with an alternate work-safe site or a fake word processor or spreadsheet application.

Ummmmmm....

Here's my little snit about ideas like the one above, indulge me for a moment. While I do get the reasoning behind designing something like this to help the average worker (who just so happens to be addicted to blogging) get through their day, it really doesn't get to the heart of the actual "problem", now does it?

Get a grip, people.

All work and no play makes you hate your job.

People gotta feel good while they're at work, too. If your job environment looks like the photo above, with people looking over your shoulder with threatening, smirky, tattle-tale expressions on their faces, maybe you should think about some alternatives:

a) Find a new job, one that allows for periodic creativity breaks so you can actually act more human than robot and in the long run be a more productive (and happy!) employee. These jobs exist, really they do, and I'm not talking about working at Starbucks, although I did see through the window of the one down the street from my house that they've now got a couple of computers for using the internet-- hey, anything's possible, it's all I'm sayin' here.

OR

b) Control your blogging habits and get yourself into a routine where you establish breaks throughout the day (I call them "creativity breaks") for a few minutes at a time (15 minutes at intervals throughout an 8-hour day works pretty well). If you have a very strict supervisor to deal with, establish the breaks with them out in the open so they know what you are doing -- after all, cigarette smokers take periodic breaks throughout the day and that is an addiction/compulsion (like blogging!)-- so once again, just get a grip. You seriously don't need to use something silly like this fire-escape MISH-e-goss.

And all you cranky bosses out there who spend most of your day snooping around looking for employees who are surfing the 'net for half the day. Get a life, will ya? You aren't really going to make things better by firing people just because they choose to inject their everyday work routines with some fun every once and a while. You let the cigarette smokers out for breaks don't ya? How do you think they can get through the day without it? Live in the modern world already. Those of us who blog, it's becoming a part of us like the oxygen we breathe (sad but true). The internet is pretty much here to stay until, by some act of Zod or Hera or Eris Herself, the plug gets pulled (if we're lucky!)