The press release touting this new research was dated April 2, so I am presuming -- as should you -- that it was presented in good faith.
"People who do surf the Internet for fun at work -- within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office -- are more productive by about 9% than those who don't," he says. "Firms spend millions on software to block their employees from watching videos on YouTube, using social networking sites like Facebook or shopping online under the pretense that it costs millions in lost productivity, however that's not always the case."
Coker even has a catchy acronym for the behavior he's championing: WILB, which stands for "workplace Internet leisure browsing."
Try this one next time a supervisor gives you the stink-eye for having YouTube open on your desk: "Back-off, boss, I'm WILBing here ... and it's good for the bottom line."
Coker's conclusions were based on a survey of 300 workers, 70% of whom were dedicated enough to their jobs and their employers to surf the Internet for fun while on the company dime. The gist of his theory is that employees "need to zone out for a bit" in order to maximize their effectiveness.
In all seriousness, there's little reason to doubt the general point: Productive workers need periodic breaks, both physical and mental, or at least that's what I tell myself every time I point my browser at The Onion or take a stroll into the staff lounge.
However, if that's such an article of faith -- and now, thanks to Coker's research, scientific fact -- what about that 30%f workers who admit they're cheating the company by not taking their therapeutic surfing breaks? Not only are they not being team players, it seems to me they're taking a huge risk of being labeled unproductive in this down economy that has a new round of layoffs being announced virtually every day.
Perhaps the answer for these laggards should be mandatory surfing breaks?
I think I'm on to something here.
Online brokerage: "We're not stupid, we're screw-ups"
Every year someone goes careening over the metaphoric cliff that April Fool's Day can be for a prankster without proper judgment.
Even so, Internet stock-trading house Zecco wants the world to know that it couldn't possibly have been stupid enough to concoct an April Fool's Day prank that had customers seeing fantastical seven-figure account balances, and, believing themselves to be just playing along, trading as though the new-found fortunes were real.
They were not real, of course --there were technical problems --although losses and fees accrued through those accounts turned out to be more problematic.
After a story on the Consumerist Web site flagged the train weck as an ill-advised April Fool's joke, Zecco was forced to set the record straight: "We did not perpetrate an April Fool's Joke on our customers ... In no way (were we) trying to be funny regarding such a sensitive matter as your buying power or account balance, nor would it even consider doing this."
So let that be a lesson: Don't screw up on April Fool's Day.
Incidentally, this little kerfuffle had escaped my attention altogether at the time because I spent a good deal of April Fool's Day morning stuck in an elevator. Really, it's and everything -- so you know it must be true.