Coda

A new survey by Salary.com and America Online finds that the average American worker wastes about 1.86 hours every day, not counting lunch.

According to a story about the survey in the Chicago Sun Times last week, that is a minor improvement over last year, when the average American worker frittered away 2.09 hours a day. According to the survey, the top time wasters in descending order of wastefulness are: surfing the Net, socializing, running personal errands, making personal phone calls, spacing out, arriving late and applying for other employment.

All of which has renewed my conviction that I'm in the world's best profession.

I knew I was on to something about 20 minutes into my first job in the newspaper business when my crusty old cigar-chomping editor, describing my duties, pointed to a stack of about 25 newspapers that came into our office each day from around the state.

"Before you do anything else, you need to read all those papers to find out what the competition is writing about," he said. "While you're reading, make a list of everything they beat us on that we might want to follow up with our own stories. Make another list of stories we scooped them on so we can pat ourselves on the back."

"You want me to do this every day?" I asked.

"Yep, every day," he said. "The only way to beat the competition is to know exactly where the competition is willing to spend its ink."

"And I get paid for this?" I asked incredulously. "For drinking coffee and reading newspapers?"

"It's a grind, kid, but somebody's got to do it," he said. "Don't let the team down."

As the weeks went by, I learned, much to my everlasting joy, that most of those other things on the big time waster list were part of the job requirements for reporters, too. For example, a reporter socializes constantly, and in fact must do so in order to cultivate sources and glean information and advice from colleagues. He or she usually has a flexible schedule that allows for arriving late and running personal errands during the day. He or she spends a good portion of their working hours on the phone, and some of those calls are undoubtedly of a personal nature.

When we finally have the details to write a story, editorial or column, we spend a considerable amount of time spacing out as we look at a blank computer screen and wait for the lead sentence of the story to pop into our brains. As icing on the cake, we now have the Internet, which - like the daily contingent of newspapers - we must peruse every day in order to monitor our competition in real time and stay abreast of breaking news.

And for that, we collect our paychecks every two weeks and grouse to each other about how stressful the profession has become.

Is this a great country, or what? Where else can you earn a living by learning cool stuff - stuff you'd want to learn, even if you weren't getting paid to learn it? Where else can you get paid for wasting time while you write a column about wasting time?

Here, for example, are just a few of the interesting things I got paid to learn last week while I was "researching" information for this piece:

+ Have you ever wondered why we call this time of year The Dog Days of Summer? You might think it's because the hot and muggy weather makes us want to pour a cold drink and waste time in the shade like a bunch of lazy old dogs, but you'd be wrong. It's called the Dog Days because during this period, Sirius (the Dog Star), the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (the big dog), rises and sets with the sun. Feel free to use this factoid to impress your friends the next time you have a few minutes to kill.

+ A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll released last week found that even with an array of electronic gadgets and time wasters unprecedented in human evolutionary history, a majority of 12- to 24-year-olds surveyed still claimed to be bored. Even those who have learned to multitask and do several things at once like homework, instant messaging, surfing the Net, talking on the phone and listening to music reported a prevailing ennui. "I feel bored like all the time, 'cause there is like nothing to do," 13-year-old Shannon Carlson of Warren, Ohio, told the Times. Shannon's parents, who were not interviewed, were likely not bored. They were still in the living room, trying to figure out how to program their TiVo.

+ While there are plenty of ways to waste time at work, I waste time on my commute by listening to books on tape. To my horror, I learned while writing this column that the East Brunswick Library, where I get my books on tape, is phasing them out in favor of books on CD. The stated reason for the change, in addition to increased efficiency, is to make things more "convenient" for the public, according to the library director. I'm wondering when it would be convenient for her to come to my house and help me rip the tape player out of my pick-up and install the new CD player I'll now have to buy in order to continue wasting time in the manner to which I have become accustomed.

+ A study released last week by a Swiss investment bank and reported on stuff.com found that the average New Yorker works 13 minutes to earn enough money to buy a Big Mac. People in Chicago and Miami work 12 minutes, people in Los Angeles 11 minutes. The global earnings per Big Mac average is 39 minutes. In other words, I wasted enough time reading the silly survey to pay for lunch.

+ People who like to waste time shopping for unusual gifts will be happy to know that the Stilton Cheese Makers Association has approached Cat Deeley, host of the television program "Stars in Their Eyes," to be the "face" of their new Stilton cheese-scented fragrance. Accor-ding to the SCMA, the elixer "re-creates the earthy and fruity aroma of Blue Stilton cheese in an eminently wearable perfume."

I was surfing around, trying to find a wine-scented aftershave to go with the cheese perfume so I could write about it, but the boss came in and I had to go back to "work."

I hadn't finished reading the morning papers.

Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at gbean@gmnews.com.