Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Flipping Switches, Switching Gears

Some of you won't find this too surprising, but I happen to spend a lot of time in front of a computer.

(I know, shocker, right?)

"Got anything special planned this weekend?"  Asks... pretty much everyone.

"Working," I almost always reply.

Mind you, I like being busy, but there's gotta be a breaking point, right?

At work, it's a fine line.  On the one side, I'll be just busy enough that it's not a matter of what to do, but what's in need of being completed first.  On the other side, I'll be just slow enough to let my mind wander - not necessarily to activities outside of work, but more I can do to in the grand scheme of things that will in turn increase my workload.  (Nuts, I know.)

Outside of work, there's much more gray area.  "Work" takes on a different meaning outside the hours I spend at my job, in the sense that on top of a few personal clients, I also have the occasional self-imposed writing assignment (or obligation) that glue me to the computer as much as any design project that comes my way.

I realized on the way home from work today that I spend an average of one hour a day (my commute) without the internet, and that's only because I was conservative enough NOT to use my 4G.  I'm not sure if this is a sign of the times or a sign of a problem.

Within 15 minutes of being home, the computer was fired up and ready to go with no less than three browser windows open - a combined total of a minimum of 35 tabs (while a number of which are simply because I chose to "restore last session" it is still a good indication of my habits) in addition to two Adobe products (Photoshop and Illustrator), an FTP client, Microsoft Word (three documents) and Notepad++ (just in case).

Yeah.

I'd like to say that I'm not a computer addict, but I'll tell ya, back in my younger years my mom knew the best way to punish me was to change the password on the internet (AOL in those days - good ol' dial-up).  It worked way better than any sentence of being grounded would have - hats off to that one Mom - and looking back on those times, it really is no wonder I ended up in a field that is severely cut off at the knees without internet access; I quite suitably gave myself an excuse to not be able to go "disconnected."

I'm not entirely sure I actually have an off switch when it comes to work in some fashion.  I think I'm always on and just toggle between work time and my time, sleeping whenever fuel gets low.

This isn't complaining, it's an understanding.  If it was a complaint, I would shut off the dual screens of computer and enjoy "The Big Bang Theory" in more than just my peripheral vision.  But alas, that time has to be worthwhile and I'll be damned if I can't multitask.  Not only am I female, but I'm a Gemini: I was built for this shit.  (Excuse my French.)

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