Two Banjos At Once: The Blog

So, you might’ve been spending the last year or so snoozing under a stalactite in Mammoth Cave, and completely missed the near-hourly utterance of the word “recession,” and now you’re a trite confused that so many millions of Americans with good educations, impressive experience, and opposable thumbs are unemployed. In fact, you could’ve surfaced a few months ago and been confronted with the same puzzler, even the same zombie battalion of former job holders. But not all of us are weathering the economic downturn with Red Vines and Snuggies. Some of us are keeping busy; almost too busy to work.

5 Things I’m Doing Nowadays Instead of Working

1. Getting my command of JavaScript from 30 to 60. I can write state-of-the-art scripts—for 1998. Rather than continuing to embarrass myself with inline onclick handlers and overdependence on alert() for debugging, I’m devoting extra time to reading everything and anything written by Chris Heilmann and Peter-Paul Koch.
2. Playing with all those advanced techniques customers never request. To date none of my clients have paid me to use any of the goodies from GitHub or Google Code or the multitude of promising APIs; instead, my workdays are devoted to treating float drops in IE 6 and the like. Now, with only myself to please, I can spend time on more challenging tasks at the keyboard.
3. Thinking of going back to school. I spend much of my time reading about the built environment, and all of my time using it. I’ve been interested in architecture for many years, yet have no training in it; haven’t worked in the field at all. So what better time to seek retraining than the unbillable present?
4. Avoiding the news. I stopped my hourly visits to the Web sites for the New York Times and the San Francisco papers because I suspected I was getting too distressed by the dismal stories I read there. I was right —my mood brightened once removed from the daily downbeat. I’m still informed of the things really important to me, and free from concern about those which aren’t.
5. Going outside. One of the biggest stressors for me when I’m fully employed is that I’m not able to go outside very much during the daytime. Now, with no hypertensive project managers or overdemanding clients to rebuke me, I’m spending a lot of mid-days running, bicycling, or hiking. It’s a pity that work (unless you’re a bike messenger or park ranger) is so often structured to be incompatible with these activities, which are probably the easiest way to regain your enthusiasm for life.

What are you doing instead of working?