Working at work

I was talking with a co-worker at the front desk of my library. We were talking about work. This brings up the question: Does talking about work at work count as work?

Yes. It does.

You know what also counts as work? Broadening the very idea of what constitutes work. I am here to tell you that that is a lot of work. I'm exhausted by it so often that I have to take little breaks, though usually, if I can manage it, they're working breaks. Which is exhausting.

In this conversation with my co-worker, about work, I said, in response to something my co-worker said, "I consider that my job here is to not feel guilty about whatever it is I'm doing." It was, like many things I say, pretending to be a joke, but barely even pretending because, working as hard as I do, I don't usually have the energy to do all that pretending. And so here I am collecting righteousness once again. I look around me and find that for many of my co-workers it comes naturally. They engage in mind boggling varieties of strange activities and seem completely oblivious to the very possibility that it might not be work. And I find that hierarchically the higher you go the people get even better at this immaculate self justification. But not me so much. I don't really have a very strong innate facility for considering my actions productive. I really have to work at it.