dilatory
[dil-uh-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee]
1. tending to delay or procrastinate; slow; tardy.
2. intended to cause delay, gain time, or defer decision:
a dilatory strategy.
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Carl stopped the moment he
entered the shared office space. His
coworker, Adam, was clearly dozing with his head on the desk. That was no surprise to Carl. Adam spent far too much time awake at night,
and had the bad habit of sleeping on the job.
What made Carl freeze was the massive pile of paperwork on Adam’s desk. Very important paperwork. Paperwork that was supposed to have been done
already.
Carl stomped to the sleeping man’s desk and slapped
his coworker. “Wake up you idiot.” He
growled.
Adam took his time lifting his head and opening his
eyes. “What’s up?” He asked through a
yawn.
“What’s up?
What’s up? Look at your desk,
man. Why is there so much stuff on it?”
Carl asked.
Adam looked at the pile of papers and blinked
slowly. “Oh right. Forgot about those.”
“You forgot?
My god man, what’s wrong with you?
Seriously, I know you like to put things off, but this is ridiculous.”
“Oh, it’s fine.
Don’t worry about it.”
“How can I not?
You mess up and the boss punishes both of us. And now it looks like you haven’t done any
work for, what, three days?”
“Four, I think.” Adam said nonchalantly.
“Four?
How? How do you do it? How do you not do anything for four days?”
“I haven’t done nothing. I just haven’t done this.” He said, patting
the stack of papers.
“You say that like everything’s fine.”
“It is.”
“No, no it is not fine. You have an hour to fill out four days worth
of papers. How is that fine?”
“You worry too much.
I’ll get it done on time.”
“How? How are
you going to manage that? You can’t stay
late, since all of this stuff is supposed to be in today.”
“Just leave everything to me. Besides, none of this is hard. It’s all just coloring in a few boxes and
signing stuff. Thirty seconds per page
tops.”
“Okay, yeah, fine.
That’s great. Except even with
that, you have at least five hours worth of work here, and only an hour to do
it. Unless you spontaneously develop
super speed, how will you manage that?”
“Just wait and see.”
As if on cue, the door burst open and their boss, Mr.
Tanner, ran in. His pudgy face was a
mask of blind panic.
“Reynolds, Reynolds, I need something from you.” He
said to Adam. “I need some papers from a
few days ago. Do you still…ah, good,
yes. Wonderful.” He furiously began looking through the pile
of papers. “Ah ha!” He roared, holding
up a few sheets. “Here it is! Yes!
Great! I knew I could count on you.”
“No problem, sir.” Adam said.
“Now then, as for the rest of this stuff, you can get
it done whenever. I don’t think any of it
is critical for another week or so, so get it in any time before then.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
“As you were, gentlemen.”
As Mr. Tanner left the office, shutting the door
behind him, Carl looked at Adam with awe.
“How did you do that?” Carl asked.
“It’s a skill I have.”
“A…skill?”
“Yes. You see,
procrastination, true procrastination, is an art. It takes careful study and practice to know
when, where, and why to put things off so that it seems like you aren’t. But, if you can master it, the world will
open before you like never before.”
Carl clasped his hands together and lowered his
head. “Teach me, master. Teach me the art of true laziness.”
“Ah, my student.
Come, I can see we have much work to do.”
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It's true. Laziness and procrastination are much different. Being lazy means just not doing anything. True procrastinating is knowing when to do something and when not to do something. It might seem similar, but there's a huge difference between the two.
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