written furtively at 10 a.m. in my computer procedures notebook

After listening intermittently to the guy in the kittycorner cubicle air his views on How the World Works and watching him wander around to make small talk with all & sundry, I no longer need wonder what has happened to the social role of village idiot. And I'm sure that most of you in conventional places of work can sympathize.

Who is this guy? How has he managed to find a job that seems to require a daily minimum of 60% screwing around? More importantly, where are such positions advertised?

1 p.m. postscript:

In his defense, however, he responded quite jovially when I informed him that the quote he was bandying around originated with Ogden Nash. It's nice to be able to impress someone with useless English majory knowledge.

I don't have much to add to this except that I continue to enjoy my job in a vague sort of way despite being passed around the office for crud jobs today and yesterday. I've found a comfortable little keyhole of time in the morning during which I do my thang at the computer while talking to the Boy on a space-agey headset. The only problem comes when my supervisor walks by...or when the Boy makes me laugh so hard that I can't even keep up the pretense of data entry.

Early crappy job tomorrow. Need me some beauty rest.