From Salary.com: American workers are wasting more than twice the time Human Resource managers expect

According to a new survey by America Online and Salary.com, the average worker admits to frittering away 2.09 hours per 8-hour workday, not including lunch and scheduled break-time.

So, the average worker admits to 2.09 hours wasted a day, which leads to the question of how much more time is wasted and not admitted or even realized?

Not that I would know anything about this…

Actually, we all need some “mental health” time every now and then. When I was a programmer, there were times when I needed to get my head out of code for a while so I could come back to it with a fresh perspective, so I had a chance to calm down when I was frustrated and pulling my hair out. I often felt isolated and anti-social back in my corner cubicle, too, so I needed to get out and talk some paintball, sports and whatever else with my fellow co-workers. This isn’t much of an issue at my new job since the cubicles are open and in groups of four and it’s not nearly as frustrating - or challenging for that matter.

So, what are workers wasting their time on?

Personal Internet use. 44.7% of the more than 10,000 people polled cited web surfing as their #1 distraction at work. Socializing with co-workers came in second at 23.4%. Conducting personal business, “spacing out,” running errands, and making personal phone calls were the other popular time-wasting activities in the workplace.

Yep, I can agree with that, especially the Internet stat. I would play games of Yahoo Pool, write and read blog posts, mess with my fantasy baseball and football rosters, etc…

Employees say they’re not always to blame for this wasted time, however. 33.2% of respondents cited lack of work as their biggest reason for wasting time. 23.4% said they wasted time at work because they feel as if they are underpaid

Not having enough work was definitely not a problem when I was a programmer, but I find that’s an issue at MRL, especially on slow days like Monday. Also, we’re dependent on other departments completing their tasks before we can continue with ours, so if there’s a delay somewhere, we have more downtime to kill.

Kentucky was number three in the ranking with an average of 2.8 hrs wasted per day.

I definitely won’t have any time to waste this coming week. My department formerly consisted of nine people but will be down to five next week. Two have recently left for school while two others are on vacation. And I am the sole member of Team 4, meaning I get to do the work of three people by myself. I’m up for the challenge, though!