Americans have been raised on belief in a strong work ethic. That is all well and good, but you need to remember to have some fun too. Here are somethings you can pursue in your free time:

1. Go to an all-u-can-eat buffet and eat until you puke.

2. Make prank phone calls laced with threats.

3. Go to the movies. Watch the one you paid for and then sneak into another one. Two for the price of one.

4. Stalk someone. Not online, that is for wimps. Show up at the person’s home and place of work. Write him/her letters in your own blood.

5. Drink. Heavily. Often.

In all seriousness, people seem to have twisted idea of working hard to spending pointless hours at work for no reason other than to seem to be working.

Several years ago I had a girlfriend who was pondering a job in public relations. I’ve always thought of those people as professional liars who put a “positive spin” on a company laying off five thousand workers to move to Mexico for cheaper labor. I don’t know of that is true of all who work in PR but I did suggest that she might want to speak to someone who actually works at a PR firm to see what they actually do. It always amazes me that people seek to work in a particular field, such as law or medicine and do very little research on what it actually entails.

She did speak to a person in the industry who told her that one drawback was that no one ever wanted to be the first one to leave the office at night. This, the employees thought, would be a sign that they were not working hard enough, not putting in the hours etc. Consequently, people would hang around the office for hours even though they really had nothing to do except send pointless emails to create the image of productivity. No one wanted to appear lazy or uninterested but they were not actually doing anything.

A certain professional class of Americans seem obsessed with staying late at work. They brag about it and look on those who don’t stay until midnight every night. I have heard friends of mine complain that when they are trying to get in touch with someone in an office in Europe, say England or France, they can’t get anyone after five o’clock. The implication is that they do not work hard. However, from the European perspective it could be that they got their work done and they left to go enjoy themselves, spend time with their families, see a movie, sit on the couch and stare into space, whatever. Maybe they look at their American counterparts and wonder why it takes them so long to get things done.

What is wrong with American workers that they can’t get their work done in a reasonable amount of time? I think we tend to conflate talking about working and worry about work with actually getting something done. Much of it seems to be for show. Maybe it is our culture of busyness that people wear as a badge of honor. But are we actually that busy or do we, out of a sense of anxiety, merely need to seem busy?

Maybe we need to be more focused on results than time. I say when you are done with your appointed tasks, leave. Don’t worry how late everyone else is staying.