no dead time.

Something I've been hearing since the first time I saw a mobile phone: 'yeah, but now they can find me wherever I am.'

This is usually an argument that is made by a professional, and usually about his inability to find time off work. The same argument is applied to smartphones, and blackberries, that they turn email from an office responsibility to something that is supposed to be handled in downtime, and therefore treated as an annoyance. The 'no dead time' thing is a problem for people who have high stress jobs, because it reclassifies all time as work time.

But, despite my best efforts, I am unemployed at the moment. And I've realised that having no dead time is a completely different beast for me, and probably always will be. Having no dead time for me, means that I have no time that cannot be filled with some kind of activity, rather than having all time not dedicated to a specific task pre-set for work.

My search for work is currently my job. I put near-full-time hours into it, whether it be looking for listings, editing and re-editing my resume and cover letters, or talking to people in the hope of finding a good lead, or getting good advice. However, time such as yesterday, when I waited in a walk in clinic (for an eventual strep throat diagnosis) necessarily results in dead time. When I'm not actually able to accomplish anything of value, I make a point of never completely 'wasting time'.

No dead time means that waiting to get into a doctor's office is the correct time to watch episodes of Dexter on my iPod. No dead time means that waiting for an email is the right time to re-watch the League of Noble Peers' 'Steal This Film', in case any of the references convinces me to think of something else.

No dead time means that entertainment is no longer something that has to be scheduled either. The reality of it is, the only reason business people complain about only the other side of it is that it has yet to occur to them that the blackberry goes both ways. Technology only chains you to work when work is the only thing you know how to do with technology.

Cue the 'I'm a PC' Guy.