Quantifying the fine art of on-the-job slacking

White-collar slackers have been immortalized in comics (“Dilbert”), on film (“Office Space”) and on television (what exactly did George Costanza do for the Yankees?). Now an online oasis, www.corporatedump.com, caters to desk jockeys by bringing a temporary respite from the daily slog with mindless japes, games and gags (faux pink slips are available to download).

Created in 2001 by Eric Bauman, a former computer technician for Xerox, the office humor site started as an offshoot of a running joke between Bauman and several other technicians. “I computed how much company time was wasted with employees going to the bathroom,” says the upstate New Yorker. The competition between the co-workers became fierce: “Some would spend an hour in the bathroom.”

A few algorithms and Web codes later, Bauman posted a company-time calculator to the site. Corporatedump.com’s users plug in their hourly salaries, start the clock and then proceed with non-work-related activities (i.e., breaks, long lunches, water cooler chats or Web surfing). When finished with the personal business, the slacker clicks the “stop” button -- and voila -- the website instantly computes how much money the employee has wasted.

The site keeps track of the last 10 corporate slackers and their times, but only the seemingly brave or foolhardy sign in with their real names and organizations.

For Bauman and his buddies, the restroom competition continued until the bosses discovered the site. He notes that he wasn’t terminated because of corporatedump.com, but it sounds as if he probably wouldn’t have cared if he had been. “I hate office work and never lasted long at jobs,” says Bauman, who now runs several of his own websites for a living. “The site got in the way of my work.”

So far in 2004, visitors to corporatedump.com have tallied more than $741,000 in wasted company time. Bauman says that during the workweek, the site receives about 20,000 to 30,000 hits a day from all over the world, but that “number falls off significantly during the weekends.”

Corporatedump.com shows that sticking it to the man is an international hobby for paper pushers -- especially when it’s on his dime.

-- Christine N. Ziemba