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Employers and spouses do not like lazy
Columns & Opinion
October 3, 2025
Employers and spouses do not like lazy

Nothing wrong with relaxing. With the right timing and amount.

Being lazy? Nothing wrong with it – in moderation. After a 15-hour workday, certainly anyone would want a chance to just do nothing for a while. But when you decide that your thirty minutes of computer work warrants the next four hours spent in playtime … that is definitely not moderation.

Why moderation? Because the last time I checked, most supervisors are not real keen on paying their workers to play ping-pong on the company clock.

Stepping away from a project a few minutes for a breather in order to gain a new and fresher perspective? Sure. But the outlook, ‘One must perfectly balance their work time versus relaxation time, so that they can have a healthier outlook on life’ is not all that healthy. Believe me, you will have a healthier outlook on life if you come to realize that insisting on having a 50/50 balance usually leads to 100/0 unemployment.

Not too many companies are extremely worried about their employees having a perfect balance in their life – on the company dime. Bosses want and rightly expect exactly what they are paying for. And they expect productivity during work hours. In the eyes of supervisors, your personal hours and scheduled vacations from work are the time to purse your ping-pong dreams.

Want to succeed? That means keeping your priorities straight, and one of those top priorities can’t be playing Lazy LeRoy. Not if you want to be respected at work, in marriage, or at being a good parent. Sure, relaxing time is needed in your life and shouldn’t be neglected. But put it further down the priority list. A lot further than most people want it to be.

Do yourself a huge favor and function from a Priority List for yourself that has the following: 1. Know God and respect Him. 2. Live like you respect yourself. 3. Live like you respect your marriage or your potential marriage if you are still single.

4. If you are a parent, be a loving, disciplined and creative parent.

5. Get a good education in the field you love. 6. Keep searching for a position in that field, if you’re not there yet.

7. But wherever you are working, whether it is your dream career or just putting potatoes on the table right now, respect your employer enough to do it well.

8. Then way down the page, insert the priority ‘Relax and be lazy at times, it’s good for me in small doses.’

Notice the word respect seems to pop its head up a lot?

Don’t be foolish and make relaxing a top priority. No need. Being lazy and relaxing is something most humans do instinctively and self-centeredly. And I would be willing to bet you are human.

— Podcasts are available at Coffeetimecolumn.com. Send any responses to andybowman839@gmail.com.

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