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Goldbricking
Do you know this term?
By Jeff Cann
My son left for work at seven yesterday and didn’t return until six-thirty last night. Sophie came home from a weekend away yesterday, popped out of bed this morning, her birthday, and drove off to educate a gaggle of kids in animal science. My wife Susan, excused from attending work in-person, trades off remote work and managing our household, covering for a spouse who can’t leave the house and is avoiding the public spaces in our home — this particular job is twenty-four-seven. I sit on our screened porch, butt planted comfortably on a cushioned loveseat, feet propped up on a wooden bench, drinking coffee, laptop in my lap, goldbricking.
Goldbricking: Do you know this term? I learned it from the TV show M*A*S*H. Does anyone under fifty even know about M*A*S*H? It first aired when I was ten. Each week, my older brothers and I taped the episode on our (audio-only) tape recorder. We then laid around the family room relistening to each episode, trying to recount the action, milking the maximum enjoyment from the show. “I think this is when the helicopter landed in the field!” In every other episode, Major Burns would accuse an enlisted man, usually Corporal Klinger, of goldbricking.
From Wikipedia: Goldbricking is the practice of doing less work than one is able to, while maintaining the…
