Working Hard...

Why is it that, within an office, one of the most popular greetings is "Working hard, or hardly working?"

It's said typically by a nonchalant coworker who meanders by your cubicle, coffee mug in hand, and interrupts something important to ask you their inane question. It's said with aloofness, as though you're being caught red-handed in a fit of nonproductive glee.**1

Typically, when I'm approached with this question, I'm in one of two states:

1.) I'm typing frantically, trying to cobble together intelligent thoughts for an e-mail before they escape me,

or

2.) I'm up to my elbows in paperwork.

In either of these situations, the derailment that comes from that question will cost me at least half an hour of productivity: ten minutes of conversation with my assailant, and an additional twenty to get myself back into the swing of whatever-I-was-doing-before.

Let's consider that:

Say I get paid $16 an hour. (I don't. But it's a nice thought.)

Losing half an hour of productive time is $8.

Out of that $8, obviously the government needs their cut. We'll say $3 out of that is claimed by taxes.

That leaves $5... Which will be the new fee I impose on any wayward peanut galleries that darken my doorway.

I'm gonna be rich.