You Don’t Have Enough To Do
This is a frightening prospect: What if you came to work…and you had nothing to do? All your bugs have been resolved, no more documents need to be written, no new work on the horizon that you can get a head start.
This may seem like a fantastic fantasy world that doesn't exist, but at some point you will find yourself in it. Especially if you are an intern or coop with a manager who kind of forgets you're there (this never happens at Microsoft mind you).
This is a bad place to be because:
- It's boring
- It makes you look bad for not getting anything done.
- It will negatively affect your popularity with those who do have work to do.
For the first day not having enough to do may seem fun. You get to browse the Internet, you look up all those slangy words that all your friends use but you have no idea what the heck their talking about (what exactly is an "Intarweb"?), and on and on.
The second day, you get the browse the Internet…again.
Third day, same Internet.
By the fourth day you've beaten the Internet. Don't believe me? Try it. There is nothing left to do but refresh Digg and hope there's some new time waster game someone has decided was news worthy.
Suck It Up
Ask for work to do. This will sound counter intuitive to everything anyone has ever told you, but by the fifth day of Internet browsing you will be begging for work to do. Ask your manager, they will be happy to provide it. This is good because it looks like you're doing extra stuff, you will be happy because you're no longer bored and your coworkers will be placated now that you're not complaining about how bored you still are.
That's not to say you should ask for more work to do when you already have things to do. Overworking yourself will get you nowhere fast, but so will letting yourself be underworked.
