Surfing while working or Working while surfing?

Here’s an amusing item from Work-Related Blogs about time wasted at work in the United Kingdom:

According to the CBI: “the average UK office worker spends an hour and a half a week of work time surfing the web for personal use, at a cost to the economy of £10.6bn a year.”

It is estimated that employers across the public and private sectors lose 4.4 per cent of working time in this way, which accounts for 95 minutes a week, or ten days a year, at an average annual cost of £939 per employee.

See Over 90 minutes a week spent on personal websurfing at work.

What the CBI fail to mention is that employees are also said to contribute £26bn a year in unpaid overtime, or 7 hours and 24 minutes of unpaid work each week.

Love the detail! 7.5 hours of unpaid work v. 1.5 hours of web surfing during a normal work week. I’d say employers win even if you surf a bit more. Besides, who’s to say that isn’t work?