This question is two fold:
Time spent chatting while still being productive?
Time spent chatting when you know you should be working?
You can preclude breaks and lunches.
Myself, I spend almost zero time chit-chatting. I might spend 10 or so minutes at the end of the day. -But that’s only because I’ve finished everything I need to do and I just want to kill time until the whistle blows.
My coworkers tho’… They’re a different story.
That depends - are we talking online or actual conversation?
In both cases: Quite productive usually while chatting online, situationally dependent on face-to-face.
About the same as you, ten minutes or so.
When I get in at eight the only one there is Linda. We chit chat for about 10 minutes or so over the cube wall as I dock my laptop and fire it up.
After that the only time I chat is on a smoke break if anyone happens to be outside at the same time as I am.
The only time I talk to Linda longer is if she continues to talk and it is mostly about her elderly mother so I do more listening then talking.
Oh god, if I could only chit chat more, it might make this place more bearable.
Very little, less than 10 minutes a day. My co-workers prefer to talk in Spanish among themselves.
I can’t really answer the question because it is a problem of definition. We have tons of meetings and conference calls and I often talk to my work friends before and after and sometimes during a conference call if the topic doesn’t pertain to us. Much of it is work related, some is not, and others are chit-chat while I am doing work. Depending on how you define it, it could be anywhere between 30 minutes to 3 hours a day.
A little, I guess. I work in the telephony team for a British government department. If the phones aren’t ringing, we sometimes chat a bit.
I work at home, alone. Does talking to the cat count?
One of the best things about working from home is the lack of chit-chat.
In almost every office situation I’ve been in, there’s always been a yakker. You know, the person who when you see him/her approach your desk, you groan to yourself because you know it’ll be a minimum of 30 minutes before they get out of there.
And there’s always the chit-chat before and after meetings.
I hate socializing with workmates. I’m MUCH happier at home where the only chit chatter I have to worry about is Mr. Athena.
Depends on the day and the season, but usually ranges from 10-20 minutes.
I just came in here to bitch about my coworkers who talk all the time. It’s been slow and the boss is gone and for the past few days they have almost literally talked all day, every day. Then they ask me, “Mika, why are you so quiet?” GAH! Because I am just not as chatty as you!
I’m a chatty type, so I guess - A lot! Am I productive? I carry mail, and while we prep the route, we talk. I’m a rural carrier, so I get paid by the day, not by the hour, so any time I waste is my own. And after you’ve cased mail on the same route for 2 or 5 or 20 years, you really don’t need to watch that close. It’s like touch typing. You get an occasional typo, but I usually catch myself as I let go of the letter. Or else as I put it into the box.
Less than 10 minutes a day and sometimes not at all. My coworkers are all curmudgeonly types with minimal social lives and have pretty much zero tolerance for chit-chat. I’m usually fine with that, not being all that outgoing myself, but there are times when I miss it. But as others have already said, it’s better to have too little than too damn much!
Not nearly as much as I do on this stupid website.
Very little - probably about 20-30 minutes, and that generally includes what I think of as social lubrication. You know, the idle chit-chat you make between meetings or when you come in for the day and say hi to co-workers.
I used to spend a lot more time chit-chatting to the woman across from me. Sadly, she moved on to another company and her replacement is, well, not the nicest person. She’s not particularly rude to me because I’m senior to her and I think she’s a bit afraid of me, but she adamantly refuses to speak with our call center staff, even when one of them says hi to her. She also frequently orders around others’ employees, even though no one reports to her.
It depends which assistant I’m using that day. Some of my assistants need more time than others, some can work while we chat and be productive and some can’t. My former assistant and I could chat all day and get things done in record time. My new one needs supervision and prompting. The others do love to chat and are pretty good at multi-tasking, but I spend a lot more than 20 minutes talking to them.
Almost none. I talk on the phone for 40 hours a week. I don’t want to talk to anyone else. On breaks and lunch, I’m always listening to my ipod.
If I chat 10 minutes per week, that’s a lot for me.
Excluding smoke breaks.