More on procrastination

I received the following from someone who refers to herself only as Fran K, which, given my recent experiences with university adminstration, has the right Kafakesque overtones. I publish it in the hope that others may learn from our joint experiences... someday.

Dear John Wilkins,

I quite appreciated your commentary on the Procrastination Principle, not to mention your Lazy Manager Theory and ballistic defense system of staff.

The procrastination principle, however, has been in practice since long before 1995, when codified for the academic community by John Perry.

Many years ago (maybe 25+) I read an excellent biography of humorist Robert Benchley (for a wikipedia entry and photo, see here; see also here). He wrote a weekly newspaper column (among other things) and was, of course, a procrastinator; his codification of the deadline procrastination principle was that what was accomplished at any given time was in inverse proportion to what one was supposed to be doing. More neat in its expression (and I paraphrase), if less academic, than the longer description of Prof. Perry. If you don't know his work, do introduce yourself; you would appreciate his style of humor.

Speaking of paperwork demands and approaches to it, "...Benchley received notice that his income taxes were being audited. The IRS requested he fill out a detailed form outlining every cent made and spent for the last decade. He eyed the document, scrawled, 'Don’t be silly' across it, and sent it back. Strangely enough two men from the Treasury Department arrived the next morning."

After the 1929 stock market crash/bank failures in the US, he remarked on a friend who had lost $5000 (a considerable sum in those days), stating that while he also no longer had this sum, he'd at least enjoyed the money, which had been spent elsewhere.

Your "thesis that dare not speak its name" had me laughing. Mine was known as the "D word" and no one was allowed to add the rest of the letters or a question mark at the end, as in "How is your D(issertation) going?", under pain of death. Occasionally, if unable to contain themselves, I could tolerate, "Dare we mention the "D word?". (The correct answer was usually, "NO!")

One friend, who finished far sooner, used to actually ambush me at unexpected moments, in an effort to move it along. We'd be discussing a perfectly innocent, unrelated topic of conversation and BAM! he'd throw a direct question into the discussion (w/o actually using the D word), but w/the intensity of a cop in film noir, shining a light in my eyes and demanding to know where I was when the alleged "D" went missing...

PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder--defined as "...a term for certain severe psychological consequences of exposure to, or confrontation with, stressful events that the person experiences as highly traumatic." [wikipedia]) may actually stand for "post-thesis stress disorder), and has similar affects on the suffering individual: flashbacks, trigger incidents (e. g., your description of the "Thingy"), anxiety, hostility, etc.

Fran K

Thank you Fran. It's nice to know there are likeminded souls out there...