Reading Time: 5 minutes
I am trying to be more idle. I know, I know, if I was any more idle, I would be lying down. In this Puritan Work Ethic Paradise, being idle is a dangerous choice. Fortunately, it’s idleness with purpose. It is something I have tried in other workplaces but an academic environment seems particularly well-suited to it. I want to get underfoot.
I have been rebelling more and more through my career against the work week construct. I’ve written before about how I find the idea of a salaried person working unlimited hours because they’re on salary to be a non-starter. We pay people to be present for 40 hours or 35 hours or whatever. The reality is that knowledge workers are often engaged in thought about their work far beyond that time, if only because that’s how our bodies work. A 5-mile walk with the dog may mean that you hit an ideal state for thought. Reading something that is not tied to work may still trigger ideas that are work-related, or give your brain a moment to process work problems in the background.
This means that, by now, I am fully open to the idea of work being represented by me going and sitting somewhere. The purpose is not to work. The purpose is to be present and, like thinking, we tend not to categorize “presence” as work except for when we require people to be in their offices and physically present.
First You Sit. Then You Wait.
I had started to do this when I first got to the law school. At that time, I was under the misapprehension that students could not access the floor where our offices are. They can. But the reality is that they probably won’t. There are three places where students congregate in our buildings outside of the classroom: the elevator lobby, a lounge area on our second floor, and a floor called the Collaboration Commons which is primarily a student occupied space. The elevator lobby isn’t practical and we are not supposed to take up space in the Commons. This left me with the second floor lounge, a large open space with 10 foot tall windows looking out onto Jackson and State Streets in downtown Chicago.
The goal is simple. Essentially, I head down to the second floor and I sit. I take reading, which may or may not be directly related to work. I take a book of crosswords, and I take a drink of some sort. I sit at a table and I read or work a crossword and I am present. I specifically do not take anything that looks like work, that would perhaps cause someone to be reluctant to talk to me. No headphones. 6 hours earlier or later, and I would be in a similar situation at my house, before I head to the train or after finishing with dinner. As I say, the activity isn’t necessarily not-work but it is not what Frederick Taylor would call work.
It’s the place that I also sit for my office hours. We are required to give students one hour a week dedicated to office hours. I have found that few students take up the offer to stop by and this interest degrades as the students become more senior. But I figure that, between the one hour for office hours and the hour or so I sit around lunch time, I’m more visible than I would be waiting in my office. I could stay in my office but leaving it feels more deliberate, and means I’m less likely to work through an office hour on the assumption no one will show. If I stay in my office, I’m increasing the odds of that.
People do not think that this is normal behavior. An administrative colleague came by one day and said, “I wish I could sit down here.” And I thought that they probably could, if they wanted, and if they thought about their work differently. But we don’t always do that or, if we do, we find reasons why we can’t or why our culture might spit us out if we do.
Sitting idly is very similar to advertising. If you do it once or do it irregularly, it will probably not have much impact. If you do it regularly and adhere to a pattern, you never know what will come of it. In advertising, this is effective frequency. It’s not just that you want to be seen; you want to be seen and available at the moment that they need or want you to be available.
Then You Pounce
The first people I saw were the students, now 2Ls, that I had taught in 2025. They were back from summer and glad to tell someone about their experiences. Some went home, some clerked, some had externships of other sorts. We checked in on mutual summers and their plans for the new semester. One stopped by to ask if I’d advise on a paper they are going to write. Another thanked me for a reference I had given. Both might have sent me an email but the serendipity of seeing each other short-circuited that more formal and more distant communication.
Then I had a person walk up very seriously, hand out and suit coat buttoned. They were a new 1L and had heard my law practice technology intro at orientation and had more questions. I loved that someone had put a face to a name. It was exactly what I was hoping for. I have only been at the law school for 2 orientations of incoming students and had not participated in the first. This year, someone asked me to give them some practical technology tips and so I worked up a 30 minute presentation.
It was such a great opportunity. I was able to present, in-person or virtually, to all 320+ students in our full and part-time programs. That means everyone has seen the law library director. But I didn’t talk about the law library. We all fired up laptops, reworked a client engagement letter I’d prepared, and converted it to PDF. We discussed Word styles, Tables of Authorities and how Word was designed for lawyers, and how the styles become navigation in both Word and PDF documents. It was quality time.
This student had put two and two together and we talked about other technology they might start to practice on. But we were also able to talk about some strategic questions they had, things that were just advice. It was a great opportunity to build relationships.
Since then I’ve seen more of the 1Ls I knew, incoming 3Ls who I’d seen last year from sitting down in the same area, as well as some of my upper level students from last spring. I am hopeful that these sorts of interactions will continue. In one case, I ran into one of the students on the elevator and they asked, “are you still sitting on the 2d floor? Maybe I’ll see you there.”
I feel like I’ve hit pay dirt. When I was in Canada, I tried this in what was supposedly a shared cafeteria. But its location and the eat-at-your-desk mentality of a lot of staff, many of who picked up a coffee coming in, meant that I was often the only person in there except for the food staff. Some organizations do not have high-traffic space with seating and in those situations, I think it can be hard to create this effect.
Similarly, I don’t think you can do it effectively virtually. I could run a Zoom room for an hour or spin up a Teams chat. But immediately you create barriers and also require an intention to interact. In my head, it’s like being asked to someone’s home for a party but you don’t know the person well. You don’t know if you’ll be the only person to show up and start imagining how awkward that could be. So you don’t go. Serendipity, though, means that no on has to think about me. But if they see me, the availability, the lack of friction, may encourage them to interact. No technology, no scheduling, no doors.
This idleness has no downside. If I don’t see or interact with anyone, no harm done. I can still do reading and thinking and even have lunch, as a treat. If I do, it is an opportunity to reinforce bonds or create new ones. It creates opportunities that would not happen if I stayed in my office or even in the law library. If you want to be tripped over, you have to lie down where people are walking.
The idle mind is the devil’s playground, they say. I’ve had some ideas about how to build this concept out a bit. Maybe I put a sign up with an arrow over my head that says “Library director, ask me anything” or “AI legal research is terrible, change my mind” or “Let me tell you about WordPerfect Reveal Codes and the before times”. You get the picture. I don’t want to make this opportunity feel gimmicky but I am thinking about how to possibly bump interactions as time goes by.