Do know those people that always start a conversation by telling you how busy they are? I don't mean occasionally. I mean the people that always seem to think they're impossibly busy.
"God I'm So Busy" people. Gisbies.
Think of some of the gisbies you know. What do you think of them? I've come to realise that I don't respect them. I tend to see them as less competent than my other non-gisbie colleagues. What I'm not sure about is why they annoy me so.
I think it's probably simply that I've noticed a correlation. The people in my life I've been most impressed by, those that excel in some way or another, never seem to complain about their time. But surely they are actually the most busy people I know; they're usually running departments or institutes or accomplishing ridiculous things in their spare time.
Gisbies, on the other hand, don't seem to be the people that are getting places and running the show. I actually suspect that the reason they're always telling me how busy they are is because they aren't so productive and they're worried people will think they aren't working. So they want to point out to everyone just how much they do.
And then they start implying that they do more than me. Are they really sure about that? I've got quite a few things going on that take up a lot of time. It's just that I'm not going around complaining about it. OK, sometimes I do, but when my plate is unusually full. Not always.
And then, to make matters worse, it seems like the gisbie actually delays my work by standing in my office telling me how busy they are!
In reality, I actually don't know what makes people into gisbies or why I dislike them. Probably a mixture of factors. But try not to tell me that you're too busy. I mean, not every time we meet.
