I am am the luckiest person on the planet. I get to play games online at work and I am encouraged to do so. Not only that my boss doesn't even work in same state as me! Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky. Most people have to look over their should to play games or worse yet have their favorite game playing sites blocked by the dreaded IT guy.

How do you get around it? Well some people beg their IT people to give them access others well, who knows what others do. Most of us just sneak the games in trying to not get caught. Companies constantly spend time fighting to stop people from playing and us fine workers constantly strive to find ways to play. What does that do? Makes people unhappy and and no one has a good time at all.

Well someone decided to do something about it! You'll now have ammo to take on your boss or anyone else who says playing online games at work is counter-productive. Popcap, the developers of the some of the better online games like Bejeweled, Peggle and Chuzzle, have sponsored a study that says ONLINE GAMES INCREASE WORKER PRODUCTIVITY! According to the study of British workers, ten minutes a day of online play keeps stress down and the mind focused. Seems that taking endless breaks for tea is ok, but five minutes of playing online games is faux pas in England.

There is no doubt that a happy worker is a productive worker. However, I question the source. Popcap, A GAME company, is pushing this report out. Maybe, just maybe there is a conflict of interest here? I love, love the idea of folks taking this article over to their boss and trying to get them to give them a ten minutes break to play Hearts online, but I just can't see it working. I guess I just don't trust bosses that much to let people play at work.

What do you think? If you brought an article over to your boss saying you should be allowed to play games at work what would they say? Would they tell you to stuff it? I want to hear you gaming at work stories!