• Official meetings and appointments
• Telephone calls
• Personal breaks and lunch breaks
• Official visitors
• A need to interrupt current activity to make a copy of something, sends a fax, or coordinates with another worker
• Fire drills, hazard alarms, or other emergencies
• Adverse weather
• Power outages
• Equipment breakdowns
• Holds for quality checks or coordination
• Absentees whose work must be absorbed by others
• Turnover of key personnel-new ones must be brought up to speed
• Higher headquarters or outside agency inspections, audits, and reviews
• Secretaries/clerks delivering mail and messages
• Noise and conversations from adjacent work areas
• Unusual activity outside office windows
• Running out of something-paper, staples, etc.
• Misplacing something; and
• Forgetting something
Certain actions or policies may minimize the disruption and time loss effect of some of the above items, but the potential is not significant.
