DUNCAN — One of the remarkable traits human beings have developed — well, OK, maybe not every human, but a bunch — is being able to find something positive in a negative.

Really, there’s a lot of folks out there who see a silver lining inside every dark cloud. These are people who keep on the sunny side of life, who always look for the bright side, no matter how dire the situation.

Recently, I ran into one such fellow outside a popular coffee spot in Waurika.

It seems that although joblessness is the prime concern of millions of Americans, this guy could see a ray of sunshine amidst the storm clouds of 9.6 percent unemployment.

“Well,” he said, in a tone that was somewhat sarcastic, “at least unemployment has gotten rid of a lot of slackers in the workplace.”

OK, maybe this guy wasn’t really a lil’ sunbeam. On second thought, he’s probably a Grumbly Gus, who thinks most of the people he’s worked with — and for — were incompetent goof-offs.

But his reference to slackers in the workplace did cause me to start wondering about that topic, and I so did a little research. (Hey, since I’m a columnist, doing research is a form of labor, not a way of slacking off!)

Anyway, I discovered that despite the hand wringing Americans have been doing over unemployment in the past two years, slacking in the workplace is still alive and well.

In the past, many suspicious supervisors have asserted that employees were secretly goofing off about one hour of each work day.

T’aint true. According to an online survey conducted last year, when unemployment was hovering just a smidgen under 10 percent, Americans who were working still blew off an average of TWO HOURS a day.

Even if it puts our job in jeopardy, it seems a lot of us spend time we’re on the work clock schmoozing and talking on the phone, sending out chain letters on the Internet, clipping our toenails, making repeated trips to the potty and texting everyone from our bookie to our hair stylist — and our employers are paying us for it!

Based on responses from 10,000 American workers, the survey by America Online and Salary.com estimates wasted time at work costs employers more than $769 billion annually.

One thing that amazes me about a survey like this is that so many workin’ folks gladly participate. There’s a veil of anonymity involved, but you’d think people would have too much pride to confess, in essence, that they’re being overpaid.

But, heck, it appears “stickin’ it to the man (or woman)” and getting away with it continues to delight some of us.

Based on answers from people about their favorite workplace preoccupation, Facebook has charged to the forefront. The estimate is employees spent enough work time on Facebook to unproductively consume $2.25 billion of their employer’s greenola in 2009.

While conducting serious work-related research, I couldn’t resist exploring another slacker-related hypothesis: If average, blue-collar folks are contributing billions of dollars to the cost of wasted time, how high does the total rise if some of the richest folks in the working world are also slackers?

According to the Wall Street Journal, the highest paid American CEO in 2009 was Ray Irani, head honcho at Occidental Petroleum Corp. Last year, Occidental paid Mr. Irani $52.2 million in direct compensation.

Who knows how much Ray (Yes, I plan to get to know Mr. Irani well enough to call him “Ray”) makes in stock options and other perks. But if we use $52.2 million as a base and extend that over a 40-hour work week, Irani is drawing a weekly check of $1,003,846 and change. That’s $200,769 Occidental pays Ray for an eight-hour day or $418 per minute.

Now remember, this is just a hypothetical — I’m not saying Ray’s a slacker. But if he spends 10 minutes shooting the breeze with Bob from the mail room or taking a multiple-choice “Are You a Good Lover Quiz” on the Internet, Ray’s burning up $4,182 of Occidental’s bucks.

And if Ray diddles around for the average of two hours per workday the survey suggests, non-productive time by its CEO is costing Occidental $50,192 a day.

There’s a lot of other ways to breakdown how much slacking off in the workplace costs employers. I’d love to tell you more of this valuable research-based information, but it’s time for my break.