There was a very disturbing article in the Chicago Tribune yesterday.

It was titled: “Your personal assistant, half a world away.”

It seems that it’s becoming somewhat common practice for people in the U.S. who are too busy to tend to their own lives to hire personal assistants.

Now, there is nothing man bites dog about that, right?

Since the first executive at IBM first strapped on a tie and picked up a briefcase, harried titans of the corporate world have hired personal assistants to plan their travel, pick up their dry cleaning, send flowers to their spouses after they’ve screwed something up, and otherwise do the menial tasks they don’t want to do.

But there are two twists to the story:

1. First, it’s not just busy executives. It’s regular people. And, more importantly . . .

2. The personal assistants are in India.

Yes, that’s right, even personal assistants are being outsourced to India, where everything is cheaper and you get more bangalor for your buck.

Now, many of the tasks these people have their Indian personal assistants to do are mundane: Book travel, find lost luggage, create a PowerPoint presentation, etc. But some of the tasks that people are “outsourcing” to Indian personal assistants are disturbing, to say the least.

According to the article, the following tasks are all recent examples of the kinds of things people are asking their Indian personal assistants to do:

* “Calling clients’ friends and family to say “'happy birthday.'”

* “Searching online personals for matches.”

* “Reminding a client not to speed and paying parking fines.”

* “Apologizing and sending flowers to spouses on clients’ behalf.”

* “Buying underwear on behalf of the client.”

* “Reading bedtime stories to a young child on the phone.”

* “Talking to parents in client’s stead.”

* “Engaging the client’s spouse in hot, steamy phone sex when the client is too exhausted to participate in lovemaking activities."

Okay, I made that last one up. But only the last one! And is outsourcing dirty phone sex with your wife really any stranger than having your assistant read stories to your kid?

And I don’t even want to think about what would happen if my mom ever got a call from my personal assistant, Rajeeshi, enquiring about her health and well being.

I’m trying to imagine the scenario in the typical midwestern house, as a family gets ready for bed in this scary new world:

Scene: A mom and her eight-year-old daughter Tiffany are in bed, reading The Trumpet of the Swan.

Soccer Mommy: That’s it for now, sweetie. Mommy has to finish her PowerPoint presentation for tomorrow, make your lunch, finish the laundry, update her blog, listen to the Oprah podcast, check on my eBay auctions, and call in the Peapod food delivery order for next week.

Tiffany: But Mommy, you always read two chapters when Daddy isn’t here. One for you and one for Daddy, that’s what you always say.

Mommy: I know, honey. But there is too much to do tonight, and Daddy is with an important client and can’t even call to say good night. But guess what? Uncle Deepak from India is calling in five minutes! Uncle Deepak is going to read you a chapter and then tuck you into bed over the phone!

Tiffany: Uncle Deepak!! Yay!!! I love Uncle Deepak. Can he also help me with my spelling words?

Mommy: Of course he can!

Tiffany: And Mommy? Some of the older girls at school today were talking about getting something called their “period” and it sounded real scary. Can Uncle Deeprak help me understand that?

Mommy: Of course he can! That’s why Uncle Deepak is a part of the family!!

The phone rings. Mommy answers it. It is Deepak, the family’s personal assistant, calling from Bangalor.

Deepak: Good evenings! It is I, Deepak. Your loving husband wanted me to tell you that he says good night, and to say that he is very horny for you while he is on the road. Also, I have updated your MySpace page and found you 417 new online friends! Also, as you requested, I have spent many fine hours at the Victoria Secret Web site, and located you some sexy-time new underwear which will arrive tomorrow, in time for your majestic husband's glorious homecoming! I am also to called your mother for you. She wishes to nag you about working so hard, and I said you accepted such nagging with great respect and adoration. Now, please to put on Tiffany, so we can finish up the homework and get into the Swan’s Trumpet again!

Mommy: Thanks, Deepak . . . I don’t know what we’d do without you. Listen . . . I just want to warn you. Tiffany is at an age when she has some questions about . . . you know, boys and her body. Are you okay with that?

Deepak: Oh, yes, Mrs. Sahib. Deepak is very well versed in both the bees and the birds. I will help her to understand the miracles of the universe as they perpetrate to her body.

Mommy: Thank you, Deepak . . . I would do it myself, but Dr. Phil finally got that interview with Brittany Spears, and I’m just dying to watch the tape.

My wife Cindy is a horrible networker.

Now, anyone who knows Cindy, or who has even just met her once, will be surprised by that statement. She’s outgoing, funny, a great conversationalist, not shy at all, and a terrific listener.

But she sucks at what she calls “forced networking.” This is when you are at a professional event, and there are clusters of people standing around networking and talking, and you don’t know anyone.

You have to sort of butt your way into one of the groups, introduce yourself, try to catch up on the conversation, and start contributing.

It’s hell . . . and I can’t think of anyone who likes doing it except Mark Ragan. He's weird like that. I think it's the reporter in him.

And yet it must be done. Especially when you spend half your life at those types of events, it seems. It's either butt in, or stand in a corner by yourself.

Well, late last year, Cindy and I were at a function where I was the speaker, and there was a reception before the event. Cindy got there before me for some reason, and when I walked in the room, it was the usual set up:

Little clusters of three and four people who didn’t know each other standing around desperately trying to make conversation.

Except for Cindy. I found her in the corner, where she was diddling her Dingleberry.

I pounced. “What are you doing?” I said to her.

“I needed to e-mail Greg,” she said. Greg is our accountant, and to my knowledge, Cindy has never sent an e-mail to Greg from her Dingleberry. Never.

“Why, is something important up?” I asked her. “Tell me all about it!”

She knew she was busted. She wasn't e-mailing Greg. She was just pretending to do something so she wouldn't have to network. “I hate this,” she whispered. “I suck at it. I hate butting into other peoples’ conversations.”

So of course I teased her and called her a bedwetter and told her that maybe she should consider moving out of communications and into the accounting profession, or maybe the IT profession, where nobody talks to anybody at the industry conferences.

But then she busted me.

“You know, it’s real easy for you to do this,” she said. “You’re recognizable. You’re usually the speaker, or people know you from your blog, or they’ve seen your fat head on one of the eight thousand promotions Ragan sends out with your picture on it. You don’t have to butt in at these things. People come up to you.”

Sure enough, as she was talking, two women from a government agency who had been in one of my seminars earlier in the year came up, and within seconds we were chatting and laughing and drinking and . . . dare I say it, networking.

But, I told Cindy afterwards . . . even if people didn’t recognize me, I would still be good at networking. I would easily and seamlessly integrate myself into first one group, then another, until I found the one with the best conversations. Because, I told her, I am a communicator. It's what I do!

“Bullshit,” she said. “If nobody recognized you, you’d go get a drink at the bar and take it back to your room.”

Well . . . we agreed to disagree. And then a month later, I was put to the test.

I was invited to Asheville, N.C. (a beautiful part of the country) to speak at Duke Energy’s annual communication meeting.

I was speaking on Friday morning, and there was a reception Thursday night. The event was being held at this historical landmark of a hotel in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, my room had a gorgeous view, the clients had so far been more than friendly . . . it was a dream job.

So I got to my room after the flight, showered, then headed down to the networking reception. I walked in . . . and waited. I didn’t even realize I was doing it. But I was . . . I was doing exactly what Cindy said I did. I was waiting for someone to come up to me!

I mean, surely the folks who hired me would come up and introduce themselves, right? One of them had seen me speak before, and I have the kind of head one doesn't easily forget.

I waited some more. Nothing. I was standing by myself. I started eyeing some of the clusters of people. I got a drink. I waited some more. By myself. There might not be a worse feeling in the world than standing in a roomful of people by yourself.

What I didn’t know was that the woman who knew me best wasn’t there . . . and neither were any of the other communicators whom I’d had conversations with.

So . . . nobody knew who the hell I was. I was on my own. I needed to network the hard way . . . and I completely choked.

First, I walked slowly through the entire room, desperately trying to make eye contact with someone. Nope. Then I made another circuit. Slowly. Still nothing. Now, ten minutes have gone by, and I haven’t talked to a soul.

I tried standing by the bar . . . but the bartender was too busy to talk. Then I realized something: these folks all knew each other!

They were all engrossed in their own conversations . . . they weren’t going to come up to me, and I wasn’t going to be able to find any lone stragglers who also didn’t have anyone to talk to, that I could leech on to.

I was going to have to butt into a cluster of people. And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t cluster-butt.

I mean, I tried, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. I made another long circuit through the room. I was about to butt into one friendly-looking group, when one of the woman let out a loud shriek of laughter. I couldn’t cluster-butt in on that!

I started circling a group of guys, hovering nearby, thinking maybe I could get in there. But they weren’t saying much. As the new person, I’d be the main attraction, like raw meat tossed into a tiger’s cage. I wasn’t up for that . . . so I moved on.

And so it went . . . for 20 agonizing minutes. I was sure that everyone in the room was secretly watching me, whispering things like:

"Hey, who's the Uncle Fester lookalike?"

"Check out the pervert in the corner . . . he keeps staring at everyone."

"Hey, why don't you go talk to Curly?"

"Hell no, you go talk to him!"

"Hell no!"

Finally, I remembered Cindy’s trick: the Dingleberry! At least I would appear to be doing something and not just standing there by myself! I could send Cindy an e-mail!

I reached for it . . . and realized that I had I left the damn thing in my hotel room.

So then I did something I never thought I would do. It was a complete and total choke job. I knew that people had noticed me standing by myself for 20 minutes, so I felt that just walking out of the room would be a humiliating retreat.

So instead, as I was standing there by myself, sweating, with nobody to talk to, feeling like I was on an island and under a microscope . . . I answered my wallet.

Yes, that’s right. I answered my wallet. I’m not proud of it, but I took my wallet out of my suit coat pocket, held it up to my ear like it was a phone, mouthed a couple of words, put a concerned look on my face, and stormed through the party talking to my wallet.

I went back to my room, finished my drink . . . and decided I would have to face my fears. I went back . . . but this time, I told myself, I was going to cluster-butt my way into the first group I saw.

But I didn’t have to. This time, someone did recognize me as soon as I walked in, and welcomed me warmly into his group. I met the husband of the vice president who had brought me in, and he was a great storyteller, and we had some drinks together, and I met more people, and they were all wonderful, hospitable southerners.

They were great people, the speech was a hit, and it was a wonderful memory all the way around.

Except for the fact that I had a two-minute conversation with my wallet.

Now, I’d like to think that the second time I went down to the party, I would have cluster-butted . . . but I’ll never know for sure. And that’s depressing.

And I’m curious: Has anyone else ever talked to their wallet to get out of a room? Have you cut yourself with the bartender’s lime-slicing knife to get out, which is something else I considered?

Or is just me?

A recent Gallup poll reveals that U.S. workers say they waste about an hour at work each day.

That got me thinking about how much time I waste every day. So I decided to keep a minute-by-minute log of one of my work days.

Now, it should be noted that this was one of my rare, “work from home” days. I wasn’t traveling; I wasn’t doing consulting; I wasn’t teaching a seminar; and I wasn’t being Mr. Mom with my son.

Those are more typical days for me. On this day, the day I decided to monitor, I was just working from the home office. So here we go . . .

4:13 a.m.: I wake with a start—and with an idea for a column for ragan.com. I go to my office (which is the the dining room table; Cindy has taken over the actual office in the apartment, under the theory that she actually uses it to work) turn on the computer, and write down my idea. I then look at it for five minutes, and decide it’s not a very good idea after all. I put it in the file of “possible ideas for stories and columns.” There are now 427 ideas in there that I’ll never write about.

4:23: I make a pot of tea and eat an orange. I haven’t had a margarita in two weeks. I contemplate going to El Jardin’s for lunch.

4:47: I hear Cindy in the shower, getting ready to go to Topeka, Kansas on business.

4:49: I try to get involved in Cindy’s shower. I am rebuffed. Heartily.

5:10: I start to answer the 87 e-mails that are in my “answer immediately” e-mail folder. Those e-mails have been in there since November. It is February. There are also about another 50 unanswered e-mails in my regular e-mail in-box.

5:13: I hear Cindy out of the shower and getting dressed. I try to get involved in that process. I am rebuffed again. Fun Cindy has switched to Professional Cindy, and I am alone. Back to e-mail.

5:30: Cindy leaves for Topeka. It’s me and the cats. Back to e-mail.

5:52: I hate e-mail. But not as much as I hate talking on the phone. I seriously contemplate El Jardin’s for an early lunch. I miss Cindy.

6:10: I am bored. I go to www.dartagnan.com, the gourmet food site, and order two quarts of duck fat, because I plan on making my own duck confit this week. There are so many wonderful things at dartagnan—rabbit and venison and pheasant and duck terrines and pates and sausages. Other men, when their wives leave on business, go to porn sites. I go to food sites.

7:15: I pull myself off dartagnan.com to go to Cubs.com, to see the latest Spring Training news.

7:30: Back to e-mail. I feel like that Sissypuss guy pushing the rock up the hill again and again.

8:15: I go to www.epicurious.com and look for recipes for duck confit. There are so many recipes for duck that I get sucked into reading all of them.

8:47: I decide that if I’m going to make duck confit from scratch, I might as well learn from the master, so I go in the kitchen and get my Julia Child/Jacque Pepin cooking bible, and copy down all the ingredients. I wonder if I should shop before or after El Jardin’s.

9:00: Back to e-mail. Six more messages have come in already today. I answer those right away, because of a New Year’s resolution I made to answer e-mails right away.

9:15: I decide that if I’m going to make duck confit, I might as well double the recipe, and use some of it to make cassoulet. I get the book out again, to get the ingredients.

9:20: I go back to Dartagnan to alter my order.

9:48: I’ve had a speaker cancel his session at the big Social Media conference in Las Vegas. I do some research trying to find a replacement.

10:30: I do an interview for a Ragan Report story. God, I hate the phone. By the time I type up my notes, it is . . . .

11:15: El Jardin’s is open, and I’m ready for lunch. I drink three margaritas, and read the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Reader (our alternative paper), and the New York Times. I do the Tribune’s crossword puzzle. I also debut two new magic tricks for the daughter of one of the El Jardin’s waitresses.

2:00: Nap time

3:10: Time to get up! This would normally be time for my “status meeting” with Cindy, but she’s in Topeka. So I have a status meeting with myself. It is not the same.

3:20: Back in the saddle! 14 more e-mails have come in. I put them in the “answer immediately” folder, because I have more pressing things to do than answer e-mail.

3:41: I work on my Ragan Report story.

4:00: I call someone back about a possible in-house workshop

4:20: I work on my Ragan Report story.

4:45: I go to ragan.com to see if anyone has commented on my stories there. They have not. I decide the Social Media bloom is off the rose, and it’s all a fad.

4:51: I go to this blog, to see if there are any new comments. There are not. I re-read my blog item, to see if it was funny. I spend countless hours a month trying to decide if I’m funny. I almost always decide that I am not.

4:55: I work on my Ragan Report story.

5:00: I feel guilty quitting at 5, since I took a long lunch. But I did start at 5:37, and there is shopping to be done, dinner to be eaten, wine to be drunk, and books to be read.

Tomorrow, I will spend the day with my son, and not work at all.

I don’t think a single minute of either day will have been wasted.