Skiving in General Studies.
It won't help me get into Uni, so I don't give a flying fuck. I therefore switch my hearing aid off (there are some advantages to being a bit of a cripple/insert PC term here), and listen to music with an earphone in my other ear. My longish, semi-girlie hair covers it up.
Backfired a couple of months ago when I didn't realise our teacher was telling me to "switch that music off", thought he was picking on me for answers, and kept yelling "referendum", and other vaguely politically related stuff.
Never realised what the hell was going on till lunch, when my mates hear about it and piss themselves laughing at me. Bastards.
( Labmonkey last thought about having another coffee on, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 21:25, Reply)

getting away with doing nothing
Im workshop foreman for the small company I work at. I can spend good portions of the working day wandering between workshop, office, sales shop, storage site and old workshop clutching a random bit of broken stuff. No real intention of fixing it or anything, I just wander around the place. Beats working anyway.

I also have "bowel disease" so get to sit in the shitter on a pretty much hourly basis for 10-15 minutes at a time. Im not actually straining to force out a reluctant turd, Im usually sitting on the radiator playing "snake" on my mobile phone. I have now managed to completely fill the screen with 1 big snake on the first 7 of the ten levels. woo.
(dave likes cheese, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 21:12, Reply)

More than one boss...
I have two bosses, located at opposite ends of the college I work at. If I want an hour or two off of work I just walk into town / read a book in the park / go and sit in other peoples offices and drink tea. If either boss asks me where I was then I was in a meeting with the other.

Luckily they both hate each other (because one is a macho IT manager and the other is a poncy academic) so they never talk and have yet to discover my scam.
(bondgrrl, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 21:08, Reply)

A Good Tip For Skiving
walk around your office with a piece of paper in your hand.......well, it seems to work for all the bone-idle manager fuckwits in my office, believe me, i have watched one particular offender for a whole day and the results are amazing! Fuckers!
(Foxy McClumpha, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 21:03, Reply)

Bunking school
was far more interesting than how I pretend to do any work nowadays, as I do little more than perfect the art of sleeping with my eyes open. I used to get a 38 or 73 and take a trip to the west end and see a film, or sometimes go to London Zoo (when they still had Elephants). On really adventurous days I'd get a train to Richmond or Kew, and once we somehow made it all the way to York when we were supposed to be in double English. Yeah, I bunked, but I did it in style.
( Fictional Emma, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 20:58, Reply)

Standing on a bee is still an excuse.
It's not exactly skiving as in I was slacking off. More like not turning up at all.

I used to work in Woolworths. Because I’m a bum who prefers to live off her parents, it was my first job. To be quite honest, I hated it. I took every opportunity to skive off, so much that I ran out of excuses. I once took a whole week off because I said I had appendicitis and nearly died, which was slightly true. I did when I was about 12 years old...and I didn't nearly die. Another time I said I stood on a bee, in the middle of Winter and had to stay off for a week. That was true…although it could have been a piece of glass…and it only hurt for 2 days.

If I couldn’t actually stay at home, I would go down to the stock bay, make a small bed with the many pillows or bedding packs and look at all the nice things down there. I was so tempted to make a den, take some chocolate and live down there till after they shut the store down.

I took time off at all the wrong times too. The week before Christmas in Woolies is possibly the busiest all year and I took it off. I felt really guilty, imagining all the other employees rushing round the shop in order to get my part done…then I remembered they were all horrible to me, so I laughed it off.

I resigned before I could be fired which was lucky, because I would have hated to see my review.

I have to cross Woolworths whenever I go into town. It feels terrible and I always get this pang of guilt, then I remember I never gave the uniform back and begin to smile.

Me: 1 - Woolworths: Nil.
(Katie_D, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 20:56, Reply)

lieing about my leg
i love to everyso often just randomly say "ooo my leg hurts" and walk out of a classroom. Although the stupid thing is my legs fake, yet they still continue to believe that its in pain....and the fact i walk out is a bit of obvious clue i'm lieing as well
really probably shouldn't do it, probably giving amputees a bad reputation
(Calmallama Is keeping this short and sweet, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 20:54, Reply)

Fuck revision
This being the last month of school, most of us can't really be arsed to do any work. So we don't. (GCSEs - who needs em?)

Well, thats when i actually go to school. I find "Dad, I've got really bad period pains" usually works. He daren't question it.
(PAMPAMPAM, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 20:50, Reply)

but now I'm a policeman....
I'm a motorcycle cop to be specific.
They give me a motorbike to ride around on then wonder why they can't find me. duh!!
(Lord_Of_The_Wild_Frontier, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 20:45, Reply)

Skivving in a mental hospital
I once had a summer job with the maintenance dept. at a mental institution, as a painter. There were three of us there to help the two full-time painters. (Yes, they employed two full-time painters. Go figure) There was much slacking. I don't know if it counts as skivving, as it was encouraged by our boss. This was my introduction to the wonderful world of old union employees who hate their jobs and don't give a fuck.

The official work schedule: 8am to 4:30pm, with a two paid 15min breaks and a 30min unpaid lunchbreak.

What really happened: sign in at 8am. This was vitally important. Wouldn't want to be late. It's coffee time until at least 8:45 though, at which point we'd get our equipment together and go to where we were working that day. Our two coffee breaks were 30-45mins and lunch was 1-1.5 hours. This is what our bosses did and what we were encouraged to also do so that they wouldn't look bad. Actually, they pretty much didn't care what we did as long as we painted slightly less than them.

On my last day, I had been up all night drinking with friends, so I spent the better part of the workday sleeping on the roof.

As for the fact that it was in a mental hospital, well, that's probably better suited to other questions...
(tough_cookie, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 20:44, Reply)

Bunking off at school......
There was a cafe near my school that had a secret upstairs where we could bunk off and smoke fags. Some teachers bunked off too and used the same place to smoke fags.

It was sort of an arrangement we had not to grass each other up.
(Lord_Of_The_Wild_Frontier, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 20:39, Reply)

Literal Phone Monkey!
I used to work as a phone monkey for ClientLogic, who was the contracted support line for BTopenworld. Shameful I know but what better way to start a career?!?

Anyway, for the first 2 weeks of everyone's employment, official BT training is drilled mindlessly into their heads about BT's (non-)service, what an IP address is and the correct way to insert a CD - followed by similarly easy test at the end. Needless to say I spent the whole time at the back of the room fast asleep and aced the test.
However, slacking (or being extraordinarily late for) a training session, I turned up at the reception trying to sneak into lecture room - keeping out of eyeshot of the Regional Managing Director.
Luckily, he was deeply engrossed in his latest crisis which was being vocally spat into his uber expensive mobile phone. Apparently, the recruitment drive hadn't been the success he was hoping for and the comment "I DON'T CARE IF YOU HAVE TO BUY SOME SHAVED MONKEYS AND PUT THEM INFRONT OF THE PHONES, I NEED THEM NOW!!!" bellowed from his lips.
Later, passed on such comments to other colleagues, who became outraged, flooded the company's intranet forum & generally kicked up a fuss. This all lead to an official denial from the Managing Director involved and warned who ever started this rumour would be punished. (I left not long after).
( CPhoenix, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 20:36, Reply)

I skived on my first ever job
Waaaaay back when I was 16, I got a temp job in the summer between school and college. This job, paying the glorious wage of £2.50 an hour, involved being sent to the St. Ivel factory in Chichester at 8:00 in the morning with a gaggle of other unfortunate schmucks, there to pack yoghurts and perform other equally mind-fuckingly dull tasks.

It didn't take me and my mate very long to notice that the St. Ivel people always hired more agency staff than they had need for; hence about 4 or 5 people at a time would be issued with a brush or mop and told to "clean up around the place".

Pretty soon, we realised that due to this surplus, we could just clock in when we arrived and then walk straight out the gate again - returning at 3:55 to join the line of people clocking out.

We pulled this scam for the whole summer, and the dozy bastards never cottoned on. Such was my introduction to the world of employment....
(codeine, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 20:19, Reply)

. . .
Well this morning i jus slept.. finally got into 6th form missing my first couple of lessons then when the bell rang for my only lesson i had turned up for i carried on skatting around the common room on the dinner trays!!! Alot more fun the studying dead people in history i can tell u!!! Yeah i may slightly fail my A Levels but theres always clearing...
(Bhougal...hang me upside down from a banana tree and call me BERTTIE BHOUGAL>>>Oh Yeah...!!, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 20:17, Reply)

A friend worked in Wal-Mart
best place in the world to skive.
He worked in the furniture department, and as such had all the keys to the desks. He had one desk for sleeping in, complete with a stolen blanket and pillow. He kept all the merchandise he stole in another desk.
( cheesemaster a screaming naked asian man driving a semi, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 20:11, Reply)

.
i find the best way to skive of work is just not to turn up no one keeps track of my hours so it doesnt matter. ive been getting paid from 8 till 5 i actually work 9 till 3 and have a 2 hour lunch break. once i came into work pissed from the night b4 so instead of work drunk i hid behind a kitchen unit for like an hour
(fwack bang on it, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 20:08, Reply)

CV fun
Temping in a dodgy-as-hell recruitment office donkeys years ago... putting CVs of crazy foreigners on a database for crappy money wasn't any fun, so I used to entertain myself with their "interests and hobbies" sections. You like country walks and classical music? No you don't! You like kiddy porn and pleasuring yourself with fruit.

Far as I know they never proof read them before sending them on to companies.

Elle x
(_elle_, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 20:02, Reply)

Shift skiving
I worked for a multinational fibre optics company as a so called 'technician'. Unfortunately they didn't pay me a technicians rate so I would skive as much as possible.
I was the only one who worked shifts in the office, 6am-2pm one week and 2pm-10pm the next, so I used to turn up 5 mins before anyone else on the early shift(about 8.25) and on thelate one I would leave just after the last person(about 6.15).
So I worked 29 hours one week and 22 hours the next instead of 40hrs. Used to bump into people from my office in the pub on Fridays and just tell them I was on the early shift. Nobody ever said anything in about 18months and I didn't even get made redundant when they got rid of non essential staff! One time I forgot to switch off a machine as I was at home watching TV and fried about 80 grands worth of lasers, bugger!
Ahhh those were the days.
(bettyswollocks, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 19:59, Reply)

I don't skive much
but I do fall asleep in lessons.
(once_upon_a_time, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 19:36, Reply)

I worked at an airport a year ago
Didn't really have to do much, so i'd usually go out onto the tarmac on nice days and take naps in the small planes parked there.
One day someone thought I was being suspicious
(i was wearing street clothes and had gone through the hangar instead of the security desk) and called security. Being post 9/11 I was woken rather abruptly by a half dozen airport police holding automatic weapons. I showed them my card and they let me go back to sleep.
( cheesemaster a screaming naked asian man driving a semi, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 19:21, Reply)

Magic and Sparkle
When i worked in M&S I would spend all day walking around talking to my mates while they were on the till, i'd always be carring around some clothes and if stopped by a superviser, i'd tell them i was putting stock out. if i was asked to go on a till i'd get one of the many temps to do it as they all thought i was important or something. Once after a big lunch i fell asleep on a sofa in the back warehouse for 3 hours and awoke to find i should have gone home half an hour ago, so my boss gave me overtime. life was sweet
(Big_Sven, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 19:20, Reply)

alt tab is for peecee wimps
us mac boys have apple-H, which hides the web browser entirely.

I am my own boss and I work from home. So I can skive on the kids' trampoline. muhahaha.
(teasus likes tea, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 18:50, Reply)

just today...
...I was feeling a little tired following a large lunch. So I took myself off to the back room in the office where all the computer crap is stored (a server room its called apparently) and lay myself on two comfy chairs. An hour of sweet dreams ensued, but was rudely awoken by my colleague who was tapping on the side door, which has a window in, which I didn't see in my sleepy state upon entering the room...she said she wouldn't say anything, I said I'd had a migrane, she said good job she weren't the boss. Probably helps that I give it to her on a friday afternoon in the toilets...which is another skiving story altogether...
(Jazz Bloke Music has charms to soothe the savage breast, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 18:36, Reply)

Whoops.
Scived off to the Pub on my lunch last week. turned out that it was someones birthday and all the work crew turned up.

By this point I was dancing on the tables to the Glam tribute band that was playing.

Needless to say I didn't go back to work. Which was a bad idea considering that there were at least 3 Managers in the pub with us.

Surprisingly I didn't get fired.
( darth munki is flipping livid, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 18:11, Reply)

Ah, skiving
About fifteen years back I got into a shitload of trouble at uni and was told that I'd have to get a responsible job in the media for a few months if I wanted back in. So I got a summer job at a popular Belfast morning newspaper (hint: not the proddy one).

I'd been in there before, on the newsdesk, and had a great time (and this was back in the days of typewriters and carbon paper, none of your computers here). Sadly, second time around I ended up in the marketing department, which was staffed entirely by subhuman cunts who took out their frustrations at their hideous pointless lives on the most junior person about, i.e. me, by treating me like a moron when I was quite clearly nothing of the sort.

So I decided that if they were going to treat me like a moron, I was going to have to act like one. For various reasons, I was three floors down from the marketing offices, in a cupboard out by the printing presses. This didn't have a typewriter in it, so whenever I was asked to type something, I had to walk through the newsroom, head upstairs and borrow my boss's secretary's typewriter. Inevitably, she would ring down to my office ten minutes later to say she needed it back. "No problem," I would tell her, and carry it back up the stairs. "However, could you please be sure to let me know when you're finished with it? I'm in the middle of typing something and I need it back."

It would ususally take them three or four days to notice that the page of typing they'd asked me to do on Monday morning still hadn't been typed up - days which would be spent doing crosswords, reading, smoking spliffs and indulging in absolutely epic lunches.

Shortly after this, they started sending me out on the road to measure distances between almost every newsagent in Northern Ireland. I knew fuck all about anywhere outside Belfast, so I'd hit the road first thing in the morning then cruise around all day essentially at random, doing very much as I did around the offices. (And if I had to drive around for five or six miles to find a shop that was actually arond the corner from the previous entry on the list, down it went in the book as "5-6 miles".)
(Wong Fei-Hung - now with added flickr.com (see profile), Wed 27 Apr 2005, 18:00, Reply)

their fault
responded to an agency ad for I.T support position for an ISP, got the gig on the spot, subsequently turned up at the company which must remain nameless.

when asked which job I was there for I replied I.T support and got directed away from the pack of monkies who had, I later discovered, answered 'call centre support' or somesuch.

cue 2 months with the network & I.T support bods, easily supporting the phone monkeys and their team leaders whilst the useless support team leader sought clarification from
his boss regarding funding for the new temp. the TL was sacked for incompetence (unconnected to my situation) the friday before the monday I was told there had been a terrible
mistake and would I mind awfully downgrading to phone monkey.

I declined and was paid until the end of the month (3 weeks away) but asked to leave the site immediately for security reasons.

ended up getting paid for getting stoned and playing on me playstation for three weeks

mint

.
(sham-il-eer-tak-tak noes better but still can't give a fuck at, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 17:49, Reply)

My preferred methods
Now im in sixth form and getting £30 a week from the government to do it, you'd think i wouldn't wanna skive seeming as i have more free lessons than actual lessons. Still, my preferred method of skiving is having a 'bad stomach ache' simply walk to the office, if anyone asks talk in a low, depressed kinda voice, sign myself out of the signing in book and walk out free as a jaybird.
Another good one is how to get out of my dreaded lunchtime lessons with a teacher probably diagnosed with parkinsons, she shakes so much its as if she used a vibrator and forgot about it. Simply walk in, say i feel ill/brothers really ill at home and i have to look after him e.t.c. and i can buggar off and do whatever the hell i want!
( Bobson I who milks the milkmen?, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 17:45, Reply)

Broken Arrow
I'm not very creative with my skiving - bog standard web/messenger/origami type stuff - although to be fair to myself I think I may be major factor in my company going bust shortly. Huzzah.

However, while at Uni my mate Ed used to work at BAe on a summer job on the development of the tracked Rapier anti-aircraft missile for the Army. Several thousand of Britain's finest engineers worked on this project, delivering the first prototype on time and on budget. The Army came down to the factory - south east somewhere, and signed off their acceptance, loaded the thing up onto a trailer and drove off towards Salisbury plain for testing.

However due to the customary rush hour car-park on the M25, the driver takes an unscheduled diversion down some country lanes, under a low bridge... cue one huge pile of broken electronics, an obliterated missile system, and back to the drawing board for BAe.

The skiving came in the second time around, when BAe's development engineers couldn't be arsed doing the thing properly again, spent most of the time tossing around emailing each other and playing tic tac toe, cheated by using all the test data from the first time round, and consequently tracked Rapier v.2 was massively over budget and hideously late, and kept going wrong with basic errors like going left when it was supposed to go right.

£10m skive - British Engineering dont you love it.
(redredrobin, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 17:38, Reply)

My mate works in a supermarket.
Whenever a customer asks if they have any of product X in stock, he will go out back, take a fifteen minute break, and come back and tell the customer that he couldn't find any.
(Krunk Hey hey, ho ho, 1100110, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 17:29, Reply)

Sleeping like a tramp...
Sometimes I'm so tired from the night before that I go to the bathroom and sleep on the toilet. It doesn't even have a seat cover. :(
(thisismyclone, Wed 27 Apr 2005, 17:26, Reply)