Paid For Drinking
In the late 90's I was working as an IT contractor for a large insurance company in a North West city that shall remain nameless in case they see this post. At the time, I was very, very well paid, £75 an hour in fact.

The network manager, a mental dwarf Scouser called John was responsible for signing off my timesheets and also had a drinking problem - he couldn't get enough of the stuff. Roughly three time a week I'd be slaving away at my terminal sorting out their crappy network when my phone would ring.

"Cisco meeting, 5 minutes" John would growl down the phone.

That was my cue to pack my gear up and head for the Black Horse. John would meet me their a few minutes later and the drinking would start. Over the next few hours various cronies of Johns would arrive and we'd start drinking our way across town until closing time or until the last person fell over whichever came first.

The deal was that I'd buy all of the beer, all night for John and his friends and John would sign my time-sheets as overtime. So I was frequently logging 20 hour days at £75 an hour and making a fortune. It's impossible to drink £75 an hour all night even with a few hangers on so I was making a fucking fortune.

I eventually had to give the job up as my liver (clue there) was in severe danger of permanent damage. Drinking 12 hours a day and getting up after three hours sleep to work does you no good after a while.

That job was one of the main reasons why
I remain, as usual,
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 14:08, Reply)

I work for Microsoft
My line manager is only in the office a couple of days a week. The various other execs (we're hugely overstaffed at management level) seem to be in endless meetings pretending to negotiate to avoid our redundancies (though we know they only care about themselves and their mates), so no-one's ever around.

All the people in my immediate vicinity are likely to be on Bill Gates's redundancy list, so we don't really do much work at all, just sit around blogging, downloading music or emailing friends. The senior people know the lack of productivity is due to the demoralised workforce. This will remain the case until June, when we finally get our cards, and from then we'll have another six months or so to work out our notice. Bolox to it all.
(xyandz, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 13:52, Reply)

Co-Op
After 7 months of skiving off work on the doll my mate got a job on the wines and spirits section on the co-op.

His first day he was asked to start putting the stock out. The next day the manager of wines and spirits checks to see what he's done and looking a bit disgruntled takes him aside. She tells him "You see Tom, all that stock you put out yesterday was all we had to do this week. You need to take your time and look like your busy". The next week he was commended on how slow he was going.
(Farthing, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 13:50, Reply)

Fingerprints anyone?
Mate of mine was having a quiet shift at the police station when an 18 year old was brought in for suspected burglary.

In order to pass the time, they decided to have some fun with him. They fingerprinted him, then made him ink his nose and get a nose print as well, cos there had been reports of a peeping tom and nose prints against glass had been found in the area he was picked up...then when he was filling in the processing form, he could not understand what occupation was - they told him and when he said he did not have a job, they advised him that unemployed was spelt L-O-S-E-R - apologies for length but not to illterate people, cos you won't be able to raed this site anyway!!
(essbeenz there done that, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 13:40, Reply)

Amateur dumping
May I suggest you guys do what I do. Every day for the last 5 years I have gone onto a football website (choose another if this is not your bag) copied the text and pasted into word - 10 pages should do. Print the word document and this gives you something to read in the crapper.

It has become something of a ritual and most people in the building know that fat lad is off for a dump if he is seen with 10 pages of A4 at around 11am.

In fact I get rather shirty with football 365 if my regular pages are not up intime from my 20 minute meeting.

Not only that but once finished the printout can double as a walking around looking busy prop.

Top slacking
(Taco Tickler, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 13:31, Reply)

State-sanctioned skiving with the Mad
Years ago working in psychiatric hospitals was great for skiving, as it was actually 'work' (this was in the days when there were still such hospitals instead of 'care in the community', and the hospitals had money to make the nutter's lives relatively pleasant)

My first job was with mad old ladies. It was considered perfectly acceptable to disappear with a brace of them to the on site 'social club'. It was considered good form to be able to escort 3 patients- one in a wheelchair and one on each arm. There, we could while away large parts of the day chatting to your mates (and the odd patient), drinking all the tea you could drink, smoking fags and taking advantage of the free pool table. I used to spend entire days there, just taking them back for meals. Superb.

The same thing could be done on evening shifts when the club was closed, but there were 'disco's' in the hall. Exactly the same set up but in the dark and with music.

On Sundays, we could take them to the on-site chapel of a morning, where one of my favourite enterainments was hearing the patients screech away to some hymn or other while the stony faced chaplain looked on.

The best thing was that everyone was genuinely happy- the wards had less people in them, the patients loved it and we got to drink, smoke and chat all day long with them (always a riot)and each other.

To top it all off, as the working day was 12 hours long, we only worked 3 1/2 days a week!

Cleaning up the odd bit of shit or piss, breaking up the odd fight, and monitoring for the odd bit of sexually inappropriate behaviour seemed a fair price to pay for such halcyon days.
(clapper, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 13:27, Reply)

Ghostzilla
Thanks for the tip on using this stealth browser - fucking magic. Am now office swot.
(monkeyht1, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 13:22, Reply)

I jam both my thumbs up the clients' arses so they cum before they're even erect
then spend the rest of their half hour browsing b3ta while they whine on about their wives not loving them any more.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 13:20, Reply)

I sexed a child



And got 3 years off school.
( Naive Amoeba Bored Cig, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 13:17, Reply)

Sometimes the simplest ones are best
I had a student job as a hospital cleaner. We had to clock in & out on our shifts. After lunch, we would clock back in, then just go back to the canteen & find a quiet corner to sit & drink tea, play cards etc.

We eventually got caught; but because we were cheeky lovable young lads; (and the supervisors were all lovely maternal ladies who indulged us) we just got a telling off.

(MRSA? What's that then?)
(simon shitting mason, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 13:07, Reply)

"Brother and sister"
Many years ago, whilst doing shift work (Every sunday included)had access to the union reps office.Most sunday afternoons would be spent, locked in the union office, playing at "the beast with two backs" with one of the female production operators.Al in the name of fostering good relations you understand !
And the pay was pretty good too !
(Betty Boothroyd's Love custard Tourettes at the KOB, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 13:07, Reply)

Being Colonel Sanders
I'm a bit pissed off with chickens.

So I tried to re-create a five-dimensional space-time continuum using just a cigar-smoking haddock.

Bizarre you might say, but my thinking was that if I could discover a worm hole that turned into a fish finger on the second tuesday of the badger year then I could power-throw the fonz into the cosmos of cabbages.

I was wrong.

After all I am a gerbil.

Nice gerbil.

I never skive at work.
(lost_monkey, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 13:03, Reply)

Chilli
I rub chilli on my cock to get (painful) time off work
(brad83, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 12:53, Reply)

Video loved the Normanator
10 years or so ago, I had a job in the local video shop (not a geek by the way), Bollockbuster or somesuch. It wasn't a big shop, but a small 1-man "express" one so being left unattended I could get away with serial skivery. Basically it had this really high counter, and the telly was in front of it facing the till, so I used to lock up, stick a "back in 5 mins" sticker in the door, sit behind the counter and watch videos undisturbed for hours. The actual work which was supposed to take all day really only lasted for an hour or so anyway, so even with the shop open, I just watched vids for 8 hours a day for the whopping sum of £3.30 an hour.

Gravy.
( Normanator Bad case of trapped wind since, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 12:50, Reply)

Work screensaver
I used to software test for the court services/DCA and had a screensaver assembled from numerous screens of test scripts and results. Whilst I'd wander the office talking to my mates, the pc would sit happily churning though numerous screens giving the appearence I'd been at my desk working on something.
(DrGonzo, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 12:40, Reply)

e-book skive
Download the classic of your choice from Project Guttenburg, paste it into word or a new email & pretend you are writing a letter or somthing, while actually reading an improving book.
just finished Code of the Woosters.
Tinkerty Tonk
(chewie, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 12:40, Reply)

Please go directly to hell, do not collect £200
Not that I'm a huge skiver these days, there was one incident that still makes me feel seriously guilty.
About 6years ago I worked for a Telecomms company. One Thursday night was round a mate's house, and decide we should all go to Amsterdam via Eurostar. Only problem was that I had to work on Friday and the Saturday.
This led to me making a phonecall at 4am from a Waterloo Station payphone claiming my Grandma just had a heart attack (She died about 5yrs previously) and I was off to Sweden to see her in hospital.
Cue myself rocking up to 'Dam for the Queens Mayday festival 4hours later. Great w-end though.

First class ticket to hell please
( -:Coop:-, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 12:32, Reply)

My best job for skiving
I am queen of skiving where i work (don't mean to brag but managers are amazed i have got away with it for soo long!!)-

Anyway my first job whilst at college was working in a cash and carry with my then boyfriend and his mates and if they was a skive in it we found it - my best would have been the tea run which was like a bit of an assault course you tell one floorwalker you were making tea and then you would have to sneak past the other one by dodging between each of the aisles... it was like something out of the great escape. once you made it into the tearoom you would pass the signal for the others to follow once all five of us was in the tea room we could play cards/sleep/etc

Reaching my point honest..

anyway once we did take the Pi** a little as all of us was in the tearoom when someone ran in and said the boss was on his was and all of us trying to hide in a number of cupboards but unfortunately we were not quick enough

punishment two weeks on the tils where we were watched constantly and allowed no tea breaks

loved that job tho *sniff*
(thesickandwrong, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 12:25, Reply)

It got to the point where I was doing so little work
that one day, my boss came over and by a million to one chance, I was actually doing some work but force-of-habit made me ALT-TAB so I was proudly displaying a picture of some big tittied women (I think it was that spoof women guerilla fighters picture that did the rounds) on my screen while he stood there awkwardly talking to me about some report or other.

It was only when he had finished talking to me and walked off that I went to alt-tab back and realised what I had done.
Oh how I laughed.

Big Issue anyone?
( Zak McFlimby Twibbling @McFlimby, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 12:23, Reply)

In fantastical ways...
Like one time the other day I had been bored for many an hour in this box shaped room of numbskullery when I endeavored upon a voyage to the toilet. I let the portcullis down and jumped the snake pit and went into the bathroom, as I would do on any normal day of work. Inside the bathroom I found my MD Howard writthing on the floor, it turns out he was giving birth to my friend Stu.. So I called the Police..
When they officers of the law arrived on their gilded carrigaes they proceeded to attempt to arrest me for the encouragement of strange and unnatural acts. "Bugger this" I thought and shimmied down the u bend with the fork I had borrowed from the kitchen to eat my tuna pasta with.
In the sewers I discovered baby Stu was floating in a sink, I rolled him into my hair and climbed the tree at the end of the yard. In the branches I discovered the power of flight in my pocket yadley and flew to Paris...
Arriving ontop of the eiffel tower was surprising because I thought bison didn't travel in small circles. But forgetting inconsistencies in the animal kingdom reminded me of the pin number to my coinage deposit system. There upon I discovered that I had skivved a whole fifteen minutes with the added bonus of a million ruples for creative thought in a drab modern world.
Satisfied I walked round the corner to my desk and urinated upon the printing device for my abbacus.
(Manatee Fondler, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 12:21, Reply)

surf 'n' skive
This has worked for four years. I’m sure I must have read every page of t’internet by now.
Every one in the office can see my screen.
So I always have Outlook open with the preview pain at the bottom. I then minimize my web browser to fit into the preview pain. To make it look convincing I get rid of view standard buttons & pay resto, it looks like I am reading my emails. The fools!!!
(chewie, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 12:19, Reply)

Sainsbury's
Thats where i used to work in the meat dept, and because the manger didn't like me (he did eventually tell me and apologise).I used to get some late nights till about 8 and 9 pm at the weekends. i found if i cleaned up priced down early i could hide behind 3 large stacks of trays and read a paper, if a manager came to look for me i could hear and see them but them not me. the cleaners knew i was there but they just cleaned around me.
Also on late nights without the meat manager there i used to get a Beef fillet (£25 ish pounds) and price it up as a cheap (£8 ish) joint, and got away with it everytime,
until the day i left.
And all the Sainsburys managers are big C*"ts
(funkie, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 12:19, Reply)

Abusing charities and neglecting children...
My friends and I had a great idea at school. We signed up for the St Vincent de Paul society, and offered to work at the local primary school helping kids to read. So we got an afternoon off school every week to tell some kids that it's pronounced "right, not rig-hut" a few times, leave early, and on top of that got lots of praise from the school for being kind, loving souls...

And I worked at Quasar once. Good times. Spent about 15 minutes an hour working, the rest of the time was filled with a mixture of Warioware, Viz and hardcore porn that the manager put on the security monitors. We were technically meant to be marshalling the arena, y'know, enforcing the rules, making ourselves feel big by permanently banning kids on their birthdays (Hull please!), but we did so little work it was unreal. Except when some kid came out with a bloody nose or a loose tooth (or had just pissed themselves, yes, it happened...), then the manager would send one of us in (to look for the tooth...).
(Dowbocop, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 12:14, Reply)

Skivemungous
Many years ago I worked for a bike dealers in Essex. The owner was fat and obnoxious and never came in to work before about 11.00. Between the hours of 8.30 and 11.00 we would use the company tools and spares for private jobs or drink coffee and watch vids in the showroom whilst lounging over very expensive bikes.
Aah halcyon days.

Woo yay, first post.
(eviled, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 12:14, Reply)

Working really hard as usual
I discovered a great new way to skive the other day - training new people. Show them once how to use the computer (a monkey could do it), remind them to turn off the mic before slagging off customers, and then just stand and watch them do your job for five hours. I've put my name down to train all the new starters.
(supershinysarah, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 11:53, Reply)

Well you could always just run out of work....
Well ive done the fifteen minute chat thing while looking for stock for a customer. 'Oh we searched high and low for it... sorry maam' lso where i used to work the pet section was fabtastic to hide in, it was very sought after to stock that area ecause all the cans would be with the wrong flavours so you could take all the cans off and rearrange the shelf, also it was at the back of the shop where customers couldnt find you and the boss wouldnt see you. Fantastic.

But now i have a better job, i get paid mnore to sit around and open envelopes all day, and we dont even have to do the opening part as we have a machine that can dothat for us. The beginning of the week we ran out of work to do so sat there listening to Traffic Warden stories and how they did a practical joke on some girl over a motorbike that was 'evidence in a major case' She denied that she had touched it so they needed a sample of her fingerprints and she was told to take her clothes off because it could contain evidence... as someone said before the police force is in bad condition with loads of crazy people.

As our manager isnt even in the same office as us we could get away with anything, very minimal work because she would never know! Also I love running down to the other departments on a wandabout seeing who wants this piece of mail. And taking diversions while delivering stuff to the front desk.

I love my job. Also when everyone else has gone home I just wander around the office tidying up, i even cleaned the window next to my desk the other day. And spent 45 minutes chatting to some guy who wanders in and out everyday. Flxi time is so much fun!

- Post by Immies and not Phil.
(Phil Febuggure, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 11:53, Reply)

easy
when i can't be arsed working, i blast the tunes out of my ice cream van so everyone thinks i've run out
(skindley, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 11:49, Reply)

I used to work in a nightclub during my heady student days
I worked in a bar with this girl (I forget her name) situated in the upper reaches of the club where the management hardly ever went, due to there being shitloads of stairs to reach it.

We were allowed a certain amount of alcohol during the night to keep us a) motivated and b) sociable so we used to systematically abuse this privilege at every available opportunity. We would close the bar for 'cleaning' and have spirit races (first to get from one side of the optic rack to the other, sampling a measure from every bottle).

Occasionally a punter would walk in and catch us getting completely sloshed so we'd ply him/her with free booze until they'd forgotten what they saw.

Nowaday it's just quick n dirty B3TA updates and the Alt+Tab for skiving 'cos I really like my job.
( Johnny Catfish - Yowsa!, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 11:35, Reply)