Poker
Online poker saved my life. Since I started playing, I've won almost 2,500 pounds. My boss sits next to me watching me play, which is a wonderful way to pass the time. What's even better is that he often pays for me to play, as long as I give him a percentage of the winnings.
I have managed to 'skive' a whole week, simply by playing with my boss's money!
( meak is going to inherit the earth, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 17:55, Reply)

Scrotey Tone
My colleague Scroatey Tone spends at least half his day playing on the internet. Then there are his toilet breaks, going to the shop repeatedly, sitting doing nothing. When he gets bored of this he wanders around and dissapears for up to half an hour at a time. When I return from delivering vehicle parts to garages all arond the area, he asks me to do his job as I havent been doing any work. Then he moans that he doesnt get paid much - I wouldnt mind his job!
(mcintoish, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 17:43, Reply)

BBC Sport snooker plug
Being a developer, I've got a spare machine on my desk, 'for testing purposes'. As luck would have it, the test machine points away from the door so all it's used for at the moment is streaming the World Snooker Champs permanently from Sheffield. Nice to doze off to in the arf'noon
(jimness, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 17:41, Reply)

Porn
Part of my job is to write our content filtering software.

So to know its working you have to test it against loads of porn sites and you have to view the sites unfiltered first to make sure they are genuine porn. Its amazing how long you need to do this.
(loquis, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 17:39, Reply)

HERTBEAT FM!
...(which the chavs listen to at work) plays the same rubbish just-dropped-out-the-charts paltry pop drivel over and over, so I kept a tally of repetitions.
( no cake for the impuritay Patrick Stewart hasn't aged since, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 17:33, Reply)

Watching comedy videos..
I currently contract to an entertainments company building their huge streaming web site. This means I can feasibly sit and watch comedy clips all day and claim that I am "vetting" them before they are published on their site.

Smashing.
(Scribble, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 17:05, Reply)

When I was a boy and Doom came out...
... Me and some other mates set up some PCs at work on a Friday afternoon and played Doom. Others who saw were pretty relaxed, so stayed to watch for a while. This was the best day ever in our working lives.

Until the Lan administrators shut down the whole Lan, stopped everyone in the building doing work (maybe 150 people), and said that the Lan was corrupted by unauthorised activity which they were investigating.

Turns out they knew exactly who we were and what we were doing, and that was their idea of a joke.

Bastards.

Anyway, after the poo had dried in our pants we found out that the whole story had come out, (without our names being disclosed) and they had copped it for stuffing around the whole building. Serves them right.

Still we never did it again



during work hours



but we had some close calls during the night. Classic was a security guard coming by at about 1am, while 4 of us were wearing Metallica etc t-shirts and jeans, and asking us if we'd seen any suspicious characters. Then he showed us which door was left open and said to make sure it closed in the future. Also one of my mates was a knob who didn't sign out one night - he just turned off the monitor on someone's pc. That person started trying to get the cleaners into trouble for loging in and stealing company secrets, so I had to take him aside and 'fess up.

Ah, good times
(Skippyfillet, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 17:02, Reply)

Work Experience
I got paid to go to uni, but had to work 2mths for summer holidays for no extra money. Not a great incentive to put in the hours. There was a time-clock system there in those days, but the people who sat near the clock were pretty cool, so I generally didn't clock out at lunch. My best effort at lunch was watching a theatre show for almost 2hrs with some others similarly incentivised.

Dunno how I ended up short so many hours. Still, at least I didn't have to make them up again.
(Skippyfillet, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 16:45, Reply)

Mortuary Residents
I know that most mortuary residents think they have it so bad, but I love to dick around at work. It helps that I have two bosses who hate eachother.

When no-one's dead, I sit around and surf b3ta or other websites, or work on the novel I'm writing. I close the doors to the little back office, and if anyone comes in, they have to open two doors to get to me. I hear them on the first door, so I always have time to close whatever I'm playing on.

When we have "clients" I have to make the removals, and I have been known to take over an hour to remove a body from the hospital which is exactly two blocks from the funeral home. I also get the shit jobs like digging cremation graves and witnessing burials in the small, rural cemeteries.

I once had to bury cremains in a cemetery an hour away in Pennsylvania, and my boss gave me $20 to tip the grave digger. I spent the lot on beer and when I finally got to PA, it was raining like hell and I could barely get the van into the cemetery. I didn't see anyone there, so I simply dropped the urn in the hole and kicked some dirt on it. I passed the gravedigger on the way out, gave him a thumbs-up, and then went and bought a carton of cigs (they are infinetly cheaper in PA than in New York, where I live.) To finish the day, when I got back I "forgot" to wash the hearse, and hid in the morgue to smoke, saying that I wanted to "put the finishing touches on Mrs. L--'s makeup".

My final favorite thing to do is go to the town hall to file death certificates and spend an hour chatting with the older women there. They always have the best chocolate, and now that I'm 21, we go to the bar for our lunch breaks. Great fun!
(lizbianajones, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 16:43, Reply)

ogb_sij
Your typing style is reminiscent of a cross between Catcher in the Rye and that "Band Camp" bird from American Pie.

No bad thing... it just occurred to me whilst skiving off work and reading these posts.

Carry on.
( Johnny Catfish - Yowsa!, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 16:43, Reply)

blind lecturers rule
At college i used to have a particluarly nice old lady lecturer with sight problems (library courses are generally run by corpses....anyway i digress, so i would sit there to shout "here" when my name was called out.

None of the rest of the class had any fun spirit at all (and were quite frankly scared of me-) so would just walk out after registar call. go down the pub and get totally minging. It only worked in the class with the blind tutor but 2 years of 6 hours a week makes a bloody good skive

i passed that class and was on the only one with perfect attendance- Result!
(wilma_wonka, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 16:42, Reply)

MP3s
I wrote an MP3 server with fancy web pages, top 10 listings, personal favourites, etc, all to teach myself Perl so I could get another job. Then I ripped my entire CD collection onto it, stuck an extra processor and a load of RAM scavenged from unattended lab machines and connected it to the compnay network. It rapidly became the most used server in the building. And I did all this while sat next to my boss.

Admittedly they did make me redundant a few months later, but with my new found Perl skills I found a new job in no time.
(yesyesyes, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 16:29, Reply)

PS...
anyone know who the 4 people are on the real radio win a car comp, we cant figger it out.....another skive :)
(rustyspanner, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 16:04, Reply)

skiving
i am usually good for going to classes and stuff but i have missed classes for many reasons some out of boredom others such as a girl asked me to hang with her. But a few i have to bring up are i missed a day of uni and said i had gone home to a diff city for the day to see my family when really i spent the day em... making up a list of things i wanted to say to this girl i liked and some of the things were really messed up! oh and one time i was working at a newsagent and had the keys to the store i locked up and went for a walk and hung out for a while opened up again some people were asking why the shop had been closed i denied it and said nah it was open u must be mistaken never got caught!
(ogb_sij, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 15:45, Reply)

I have been skivving for the last 4 years
After Uni, I was offered a few jobs, but delayed taking them to go live in New York for a couple of months. Of course, that time included 9/11, so I came back to Blighty to no jobs.

I have been 'freelancing' as a PA ever since. By which I mean paying £2 a week NI contributions and making cold calls to get demeaning jobs where I'm treated like crap which pay me just enough to get me financially in the clear, before the boredom, despair and debt set in once more. And to think, to live this life all I have to do is an extra section of the tax forms. Joy. Add to that, no-one will employ me permanently because they think I'm a skiver. Great.

However, in a moment of weakness I took a job in a completely dead shop underneath my flat, where I spent the days on my own, listening to inappropriate music loudly on the tannoy, reading books and stealing things. And when my boss asked why the floor wasn't washed, I said moany customers had called and I'd been on hold to head office all day. That's the ticket.

Apologies for length and maudlin.
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 15:43, Reply)

At Sainsbury's
Me and a mate worked collecting trolleys.

We figured that turning over a trolley and using one of our big yellow coats (turned inside out) to cover it makes a great way to avoid cameras when it got dark.

We then used this cover to light up cigarettes and the like- as we were the young'uns of the store, most people who clocked on didn't mind.

We once found a lost handbag and handed it in with all the money (though Customer Service prolly looted it after) less a few massive bags of weed.
(Unnamed Player, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 15:39, Reply)

itunes network
It seems to be very popular to share itunes over the network in my 400-staffed company, and the IT group haven't cottoned on.

Anyway, you can spend hours playing Columbo, trying to guess age, sex, sexual orientation of the generous ipod owner... before checking their lan-id with IT&T. Iron hoofs are by far the easiest - e.g. a 5-star rating on Aerosmiths "don't wanna miss you babe" is all you would need
(Double Pie but Triple Mash, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 15:37, Reply)

Trolley boy
My mate and I used to work at Tescos, and he was the trolley boy. He crashed his car perviously, so his mum would drop him off in his uniform, he'd clock in, go and get changed into his normal stuff and bugger off to his mates accross the road to get cained, before calmly strolling back in, clocking out, getting changed into his uniform and waiting for his mum outside. He did this for months whilst we all had to sit on checkouts pretending we'd "seen him outside a minute ago".
(Sorry for length)
(jonas_415, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 15:23, Reply)

Note me but the bloke I work with
used to sleep most of the day in the repro darkroom (we are at a small graphic design company - this was before we figured out computers could do it all for us - yea right) a few times the boss came in to look for him but cos it was so dark could never find him laid out in the very dark corner.

Also does a lot of moonlighting for a local printer during office hours - as the boss himself has been based elsewhere the last 2 years. Getting much work from official clients nowadays is considered a major inconvenience as it interrupts his moonlighting and my internet surfing.

Oh, and we go home when we get bored. any time after 3.30pm. We often over estimate how long a job will take so when we speed though it double quick we can then t*ss it off the rest of day.

PS the boss is a W*nker and skives himself the sh*te.
(rustyspanner, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 15:17, Reply)

The Working Day of a Freelance Illustrator
8:30 - Alarm goes off. Press snooze to gain a few more minutes, as there's no point getting up yet, as housemates are using bathroom to prepare for their (proper) jobs.
8:35 - As above.
8:40 - As above, and repeat until approximately...
11:20 - Depending on time I climbed into bed/hangover, either a shower or read a bit in bed, then shower.
Midday - Late breakfast, fire up 'puter and check e-mails and various websites.
13:00 - Enough time has now passed since I first checked e-mails, so return to beginning of midday process. This continues at a quicker pace as I realise I have read the entire interweb at least twice already today.
14:30 - Boredom/hunger drive me from my room to the kitchen, where a lavish sandwich is prepared. This signals the start of my lunch 'hour'
16:30 - Lament the lack of new information on various websites. Lunch finishes. Feel guilty about low productivity, but this soon evaporates as Housemate #1 returns home from his job. X-box.
17:00 - Total up how much work I have to do tomorrow to catch up...vaguely panic. More X-box to ease the worries away.
17:30 - Decide to do a bit of work. But first must check e-mails for that important one that may be there.
17:45 - Housemate #2 has arrived home by now, signalling Beer o'clock.
18:00 - Working day ends.

All of this is accompanied by a soundtrack of various artists (the pain-staking selection process for which tracks to play can take up to 20 minutes) and frequent wank-breaks.
( Nikfuf Eetr Northern Midlander, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 15:08, Reply)

champagne is helpful
Today I am mostly skiving while drinking the bubbly that one of my colleagues brought in as a leaving present, playing filthy techno (and turning it down when my boss walks in) and hanging out on B3TA. But then I am leaving for a new job tomorrow.

For the past 3 years B3TA and 3rthur have been my normal timewasters.
(p0zitr0n - phunarmically charged particle, detected at, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 15:02, Reply)

I know for a fact
that Sam will read this message pretty soon.

.NET research my arse. That's not what he's using the internet for.
( teedyay, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 14:51, Reply)

Dunno why
..but I've turned into the biggest slacker recently and have only done about a weeks worth of work in the last 2 months. Still, it's a bit stupid really since I'm meant to be working on a massive engineering Masters project that's due in at the beginning of June and it's only my degree grade classification that's going to suffer... Trouble is, I'm spending most of my time in an empty lab with internet and I've got sod all work motivation left after 4 years of uni and only a month to go. Grumble.
(littlek, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 14:45, Reply)

valid excuse
Being a medical student we have quite a lot of work to do... which is a bit of a pain really. However I am currently skiving off our afternoon at the disability learning centre on the grounds that I have glandular fever so am "really tired and need to rest". My glandular fever is actually no longer active (although I do continue to be ill, which isn't all that fun). I don't even get into trouble for skiving loads since its on medical grounds. Apologies to my future patients though when I don't know where their ruptured spleen actually is...
(meds, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 14:40, Reply)

Woo I'm on work-study
I'm on work study at university, for those of you who don't know, it means that I get paid federal government money for working here. I have a laptop and I share my boss's office cube thing, but he has a sofa in here. I usually sit on the sofa with the laptop on my lap so I can read b3ta and fuckoff without anyone knowing.

Since it's work-study and it's office work it's exceedingly flexible too, I can come in at 8 and leave at 4 just as well as I can pop in for 15 minutes and fuck right back off. I'm the only other person in my department too so I've got a part-time position lined up here for the summer too.

But it's a rarity, I am usually a good worker. I get shit done, and I certanly am making this all up, hopefully my boss doesn't read this. If so.. good bye University of um... England in the er... accounting office.

Edit: Tho while I'm not going to shout my Uni's name from the rooftops, my boss does it too. He reads the onion and something awful and makes graphics stuff for his band.
(dr3wrocks, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 14:28, Reply)

I play the managers off eachother
I make them fight to book my time on their projects, so I end up with my time fully booked but with no work to do. Even better, I then complain about the situation so I look like I'm in the right.

Also, when I'm asked how long something will take I give a realistic estimate then do the work in 1/3 of the time, thus having 2/3 for slacking - and again, I'm in the right.

Of course, if you work where I work then bear in mind this is all tongue-in-cheek
( dr_fonz, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 14:24, Reply)

I worked with a guy we nicknamed Pfoo
because that was the noise he made as he sat down in his chair, just before he said, "If I feel like this tomorrow, I'm not coming in". He said this (and always exactly the same words) a lot, so we kept a spreadsheet to keep track. Every year he was precisely (to the day, without fail) one day short of the number of sick days you could take without having your pay docked.

It soon became apparent that there was a direct correlation between his sick days and when the cricket was on the telly. We could predict that next Wednesday he'd slump in his chair and say "if I feel like this tomorrow I'm not coming in" and then be off sick on Thursday.
( teedyay, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 14:23, Reply)

Office hours
I consider it a professional imperative to always be available for my all of my office hours.

So I turn off all the lights, close the door and nap at my desk. zzzzz....
( teknikl, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 14:22, Reply)

Why I'm Doing It Right Now, Again
Quite simple really, many many windows open all with "google" at the start of the title in IE - if your in a lab like i am, just switch to the windows that have useful/less information on them such as:

images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rsc.org/ejga/NJ/2002/b201435c-ga.gif&imgrefurl=http://xlink.rsc.org/%3FDOI%3Db201435c&h=189&w=321&sz=11&tbnid=R1W2rZlWwT0J:&tbnh=67&tbnw=114&start=24&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dacetylsalicylic%2Bacid%2B%26start%3D20%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN

simply remember which windows are work-related, and which involve b3ta, p0rn, and "how to make bombs out of simple lab equipment" and youll do fine.

PS: this window was minimised 3 times for the sake of demonstrator swarming round me, and just about every person in the lab is wondering wtf i could possibly be typing for so long into google :)

edit: 4 times by time i got to this line
edit(2): 30 mins later - dont click on the right window, minimise your current one - i hope the demonstrators not a chemist (thermite in a milk bottle shown behind a somewhat different kind of reaction)
(st3ve, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 14:20, Reply)

Skiving
When I was in the Army I used to drink like George Best every day almost, whilst hammered and many fellow troops puking up on the parade square also hammered, Afterwards I would go down to the wagon sheds find a Landrover out of a fleet of about 500 and kip in the back of it all day..
(rob_northern, Thu 28 Apr 2005, 14:14, Reply)