Freak of nature...
...after years of skiving as much as I could I got sacked by one employer (I deserved it too). It had such a profound effect on me that I became a really hard worker determined to never get sacked again.
Downside was that co-workers would rag on me to slow down because it made them look bad - fair comment and I eventually found an acceptable pace.
Later on I found a career where I'm on call as needed (*impossible* to skive when attending a call) and the rest of the time I'm encouraged by my employer to chill out, watch TV, drink cups of tea or do some self education.

I love what I do so it's not like real work anyway and I do have a tendency to gripe if I don't get many callouts.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 15:53, Reply)

Skiving right now...
..in uni library, where I should be revising some Spanish, as I have 3 exams next week. All year my Spanish has been tolerable at best, and I'd love to cram a bit and perform decently come the days of the exams. But no. Here I am.

As I was mugged a couple of days ago, I've lost my phone and all it's numbers, so I've got the perfect excuse to toddle down the road later to see a friend whom I would otherwise text, to see if she's up for going to Kensington to watch an ice-hockey game in t'pub, Finland v Denmark, should be a laugh.

That will be today's revision. After that, depending how drunk I become, I'll catch up with some mates and get drunker and stoned and fuck around climbing all over my mates' halls roofs to smoke and playing real Metal Gear Solid with the security.

Had previous office jobs where I was a true disciple of the alt+tab, usually trolling b3ta and flaming people on various forums for shits and giggles...
( Quiver Search for FATALISTS on Spotify, Amazon, Apple, &c, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 15:40, Reply)

Nights = Skives
I work nights at a place checking records for errors and generating pointless reports. I always gripe about the amount of work I have to do in my 8 hour shift, but really it all gets done in 2-3 hours, so as soon as the boss leaves at 2am I get out my laptop and program games or watch the telly I downloaded in the day. It's lovely.
(DrDerekDoctors, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 15:32, Reply)

It's a lock in!
I worked in an architectural masonry factory in my late teens/early 20's and one of the common skives was to extend one's 15 minute break by nipping to the bog with the paper, ten minutes or more beforehand.

Because everyone else would have the same idea, and there was only one trap in said convenience, we'd throw an old boot at the door, making the occupant jump.

On one day where I was having a 'break extension', the boot hit the door as expected, only it knocked the latch down on the outside (prevents burglars getting in through the toilet, you see), trapping me in there over break!

One one occasion, someone threw a metal bar at the door, embedding in it and knocking a large hole in it. He was sacked for damaging company property.
(Green-Alsatian, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 15:00, Reply)

Im skiving right now.
feel the warmth
(Orkran Mild Euphoria Ensues, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 13:54, Reply)

I've 'been to the dentist'
12 times so far this month. The funny part is that all my teeth are actually made of solid gold...

Fiction? you decide.


Yes it's nonsense
(catfetish, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 12:53, Reply)

A word of thanks
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the guys in our IT department who installed a phb bb forum on our Intranet. It makes the job a bit more bareable being able to chat with others who are stuck in an office without a Internet connection (rightly so they don't trust us).
( Terry Oblong There's nobody here but us chickens on, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 8:52, Reply)

Bog games
Dope Wars on any phone that's Symbian S60 capable. Top job. Top Score £13.5m :)

That took 30 minutes in the disabled bog (roomier!)
(InfiniteZenMaster, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 7:32, Reply)

Tip: work very fast
The secret to skiving is hard work. Really.

I type blindingly fast and can therefore do the stuff I'm meant to do about twice as quick as any of my colleagues. So I rattle away like an absolute bugger for a bit, then just get on the net and pass the time. Last year my raise was three times the average for the department plus I got a bonus.

The company is still shit though and pays people zip, which is why I find myself taking this stance. These stories are all funny but in an ideal world I wouldn't have one of my own because I'd care enough about what I did that I didn't skive.
(DamoUK, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 1:26, Reply)

Before the train-driving lark (which isn't a skive at all).....
Back in the good ol' days of IT (when we all used to get paid shedloads because we were the only ones who knew about that kind of stuff) we'd just invent different names for simple pieces of kit [floppy drive = Magnetic Interface Module or Ethernet Card = Hardwired Uplink]. Why? Because you can get away with all sorts of skives when your boss/supervisor doesn't understand a word you're saying. (because he was a total idiot, and a technical numpty aswell).

"Just got to go and reconfigure the Hardwired Uplink, but it's going to take AGES* using the Magnetic Interface Module. Probably take most of the afternoon."

*- Enough time for a 2 hour lunch break and the rest of the afternoon playing Doom.
( HSDriver was probably still at work on, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 0:59, Reply)

cba tbh
I've got work tomorrow morning and this will be exactly how it goes:

09:55 - Turn up close to an hour after everyone else:
10:00 - Sit at desk
10:15 - Finish hearing what I'm meant to do today
10:20 - Start FTP downloading the site files even though they haven't changed in the slightest since I was last in.
10:21 - Disable site blocks the browse away
11:30 - Check it downloaded ok, then browse more sites
12:00 - Do a about half the work for the day
13:00 - Lunch!
13:30-14:00 - come back and do skive off some more
15:00 - discuss music/alcohol/neds with supervisor
16:00 - finish work then browse
16:59 - re-enable site blocks
17:00 - get wages and leave.
(Skawt, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 23:45, Reply)

Handpolishing
A standard fallback for all mechanical engineers.
1 - Keep a rag with you at all times.
2 - Do bugger all throughout your working day.
3 - When the gaffer approaches, vigorously rub your hands with the rag whilst inspecting the job, so you look like you've just finished a particularly difficult operation.

Slightly more alarmingly, during the very hot summer of 2003 a few guys I know got rather bored of repairing one of the turbines on a large nuclear power station in Southern England and "disabled" it with an angle grinder.
I'm not sure whether that's the ultimate skive or the most irresponsible thing I've ever heard....
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 23:43, Reply)

IT Servicedesk
My life is a skive. My working day usually involves telling someone over the phone to turn it off and on again. When this dosen't work I give them ten minutes and they're ringing back saying, "Wow thanks man I don't know what you did but it's working now", when I actually did fuck all. har de har har. God it's boring.
(neil neil orange peel, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 23:21, Reply)

How I skive off work
Working in a small, shitty Spackdonalds, is hell. Boring as fuck and full of idiots.
Usually one of my managers (who doesn't know her arse from her elbow) sends me outside to clear up (leaving the trainees in kitchen during the busy lunchtime rush). This alone is a fair skive, as it gets me out of the busy work and lets the new guys who are shit get all the trouble. The way I take care of said task is by wrecking any progress people have already made and starting completly from scratch. This takes a good 40 minutes to an hour, by which time lunch is over and my arsehead manager waddles home.
( Brown cow, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 22:41, Reply)

well, I retired at 34
not a bad skive to be fair
(Chopper3, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 22:03, Reply)

My preferred method of skiving...
...involves me mainly staring into the middle distance. Not necessarily a skive, but you'll be surprised how little people question my innate lack of productivity...
( <somethingfunny> hasn't said anything funny since, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 20:51, Reply)

Whenever I have a free period at school
I go to the pub, making those twilight sessions easier to handle.
not quite skiving to a pedant, but there you go.

[edit] in fact, for my GCSEs, i had a lot of time off for "study leave". I so abhor work that i spent about 3 weeks solid just sitting and looking blankly at the pages in my revision guides, without even reading anything.
(Slurpy The Frog, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 20:14, Reply)

well i'm currently unemployed
but at the last place i worked this woman who was the worlds biggest slacker - one went into the staff room - pissed as newt and passed out - later the boss asked her about it and she told him - she ahd dropped a frozen turkey on her foot and it had made her pass out. :oS

plus this woman when everyone else got laid off, she got promoted! grrrrrrrrrr!!
( Rev. Jesse. broke his ankle, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 20:11, Reply)

During the Spring/Summer 95
I was so bored at work as a security man at a local firm and,while not wishing to waste my creative juices,I made an interesting and deeply significant piece of art.
A candle from my earwax. Wick and all!
(shitstirrer, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 19:29, Reply)

skiving was my job!
at my last job, it was pretty much well known that i had very slow periods where i would come into work and do literally nothing all day, then leave. so it was acceptable (and encouraged) for me to skive.

luckily i never got in any trouble, even when my monitor was facing everyone in the office. one time i was told to stop playing games (i would blatantly play yahoo pool or turbo solitaire... sometimes people would watch to see how well i'd do), but that was the extent of it. i did everything from working on my website to answering personal email to making sculptures out of chewed gum to drawing pictures in ms paint... no one said anything. every once in a while, i brought in a knitting project, and sat at my desk and knit.

something that was never really mentioned was instant messaging. it was probably more frowned upon than games, but i didn't give a toss. in the beginning, i poised my hand in the alt-tab position, but after a month or two i stopped hiding it. i'd log in and speak with my boyfriend whenever he was around, even when i was working. honestly, i'm relieved that no one ever asked what the "kill all humans" thing in the taskbar was (his nickname on msn). my bosses had to have seen it. maybe it frightened them.

i also used to go into the bathroom for 20 minute periods to sleep while sitting on a toilet.
( mayonessa, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 19:20, Reply)

Last December
I was about to leave for work, realised that I couldn't face the fucking place (even more than usual), so closed the door, went back to bed, and pulled the covers over my head for the rest of the day.

I made it in the next day, and no-one mentioned my absence, because no-one had noticed it - not even my legion of Jjobsworth managers. That's how meaningless my job is - it makes no difference if I do it or not. Still, strike next Thursday, which should be a hoot.
( friendlyfire, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 18:27, Reply)

Slacking Off In Maths
I hated maths in school, but i loved gameboy. So I constructed a contraption to attach to my gameboy that would desgise it as a calculator. The device was the front of an old calculator attaced to the top of the game boy with a simple hinge, so i could sit at the back of the room playing gameboy and when the teacher approached flip down the cover and pretend to be doing sums. It took me almost an entire term to finished wario land 2.
(Hello Coco?, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 18:01, Reply)

Deliberatley get hit by a car.
Gets me off work at about 2 months at a time. I cycle 'cos I'm a healthy thing. Also I can claim the bike on the insurance.
( Lightguy hail satan, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 17:01, Reply)

Skivving
If you have to write a report make sure to fill it with lots of web browser based screen shots. A ligitimate reason for being on the web. If you are using Firefox don't leave the tabs of other websites open when you take the screen as your boss will notice...
(The TPOL, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 15:32, Reply)

thou, nature art my godess...
in my gap year, while working full time in an engineering film helping to design buildings, I was required to learn vast swathes of other people's degrees in a short period of time to a good enough level in order to perform the tasks required.
naturally I skived almost constantly, in all the traditional ways, but the most interesting period was when my efforts to get the gist of a Bsc in Fire Engineering lifted me onto a new plane of consciousness and understanding of the nature of fire, and spent an entire afternoon writing haikus about 'nature's purest lifeform'. that was the first of several episoidal periods of insanity that Buro Happold brought on.
(chikkstrel, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 15:30, Reply)

Working for 2 companies at once...
Company A pays me to work on-site at Company B.

If I want to leave early or skive, all I have to do is say I have a meeting at the 'other company' and off I go - works every time.

Company A thinks company B is being demanding and feels sorry for me, and company B assume I'm working at company A anyway so don't wonder why I'm not there...

And the best bit - if they want to check up on me, they have to call my mobile (no office phone, see) so I reject the call, go to a quiet place, and call back and say i just popped to the loo.

Never fails - unfortunately, my conscience usually gets the better of me and the skiving never goes beyond silent scheming and hand-rubbing. Damn my parents.
(chesty, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 15:18, Reply)

Do I need to pretend?
I work as an online researcher...'nuff said.
(Modster2k, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 14:45, Reply)

nightshift
i was working nightshift in a hotel in new zealand for six months and spent nearly all night doing "security checks" which involved me and my fellow colleague going to the house bar and watching live english footy and getting pissed. thank god for the time difference. If there was no footy on i'd usually just watch porn.
(charlie mouse - caught in a trap, not turning back....., Fri 29 Apr 2005, 14:36, Reply)

Memories
When I was sweet 16 I had a Saturday job in Boots baby department. I usually had a hangover on a Saturday, and had usually had about 3 hours kip. I used to go straight to the pharmacy and get 2 Nurofen when I arrived, then spend the rest of the day doing as little as possible. We used to have one of those old fashioned lifts where you had to manually slide the doors shut. I discovered that if you opened them when the lift was between floors, it stopped the lift in a sort of no-mans land between the sales floor and the stockroom. I spent many a happy hour in there lying on the floor having a snooze and recovering, with a packet of Pampers as a pillow.
(Mad McMad, Fri 29 Apr 2005, 14:34, Reply)