Today has been dull...
I have managed to get all of my work done in an hour, with all my other meetings being cancelled or postponed due to a) people being on leave, b) emails this morning making meetings redundant, or c) half the office being out sick with this flu plague that is wiping out London...

With that in mind, I've been trying to pass the time, ahem, productively. So far I have:

1) managed to spend so long on the toilet that I lost feeling in my legs, having dropped my bodyweight by a stone and listened to an entire Biggles audiobook (yes, I have some real crap on my iPod).

2) spent an hour wondering what to get my wife for her birthday, then asking her for a list, then another hour surfing the net looking for gifts...

3) spent an hour looking at snowboard gear in the sales, then figuring that I'd be better off spending the money on some time at the snow-slope. Although, there is a Burton jacket I rather fancy

4) fell asleep at my desk for what my outlook calendar assures me was an hour and ten minutes. I woke with a start in my empty office and made a cup of tea.

5) booked all my leave for the next 12 months, despite the new leave year starting a mere 8 days ago.

6) emailed every one of my friends with random messages just to get a response...

I wouldn't mind if I was on minimum wage, working as an office junior, but I'm senior management and I earned something like £50 just taking the dump I went for...makes me feel slightly guilty, but rather gleeful at that thought!

* edit for maths - I earned less than anticipated for the toilet stay
(Chad, Tue 13 Jan 2009, 14:41, 5 replies)

Do you fancy hiring me?
I think I'd fit in well with your work ethic.

I'm highly computer skilled as well, for the 15 minutes a day that would be required.
(Son of Sam-i-am We're all as mad as hatters here, Tue 13 Jan 2009, 14:46, closed)

it's not all fun...
or, indeed, extended lavatorial leisure time. Sometimes I actually have to work. Just not when half the office is out on business trips/leave and the rest are dying of the flu/norovirus/black death that is wiping out the London workforce.

What is slightly depressing is that I have commuted for nearly two hours to do this... *sigh*
(Chad, Tue 13 Jan 2009, 15:17, closed)

The commute
is the reason I just stayed home today.
(xanthine, Wed 14 Jan 2009, 4:47, closed)

"half the office being out sick with this flu plague that is wiping out London..."
Bollocks.

One person had a sniffle, the rest are just on the band wagon for a few days off.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Tue 13 Jan 2009, 16:36, closed)

I wasn't...
I had so much crap in my chest that the coughing burst the blood vessels in my lungs... cue a chest X-ray to make sure I wasn't about to die of something like pulmonary edema, three days of coughing up blood and sharp pains whenever I tried to breathe deeply/blow my nose/cough - three weeks later and I'm still not 100%. Some woman in the office tore her intercostal muscles with the coughing, too, so not everyone is faking it.

But it's true, you do get a lot of people taking it as an excuse to watch a week of Diagnosis Murder...
(Chad, Wed 14 Jan 2009, 13:15, closed)