Shirking.

[tookish]

Today I don't want to go to work. Not even a little bit. I used to be a right little shirker, but the realities of self-sufficiency have finally hit home and I can't do it any more. Still, every day as I wake up, I consider rolling over and pretending I didn't hear my alarm. When I set off, my brain spends the half-hour walk running different scenarios to test whether they would get me out of having to go without resulting in my being fired. Most of them involve self-mutilation - not necessarily fatal, but enough to get me signed off work with pay, at least. The closer I get to the building I work in, the less sensible these ideas become - my latest being a genuine and dangerous and exciting impulse to fling myself into oncoming traffic. What stopped me was the fact that I hadn't deleted my search history. Really don't want my poor mother to find out what her little cherub whacks off to.

Anyway, because I'm too cowardly noble to shirk in this job[nb]I actually should have left a couple of minutes ago. But I don't think that counts, as I'll still get there early.[/nb], I would like to live vicariously through you. Tell me about times you've shirked and skived and connived.

[Buelligan]

I used to work in a job which was hateful to me.  Office-bound, city-bound, turning up every day dressed and pressed and screaming inside.  I never skived, but I used to look out of the high windows, send my thoughts over the streets, buidings, noise, traffic, to mountains and valleys and crouch there until I could bear to come back. 

Then, I realised that penniless would be a better life for me and I ran away to be poor (extremely) but free. 

[mook]

listen to old mook. if you can't get by on the proceeds from 3 1/2 days labour a week you've fucked up somewhere. think on.

[Default to the negative]

if you can't get by on the proceeds from 3 1/2 days labour a week you've fucked up somewhere.

I'm going to nod sagely in agreement with this. If you're a shirking Sherman, a lazy Lionel a or a selfish Simon, you should be familiar enough with your own nature to avoid falling into the house-marriage-kids trap. No one wants to admit they're unhappy in that situation but many people clearly are.

As for myself, I'm an incorrigible layabout and a skiving twat, but I've always found it easy enough to get through a working day if people just leave me alone. I can daydream, reflect on things, think up funny stuff, and the time flies. My worst days at work were those that had me working next to chatty, needy bores who wouldn't let me go off into my hinterland, who kept dragging me back to reality. I had to get a bit harsh with one of them and it was not a beautiful thing because the guy was a little bit slow, but the distress I caused to him was nothing compared to brain-scraping, nerve-prodding terrors he'd inflicted on me with his ceaseless banter.

[HappyTree]

I realise it's very much easier said than done, but if you have a job you really don't like then you should look for another. We spend so much of our lives working that it's a shame to devote so much time to something that makes you feel like trying to avoid it as much as possible.

But if you can't change your job change yourself! Ooh, trite city. Well give it a try.  There must be something you can focus on, some way of rearranging things in your head so you can feel satisfied. Sometimes it's just determining to do whatever job you have as well as you can, simply for your own sense of achievement. The secretary in our office hates her job and is constantly trying to shirk what she has to do. She even went over the boss's head and re-wrote her own contract so she doesn't have to do anything we ask of her. She thinks she won, but she is permanently miserable. That's no way to live.

[Default to the negative]

The secretary in our office hates her job and is constantly trying to shirk what she has to do. She even went over the boss's head and re-wrote her own contract so she doesn't have to do anything we ask of her. She thinks she won, but she is permanently miserable. That's no way to live.

I have a feeling that you are "the boss".

[The Masked Unit]

listen to old mook. if you can't get by on the proceeds from 3 1/2 days labour a week you've fucked up somewhere. think on.

Yeah but in your case it was the 3.5 days labour of a team of men while you whipped them.

Ammiright Biggy? High five!

[Buelligan]

But if you can't change your job change yourself! Ooh, trite city. Well give it a try.  There must be something you can focus on, some way of rearranging things in your head so you can feel satisfied. Sometimes it's just determining to do whatever job you have as well as you can, simply for your own sense of achievement.

This is good advice.  I always try to do the things I do for their own sake and as well as I can and there really is some pleasure to be got from that.

[mook]

i made encouraged allowed those fuckers to work 6 and a half days a week.

[The Masked Unit]

Is it true that on Sundays and Christmas day you treated them with an extra pinch of salt in their porridge? You were too fucking good to them if you ask me.

[Buelligan]

Is mook Goldilocks then?

[mook]

^
^
i know, the salt was maldon, i spoiled them lads rotten. but as the old saying goes "you can't do enough for a good boss."

[Buelligan]

Fleur de sel de Guérande and Fleur de sel de Camargue must first be sampled before any boasting of mere Maldon may be embarked upon.  This is my stringent advice.

[mook]

over rated foreign muck. and that pink himalayan gear can sod off back up the mountain too.

[Buelligan]

Tried this yet?  Could add a bit of authentic savour to a nice evening alone with your uke.

[Hangthebuggers]

I need a job that stimulates me in some way. Otherwise I go onto auto-pilot and retreat back into my subconscious (like Hannibal Lecter), leaving my shell of a body to fend for itself amongst the sticky labels, customers, up-selling and Christmas sales. I promise myself never to return to a job which involves either selling things to people, or indeed people. On the flip side, I'm a qualified audio editor / techie but can't seem to find anything in that realm in my home town. So as a general rule of thumb, I'm a natural shirker until something promising comes along.

[mook]

Tried this yet?  Could add a bit of authentic savour to a nice evening alone with your uke.

you do realise that the hawaiian national dish is spam! that tells you all you need to know about the place. it's the kent of the south seas, but with slightly fewer bare chested fat blokes.

[biggytitbo]

I used to work in a job which was hateful to me.  Office-bound, city-bound, turning up every day dressed and pressed and screaming inside.  I never skived, but I used to look out of the high windows, send my thoughts over the streets, buidings, noise, traffic, to mountains and valleys and crouch there until I could bear to come back. 

Then, I realised that penniless would be a better life for me and I ran away to be poor (extremely) but free.

Don't you have any job now then? How do you live?


I'd happily live penniless and free as long as I had broadband and a decent place to live.

[rudi]

you do realise that the hawaiian national dish is spam!

I thought it was ham & pineapple. Domino's have been lying to me?

[Buelligan]

Don't you have any job now then? How do you live?


I'd happily live penniless and free as long as I had broadband and a decent place to live.

I don't have a job as such, I just do whatever comes along, don't get benefits, holidays, health care or sick leave.  Live in an absolute ruin.  It's my ruin though and I don't have a boss.   

Do have mountains, eagles, free wine, silence, clean air, good friends, good food, empty roads, the wild outside[nb]Which is nice.[/nb]. :-)

[The Masked Unit]

I'd happily live penniless and free as long as I had broadband and a decent place to live.

What do regard as a decent place to live? If I ever get a house with a big enough garden for an outhouse would you consider living with me rent free in return for keeping the place nice and clean and generally doing my bidding?

[tookish]

Well, I shouldn't have read this at work, but I did. It provided a good means of shirking.
My manager is quite nice - one of the few! But the 'big bosses' are intolerable. I can't stand them - bossy little Jobsworths in their Topman suits, sat behind their HP Pavilions punching in the stats and calling the TMs to bully them to bully us. And they no doubt are doing this because they have bigger bosses who bully them. It's just a very uncomfortable working environment, everyone out to get everyone else.

Still. It's paying for my degree, and I love my degree.

[Treguard of Dunshelm]

I don't understand managers that bully people. It's an awful way to motivate people. If someone's a lazy cunt making them feel like shit won't make them work harder, and if someone is pulling their weight it'll just piss them off.

Luckily my workplace is pretty friendly and I enjoy the job, but it's too easy most of the time, the only difficult parts are when we have events coming up. There's plenty of things I could find to do, but since I know they'll never bear fruit as funding will never be available for them, I'm not very motivated to start them.

[jfjnpxmy]

I get through my days by balancing every petty act of corporate horribleness with an act of juvenile rebellion.

Some glob of human oatmeal in a suit phones me to demand a report that is not, in fact, my job, and then gets shitty with me? I take a glass scribe over the scan bed of the main photocopier.
They take everyone's photos down because the sellotape "damages the walls"? I stick about four rolls of sellotape to various walls.
Avril fucking Vera Leon phones me and demands that I stay late? I remove the pnumatic regulator from the toilet doors, and leave five minutes early.
Someone points out that although there's no official dress code, there are such thing as standards? I show up next day wearing my hammer-and-sickle Superman t-shirt, and padlock the main gates for the delivery bay shut.
Alan fucking Wilson barks orders at the pregnant lass and makes her cry? I squeeze fish paste into his computer and the trainers he keeps in the changing room.

And so on and so forth.

[mook]

didn't you herberts see this coming when you were at school? the resigned look of "oh here we go again" on the teacher's face as they plodded into the classroom and flopped their folders on the desk and tried with all their might to turn their beaten expressions into "the joy of learning". didn't that fill you with contempt at what you were being subjected to? christ, can you imagine, a whole life from the age of 4 until whenever the fuck you retire just trading one desk to another. pretty woeful way to spend your time.

[tookish]

I get through my days by balancing every petty act of corporate horribleness with an act of juvenile rebellion.

How do you avoid getting caught?

This reminds me - we got this email from HR today.

Dear all,

An incident occurred in the ladies toilets located on the first floor yesterday, whereby someone has taken it upon themselves to use the floor rather than the toilet to deposit human excrement.  This was obviously deliberate and will not be tolerated.

Anyone found to be acting in such an abhorrent manner will be disciplined and this will be treated as gross misconduct which will result in dismissal without notice.  Furthermore, any future employment references will be true and accurate as to the reason for dismissal.

Acting in this way only punishes your colleagues and the cleaning Company which has to clear up the mess. If this was done as some kind of statement or protest directed at the company then there are better and more professional ways of making such a statement.  If you have any issues or concerns in relation to your position, management or the Company, you should raise these in the appropriate manner.

***** is a professional organisation employing great people who provide an excellent service to our clients.  This type of behaviour merely let's your colleagues down and we do not want to have anyone who is capable of such a vile act working within the business.

If anyone knows of anything at all as to who may have committed such a disgusting act, please contact HR.

As much as it was a foul thing to do, I must say, I laughed my arse off when I got that email, especially at the idea of having to admit to shitting on the floor for the rest of your working life.

[Cerys]

Maybe it was a protest against flagrant misuse of apostrophes.

[The Masked Unit]

[mook]

she's got a face i'd soon get tired of jizzing on.

[Cerys]

Just jizz on it enough to mould a whole new visage for her.  Then jizz on that.