[Hmph. Crabby's off today, and I'm here holding down the fort while she's enjoying a wild, carefree, and champagne-filled vacation. Not that I'm bitter, no, not me. Well, not too much. But frankly, I'm not ready to go back to being good yet. One more day of goofing off. -Mary]Look, there's no way you're getting any work done today. For heaven's sake, you deserve a medal for even coming in to work this week. Everyone's taking the week off and leaving you to hold down the fort while they're goofing off. Well the heck with them. You deserve a little fun yourself.
So go ahead, indulge.
I mean, it's not as if the boss were looking over your shoulder, right? Here are some ways to annoy your boss if he or she were actually here but they're not so you can annoy them with a clear conscience:
Pop some virtual Bubble wrap. It's therapy, in a way. You can't (or probably shouldn't) behave like a rock star and trash your office, but you can get the virtual effect of cheap destructive satisfaction without having to clean up afterwards.
Have you tried this game? Be warned: Boomshine seems simple enough, but I've known people become addicted. Probably because it looks so simple. People get fired up with the determination to prove to themselves that they're able to accomplish something that seems so easy.
Google your name to find out what people are saying about you. Your boss probably has. Or your future employer might.
Go to technorati to find out what people are saying about your blog. Oh come on. You want to know who linked to your blog and what they said about you.
Think you're smarter than Alex Trebek? Try this geography quiz. I have to confess, I fancied myself as quite the geography expert, but alas I'm not as good as I thought I was. (I got a 10.) On the plus side, I now have some vague idea where Burkina Faso is, which is more than a lot of Americans can say. (Did you have to look it up? Don't tell me you knew off the top of your head! Wow. I am impressed. And if you can pronounce the name of the capital city, I'll be really impressed.)
What, that bubble wrap wasn't enough? Need to work off some more frustration? Here's your chance to rearrange Henry Tudor's face.
Feel like you're part of a chain gang? This site lets you listen to traditional work songs and ballads. I'm sure the singing on these selections is very powerful and poignant and all kinds of good things, but for some reason the song I listened to had a woman backup singer who rather reminded me of a cat singing.Which is my way of neatly segueing into the final idea of what to do at work when you don't feel like working.
Ever wonder what your cat's up to while you're at work? One guy hooked up a miniature video camera to his cat's collar and videotaped where his cat went on its travels. I think this is an idea with some potential to it. Want to know what your boyfriend is doing when he's not at home? Ever wonder why it takes your girlfriend so long to go "shopping"? Maybe a secret video camera would be the solution.
Okay, I am kidding with this idea, you do know that ... right? I don't want to be responsible for
breaking up any relationships. Forget I ever said anything. Look, back to the subject of cats. (Much safer topic.) If your cat is stuck indoors all day while you're at work, why not provide kitty with some entertainment?[Oh hell. Crabby's going to come back and find everyone is mad at her since her blog fell off the straight-and-narrow path of fitness and instead led readers into a quagmire of relational arguments. I'm doomed.]
Hey... what's going on here! I turn my back for a few moments and... where are the scholarly studies and the incisive analysis of complex health issues?
ReplyDeleteOkay, so we never had them before either. (And I'm not really here. The friends that I'm visiting already think I'm blog-obsessed enough; I'm hoping they don't hear the keyboard clicking away down here when I'm supposed to still be asleep).
And thanks, Mary, for the very handy goofing off tools!
Excellent suggestions. If I worked outside the home I'd probably do 'em all.
ReplyDeleteHow about them 'SKINS????? *Happy dance*
ReplyDeleteWork is what gets done when the project is due in two hours and it will take you at least three hours to complete.
ReplyDeleteHave a Happy New Year Crabby and all.
Today I'm going in to work not because I have a project that has to be done, but because they want someone from my department around "in case." It's more superstition than anything else -- the odds of a crisis coming up today are very slim.
ReplyDeleteI thought if anyone else was in the same boat, I'd throw some distractions out there.
But if anyone else has some good time wasters... um, that is, useful ways of expanding the mind's experiences in new directions... anyone?
Great goofing-off ideas, Mary! The Bag Lady took your suggestion and googled her real name - imagine her shock and surprise to find someone has posted a truly hideous picture of her taken a couple of years ago at a function! Wait until she gets ahold of THAT dumbass!! Nobody asked HER permission. (Now, if only she knew who did it, and how to get it off...)
ReplyDeleteI called in sick today. hee hee. But i'm really sick, so I guess, it's not that funny.
ReplyDeleteI tried the geography quiz, and even with my glasses on, trying to click on a city inside a country that's only 1/8 inch across is quite frustrating, even for moi who can zoom through a PhotoShop palette, converting images at the pixel level on the fly.... But it was a good tool for realizing just how ridiculous life is, because I got so wrapped up in it and also was offended that I was getting rude comments from the applet because I couln't get close enough to the cities! :D
ReplyDeleteAnd bubblewrap, thanks so much for that! :D
I actually work at home and should be working right now, and here I am, goofing off.
Great post Mary, I did a really poor job on the geography test - much worse than I thought I would. I will have to try that again someday. Loved the cat cam though.
ReplyDeleteHilarious!! I can't wait to try all of them. On the same funny note, my office recently put blogger on the 'blocked website list.' So, no more lunchtime blogging, or blog-visiting. They must be on to me. My work was really starting to interfere with my blog-life :)
ReplyDeleteWhat fiends! Cara, I'm shocked. Don't they trust you? You look so honest!
ReplyDeleteBag lady, was that you? That picture of the woman with the lampshade on her head? Seriously, it is amazing, sometimes scary to read what's out there about you. When I typed in my full name, I found a family genealogy going back 200 years. Well that wasn't scary, but I've read about people who were denied jobs because of things they themselves had written in Facebook or similar sites.
tk, I agree that map was too small. After awhile I stopped reading the comments because they were either too cheerful or too irritating. I did learn some geography playing that game. Probably will never again need to know where the Solomon islands are, unless I go on Jeopardy ;)
ReplyDeleteReb, wasn't that cat cam cool? Now if only people could figure out what the cat was thinking at the time. (Maybe Penelope could tell us?)
P.O.M., I hope you feel better soon -- by next year at least.
Leah's comment made me wonder -- do a lot of people work from home? That sounds like fun to me, but I suppose it's a 'grass is always greener, but doesn't need mowing' sort of thing.
missicat -- nice happy dance there! Um... the 'skins are something to do with football, right?
Marijke, you have the right idea. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
(Um, Crabby? Was I supposed to be scholarly and incisive? Oh dear. I'll do better next time, honest!)
Karen has a friend who lived Burkino Faso (sp???) during her two year term in the Peace Corps.
ReplyDeleteLove the cat video. I suggested we video tape me during the day, but Karen doesn't want the world to see all the crap under her bed. (And I don't want her to know about my lounging on the kitchen counters).
-- P
Work is what you do, so that you can live after 5 and at the weekends.
ReplyDelete