No SDMB at work? Help me not be bored!

[Little_Bird]

I’m not sure if this is the correct forum, but what the hell. I’m sure the mods can move me if needs be.

Hello all! How are you? Good? That’s super. I’m Little Bird and you may not have noticed me, but I’ve been here for a few years on and off.

Last week my boss noticed I’d been spending a lot of time online during working hours and told me to stop. Myself, if I had an employee who could get all her projects done well and on time, more than double enrollment in our programs in one year, and bring the numbers of people who quit the programs down to record lows and still have time to tool around online, I wouldn’t reprimand her, I’d friggin promote her. But that’s beside the point.

It’s not like I was using valuable company time playing games and reading SDMB, I was doing it when I had nothing else to do. When I was printing out giant reports or mailings, when my computer was broken, when it was a slow day and there was NOTHING going on. So now that I am unable to fritter away my useless time online, I am going slowly insane.

Sure, I’m getting a lot of crap done lately. The file cabinets needed re-organizing and I’ve been working ahead just to find something to do. But sooner or later, the office will be neat as a pin, I’ll have mailed and tracked everything that needs mailing and tracking, and I’ll have re-filed every single file so no two touching files have the little tab on the same third of the file and I will officially have nothing to do. I see this happening before the end of the week.

I need your help.

I need ideas on things to do.

Things that don’t involve being online and look like work—ie involve looking at the computer for long periods of time. I’m not like Peter from Office Space, I don’t do well with “Spacing Off.” I must have my mind occupido or the boredom will cause my eyes to invert and I’ll pass out.

Please give me ideas. I won’t be able to check in very often, just at home and while at lunch. If anyone can think of something to do, maybe what you did back in the days before the internets, I would really appreciate it.

Thank you, and good night.

Little Bird

[roger_thornhill]

Try writing a children’s book. I’m on my fourth (three of which have been done mainly at work). And wish me luck with the one which is at the publishers now!

I just wished they didn’t actually send the MS back when they reject it. I was tempted this time to write a PS: if you don’t like it, put it in the recycled paper tray of your printer.

[Giant_Spongess]

Origami.

[Waenara]

Well NaNoWriMo is fast approaching. (National Novel Writing Month).

The idea is to take the month of November at write a novel of at least 50,000 words. The idea is that if you’re interested in writing, most often you won’t get around to actually doing it. So this is a way to motivate yourself.

@NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

[ParentalAdvisory]

I read books on how to get out of working. Still working on it.

[Little_Bird]

Hmm, I could write the Great American Novel. Or a kid’s book. These are good ideas. Any more?

[Ottoerotic]

I spend my time reading books. There are quite a few classics available online from places like http://www.gutenberg.org/. I copy/paste them into word at home and name the file something that sounds vaugely work related like MaySales or Growth_spread (in case they check) and save it to a floppy or cd. Boot it up at work and viola 4-8 hours a day to waste while appearing work related.
If anybody else has any suggestions let me know.

[CynicalGabe]

@Ottoerotic

name the file something that sounds vaugely work related like MaySales or Growth_spread (in case they check) .

They actually check the filenames you open??

[ParentalAdvisory]

@CynicalGabe

They actually check the filenames you open??

I’d be fired by now if they did. :eek: But I’m sure this technology is being used in a lot of different places.

[Ranchoth]

Writing’s good. Even if it’s not the Great American Novel, you can always try fanfic. (But in any case, better not write anything about someone who goes nuts and murders all their coworkers, or stuff like that. That kinda thing tends to come back to bite you.)

Failing that…there’s always computer games. Like the Civilization series. (Which has been known to be addictive, ever since the first version in the early 90s.) Heck, a lot of older games are still lots of fun, but have a small “footprint” by today’s standards, so you won’t need a top-of-the-line graphics card or have to risk someone noticing that you’ve spent a couple of gigs of hard drive space for a game.