Skiving?
No no no! We don't do things like that. We're computer games programmers. We do "testing" and "research" instead.
(17,000, Sun 1 May 2005, 20:25, Reply)

A friend of mine...
...and another chap who I quite intensely dislike used to have maths lessons together, taught by an exceedingly fit teacher. They would sit next to each other, either side of an aisle, and alternately ask the teacher questions. While one was being talked to, the other got to stare at her arse, and the talk-toer got to look down her top when she bent over to show him how to do it. They would repeat this for whole lessons at a time, and became heroes for their commitment to the cause of skiving, as their actions allowed the entire class to doss.
(youthink, Sun 1 May 2005, 19:21, Reply)

Something I discovered at a young age
...when I was so shit-scared of the school's TV programme The Boy From Space, was that I could just simply walk out of the class while everybody's attention was diverted, and go and hide somewhere without being missed.

This skill has served me well for at least 30 years, and apart from that messy business with my A-Levels, has been entirely harmless.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Sun 1 May 2005, 18:43, Reply)

skiving off classes
when math class got particularly boring i would excuse myself to the bathroom and go wander around outside for several minutes. if my teacher asked my whereabouts i'd tell him i was having 'girly problems', meaning of course that i was bored out of my mind, but he never asked for details :)
(sponch!, Sun 1 May 2005, 17:26, Reply)

I don't need to skive.
18.30: Leave home
18.40: Arrive at work
18.41: Put kettle on
18.45-07.00: Lounge around drinking tea, eating jalferezi and pies, and generally have a good time
07.00: Leave work
07.10: Get home
07.10-18.30: try to sleep, have a shower, surf teh interweb, shoot germans on H+D2
( the wild elk Freeing excellence affects reality, Sun 1 May 2005, 17:09, Reply)

skive, yet still be the most productive member of staff they have...
erm, i was meant to be on the weekend shift...

i arrived yesterday 15 mins late (noone's in to notice at the weekend) and did some work for a bit. after a while i started to lag as i was tired, so i had a kip for an hour, then carried on as i felt better for it.

by hometime, i realised that even with buying sweets and fizzy pop from the vending machine and browsing ebay, i had still managed to do all of the work for the two days and a little more.

so i did a little dance because i didn't have to go in today and video'd it with my mobile phone...


(professor honky straight fonky, Sun 1 May 2005, 16:49, Reply)

There's only one answer ...
And we're all doing it. Right now.
(00, Sun 1 May 2005, 15:45, Reply)

Sunday shiftness
I work in the clothes section of what is supposedly one of Britain's best garden centres. Don't ask me why.
Anyway, as it is a Bank Holiday, I figured I should attempt to skive twice as much. Here's how it went:

9:40 - Arrive, 10 minutes late, then spend about 10-15 minutes checking the rotas, and eating shortbread.
10:00 - Declare 'I'm hungry.' Go and get toast and drinks for myself and supervisor. Restaurant is 'busy' so 10-minute trip turns to half an hour, including a sneaky fag break.
10:30 - Eat toast and drink tea. Avoid eye contact with customers.
11:00 - Another staff member arrives. Chat for half an hour.
11:30 - 15-minute break, soon becomes 25 minutes.
11:55 - Tidy some golf sets, doodle, eat more shortbread.
12:30 - Serve customers fo a bit, messily shove their clothes in their bags when they aren't looking.
13:00 - Tidy the desk, stand around
13:25 - Leave, 5 minutes early.

Ah, I love Bank Holidays

Apologies for girth.
(HobbitNobbit, Sun 1 May 2005, 15:28, Reply)

Group and Peer Evaluation
Twice weekly, im not kidding:

"Yes i think group dynamics can be improved by ***insert other peoples wrong-doings here***"

Repeat as necessary until you're told to shut up or people start agreeing with you. Especially fun to speak to other group members in advance to plan on ganging up on another member for maximum effect of a good verbal beating constructive critisism.
(st3ve, Sun 1 May 2005, 15:06, Reply)

Dead easy for me to skive
I do digital animation. Every friday us and the tutors will sit down for a wee CS session for "texture research" and "lighting examples".
Tuseday is my only talkie lecture and we all hate it (different tutor not on the DA course. total moron). Its actually possible for the whole class to talk at conversation level without the twunt noticing. At one point last week I actually shouted out AFRO and she didn't bat an eyelid. WOO
(Cyberpope Oh my god!! Somebody put shit in my pants!!!!!!, Sun 1 May 2005, 13:45, Reply)

confession
I use my creative side to skive in history, it's much more interesting when you add in dinosaurs and stuff.
(randy the gnome, Sun 1 May 2005, 12:04, Reply)

since
i work as a support technician at a university, i have to work directly with the students. this is class if one of them happens to be your girlfriend. i get to wander off for hours at a time for random kanoodling (it's a great word, isn't it?), and when i come back, i just have to say that a student was having problems.


now i just hope to god that no-one i work with is reading this.
( nowhere.elysium Exploder of cats, Sun 1 May 2005, 11:21, Reply)

(on school)
get your books on your table and do nothing!!!
(coolzay, Sun 1 May 2005, 11:03, Reply)

In my old job clipboards were my friend
Go between labs/depts holding a clipboard chatting to people. When approched by a supervisor look angry and hassled as if you have too much to do.
When danger has passed go back to chatting to pretty graduate biologist
( Hankster, Sun 1 May 2005, 10:01, Reply)

I go to a fancy school
where we all have to have laptops with us the whole time. This as well as making it easier with textbooks and stuff provides plenty of opportunitys for playing games and skiving in class. We have one teacher that roams the desks checking people are doing their work. So we'd take in turns to go up to the front of the class and ask difficult questions that kept the teacher talking long enough that we could all have ten minuets or so playing games. Once that question was answered someone else would go up and ask. It was quite well organised, we had a roster and a list of questions to ask the differant teachers.
( Box of Rabbits, Sun 1 May 2005, 9:25, Reply)

Do Not Feed The Customers
My girl friend works graveyard shift at a convenience market. After-hours, customers are not allowed in the store: all commerce is carried out through a small portal.

Alcohol sales are prohibited after 10 p.m., but the clientele never remember. Night after night, they are just as surprised by the bad news as the first time they heard it.

Usually she tells them where after-hour sales are allowed and sends them stumbling off into the night, but when skivving, she prefers instead to diss the customers. She affects deafness. Or stupidity. Or "I-no-speaka-de-English." Or she turns her back and makes phone calls. Or if things really get bad, she stands up, waves her tattooed arms around, and shouts profanities.

No one commits any commerce, but since the customers have amnesia, no harm comes of it either.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Sun 1 May 2005, 8:14, Reply)

Games Games Games
I have recently discovered the joy of emulators, and have just finished Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time for the third time. I also play flash games, but you just dont get the satisfaction of shouting at Mario with those.

"Jump, you little plumber bastard!!!"
( shovelboy This is bad - Two minutes to Belgium, Sun 1 May 2005, 5:30, Reply)

oh.
i misread this qotw as "How I Skydive Off Work".
(harmless kitty, Sun 1 May 2005, 2:09, Reply)

too many years ago...
I was in one of those really cheap shitty 1980’s offices with flimsy panelling walls and windows everywhere from waist height up. It was a really dull job, so sometimes I would tip my chair back so my head was rested against the wall along from the door. It was a sunny office (too cheap to buy us blinds), so you could get away with wearing your sunglasses indoors, so I’d pop them on, get comfy with my pen held poised on a pad (in case anyone passing by should happen to glance in), and go to sleep. If anyone came in, the vibration of the door being opened would fling me forward in my chair, whereupon I would immediately start writing furiously, and thus looking far too busy for questions. It was quite an art I can tell you. The other girl in the office didn’t mind – she was too busy phoning up personals from the local newspaper at £1.50 a minute.
( oucheh I am have confused, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 22:47, Reply)

Mr Bungle
Please tell me how you got your job. Please!
I'm not particularly in to computer games but still...
(chocolatepossum, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 22:41, Reply)

I Like Eating Sharp Metal Objects
During my breakfast, i ate a rather sharp piece of metal accidentally. Hospital? hell no, why dont i wait a few hours until the pain of of metal wire scratching its way down my gut really sets in before remembering that i ate metal in the first place. Got home from hospital 2 hours ago - itll pass by itself apparently (after some odd examinations and a urine sample) - so ill only take a week off i think - "ye it showed up on x-ray they dont know how long itll be there for" will do.

2 hours of waiting and "hes the guy that swallowed metal" gets you down a bit, as does having to walk through reception with your urine sample as thats the nearest toilet. I don't particularly recommend eating nonedible things.

Heres a new word i learned today though:

Pica - An abnormal craving for and eating of substances (as chalk, ashes, or bones) not normally eaten that occurs in nutritional deficiency states in humans or animals or in some forms of mental illness.

Bastards...
(st3ve, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 21:50, Reply)

This could make you jealous,,,,,
I work for Sony Computer Entertainment, I'm a games tester! My job involves drinking loads of
tea, eating buscuits and playing on the PS2 all day long. It's just one big skive.

We all get swanky comfy chairs and flat screen TV's to play games on....Thankyou Sony :)

I laugh heartily at all those who sneak around to play games all day...they pay me to do it :)
(Mr Bungle I think I am the most lurky of all lurkers???, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 20:25, Reply)

Bit of a naughty one...
Not really impressed with myself, but anyway..

When conducting my daily ice cream rounds i always drive with the jingle playing. All the kids think i've run out of ice cream, so i don't need to stop - i'm back home in double time.

Huzzah!
(Nyphur, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 19:51, Reply)

I work in a department store part time after college
and landed the best job in the place. I run the canteen, which involves me taking orders for lunch, which i buy in tescos in the same shopping centre. I spend the rest of the day chattin to my mates while they have their breaks, and slowly washing dishes whilst listening to the cure, the cocteau twins, the smiths and idlewild ( that was todays musical selection). I get nearly ten euros an hour for this, and I don't even have to sit on the till, or deal with a single customer, hahaha, life is good. ;)
(Do The Whirlwind, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 19:44, Reply)

Working in a shitty insurance company for a month
I never worked, I just always browsed the net and did my emails, and only really worked when I thought people might be noticing. I went out to a free ska gig in Camden on a Wednesday night once, thinking "Yay free gig, and I'll get home at a sensible time". Ah. Yes. Kind of forgot about that last bit.

Woke up at about 9 am the next day - 9 am being the time I needed to be at work. Rang in "sick" and spent the rest of the day in Camden getting stoned and pulling someone (who the next week was pulling someone else, but oh well, women are fickle). Went in the next day having looked up the symptoms of a 24-hour flu bug. Which are scarily similar to the symptoms of a hangover, so I didn't fool them at all. But they didn't really care.
( Detrius521, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 19:21, Reply)

Hang on...
How does one skive off from working on b3ta? Does rob skive off work by washing windows, driving a taxi or sitting in an office or something like that?
( Detrius521, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 18:52, Reply)

i am a hospital porter
by trade, for my sins. when anyone other than the people i like ask me to do anything i just use the best phrase in a porters vocab - "sorry love, i've got urgent bloods for Paediatric intensive care" and all the nurses go gooey eyed and think about babies, while i make my way back to the lodge for a kip
( bertisfantastic bert is a sleepy bear, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 18:41, Reply)

b3tab3tab3tab3tab3tab3tab3tab3tab3ta
I mean
what?
( abandonnship, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 18:26, Reply)

a bludging skiver and proud of it
I dont know whether i've been lucky in finding jobs that allowed me to spend half a lifetime skiiving or the type of people that would hire me are also the type of people that would allow it. I remember i was a young geologist when the boss announced he was going on 15 weeks long service leave after 20 years with company. My task was to sample all the old exploration leases areas to see if there was anything there (gold) before they expired. I spent 14 weeks driving round the australian desert, doing LSD and spending days tracking kangaroos on foot caught up in some aboriginal fantasies. About 2 days before he got back I went to a single outcrop I knew was barren, and took 500 samples. I then got out my maps, and marked these sample randomly over the maps so it looked like Id been busy sampling the whole area. Sure enough they came back from the lab with no gold.

Wombathons Tips for Young Skiivers
1)if you are on to good thing, resist the urge to brag about it. A low profile means a longer time undiscovered
2)Never actually tell them if you have finished a project unless they demand it. That way, they can assume youre busy on several different projects. If they finally demand results, hey presto, its done.
3)Spend the first month or so coming in early and working late. A reputation for hard work will last long after you gradually start slacking off.
4)A good, matey relationship with your boss will be invaluable when it comes to taking advantage.
5)If you have to report your progress, learn the art of giving detail without substance. Like the Turner Prize
6)Nobody seeing your screen is crucial. Give whatever reason you need to rearrange things so they cant see your screen. Even do it without asking anyone early one morning, as its more trouble to put things back than to stop you if you ask permission.
7)The art of skiiving is a balance, grasshopper. You must do do just enough so they don't obviously have to sack you, but no more. You will learn with experience.
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Sat 30 Apr 2005, 17:29, Reply)