Skipping work to play games?
Wednesday, April 6th, 2005 - 3:27pm
My wife travels without me about two weeks out of the year. Every time I say to myself, "Self, I can use this time to go nuts on video game playing. Heck, I'll even call in 'sick' at work to grab some extra gaming time." And every time, I don't actually do it (actually, the only time I've even taken a sick day was to take care of my wife post-operation.) But, listening to the radio this week I heard of a study talking about how many people do call in "sick" to screw around, and it's a fairly big percentage.
So my basic question is: Has anyone here skipped out on work to play video games?
I have NEVER skipped work to play games. Which isn''t to say that, if I just happen to be home ill, I won''t play a game or two...
Nah, I don''t get enough sick days to do that anymore. I just put aside one day out of the weekend and go nuts then - it''s still a pretty sweet feeling
I''ve done it to play WoW when it first came out, and for a few other games I can''t remember. I still come home early occasionally to get in some quality gaming time before the wife shows up and want to ""couple-bond"" or something. It''s the price I pay for my addiction. Sometimes I think about just giving it up and walking away -- then God of War comes out and I''m right back in it again.
two or three times i''ve skipped work the day after getting some new MMORPG. Not this year tho, i''ve already used 3 of my 5 sick days and 7 of my 12 vacation days.
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Well, speaking as a progressing student who has yet to enter into a permanent job in the real world, I would do better to speak of skipping school.
Back in high school, I used to become ""sick"" all the time so that I could stay home and play games like Half-Life, UT, or Civ2. My school allowed something like ten sick days for the entire year, and I always made sure to use all ten. Usually, I had exhausted my sick days by the end of February, so I had to tough it out for the remainder of the year whenever I really was sick.
In college, I stopped skipping class except under the most pressing of circumstances. Nor did I ever skip my part-time job during college. I don''t expect to skip class for gaming purposes during grad school, either... assuming I get accepted to one, that is. So for the time being, the days of skipping out on my obligations for the sake of a beloved game seem to be behind me.
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C''mon, you know you want to
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Only has happened a few times, for me, but then again I''ve never skipped an entire day. I''ll just put off work until later...much much later, if I get heavily involved in something. Last time I did that was for KOTOR 2, and I want my time back.
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I think Everquest kept me out of work once in a while. I hated my job, it was easy to skip out and usually I did because I''d been playing EQ all night and I couldn''t stay awake and pretend to work
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Never skipped work, but I do have Wow on my work PC....for coffee breaks, natch.
Ahem.
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I was thinking of making a MMORPG that would sit into the tray area and only popup on mouseover. And then it would be this window which occupies only 1/4 of the screen and disappears when you remove the mouse from it. Oh and it would pause all combat when you do so. In other words a play-at-work MMORPG. Is that a terrible idea or what.
I definitely do it. If I was at a job I actually cared about or enjoyed I probably wouldn''t, but I don''t so once every couple months I call in ""sick"" to have a day to myself without burning a vacation day. Coinicidentally, these days seem to fall pretty close to days when new games are coming out. Huh...
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Depends on who you are. If you are an employer who wants productive staff, it''s horrible. But, if you are a bored GWJ, then it''s great! I say go for it! But, instead of minimizing when the mouse is gone, why not have it pause and turn into a few random pie charts? While you''re at it, why not just have combat represented entirely by charts? You know, this productivity scale is actually your level advancement, this pie chart represents hitpoints...have combat moves perfectly mimic an email about report covers. I say it''s brilliant! Never have to do real work again!
Being the head of the video game department where I work means that it''s my JOB to keep up on new games. Talk about the best of both worlds...
I only used to call in sick to my work when I was in high school (and that''s cuz I hated my job).
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I''ve called off for movies. After staying up till 4am after the LOTR and Star Wars midnight showings there was no way I could drag myself into work the next day. One call to my boss, a quick excuse and I could catch up on my sleep. By the time Return of the King came out, he was smart enough to already put me in for a sick day.
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I would not call it skipped, I would just tell the boss I was taking some time off. Since I work high tech we often work extra hours at crunch time we never get paid for. I would take the occasional half sday here and there to make up for that time. As for my boss as long as I got my work done, in time he really didn''t have a problem with the half day thing.
But to be honest I really only ever do it on huge events. Getting into Beta, release week that sort of thing.
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Half-Life 2 caused me to get a bad illness.
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I always say I will take a day off, but in the end I never do! Arh... and I have like 12 days avalible to take!
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I''ve never skipped anything to play a game.
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I keep telling myself I''m gonna take a day off to just hang out and play video games, but then I never do, because I''ve always got stuff going on at work. I was going to take Friday off, but now I need to be here to transfer two of our client''s web sites from one hosting company to another, so maybe next week.
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I can see my boss now.
""Alex, you''re a programmer. Why are you looking at piecharts ?"".
""I uh... I ... like... pie ?""
""You''re fired.""
Actually I was thinking that the only way to actually ever FINISH making it would involve having no graphics. So as a result it would look like this:
And in this case there would be a black-and-white mode so from DISTANCE it wouldn''t look apart from a Visual C/Delphi/Visual Basic/Textpad whatever environment.
I once had an amazingly boring job, but I needed to be very accurate in what I was doing (in that it involved actual medical case histories of you know, actual people). I ""worked"" 40 hours a week, but what I really did was work every other hour of the 40, and MUD every other hour, on average.
A few months after I moved onto another job, I talked to my old supervisor. She said the guy they got replace me: got much less work done, and was much less accurate.
So you know, if it helps you...focus your energies into being very productive the rest of the time...um.
Technically I skipped work every other hour, for um, about a year.
One of the nice things about university is that nobody knows when you don''t go to class and, more importantly, nobody cares! I had a history class last semester. The lectures were utterly useless. They had absolutely no point AT ALL. There was a classroom for the monday lecture, and a classroom for the wednesday lecture. After having gone through a full semester of that class, I never, at any point, knew which room the wednesday lecture was in. I was THAT much of an absentee.
So, yes. I skip school for games. Hell, I skip school for sleep. I skip school to sit at home bored. I''m paying for the damned class. If I don''t think it''s worth my time to go, I won''t go.
I remember that Jedi Knight 2 online duels were a source of constant skippage during my first semester, though.
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Current job: I''ve never skipped to play a game... but I''ve not gone in to work and ended up gaming. The difference is in the initial intent. BUT :shifty eyes: I do play games at work occasionally... To uhm... help me focus!
Previous job: Was workstudy while earning degree. I was a computer lab ''attendant.'' I was payed to play games. All the time.
So in conclusion... I believe I''ve skipped out on work and played games... uh... three times. But I''m much more inclined to find a game to play at work while I''m bored! MOO2, Deus Ex, and more recently XCOM.
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I skipped a few days each for Quake and Half-Life. I''ll still skip the occasional day for sex or games of getting drunk or whatever. Man, you just have to. Tell me your employer doesn''t try to screw you every once in a while, just a little, and then maybe you can tell me it''s not right to skip work.
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This doesn''t qualify as skipping, but several years ago I got a terrible case of bronchitis and was out of work for about three and a half weeks. I spent the whole time playing FF VIII. It is the only FF game I have ever finished...
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That was some infection! I haven''t even played FFXII, since it''s not been released yet (even in Japan?)!
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I used to skip work fairly often for games or movies or whatever back when I had what I still think of as, ""throw away jobs."" Those were mostly the crappy jobs I worked while I was in college and right after. Since I got a more stable or ""real,"" job though I have had to quit doing that.
I''ll definitely say that WoW has cut into my school time. I''m an online student though so it''s not that big of a big deal.
I''ve taken mental health days before. Video Games are just part of the therapy.
The question isn't "Who is going to let me?" It's "Who is going to stop me?"
It''s funny-- I even support the idea of ""mental health days,"" as long as people don''t abuse the idea, but I just can''t bring myself to actually take one. It''s like I pathologically have to go to work. Maybe it''s psychological backwash from two years of, ""this company is about to go under unless I do something pretty impressive really soon."" I don''t know.
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LobsterMobster wrote:
I''ve taken days off from work to play games. It''s not very often, though, maybe 2 or 3 times max in an entire year. I generally classify them as ""mental health days"" but they are more likely to occur when I have absolutely nothing to do in the office and trying to fill my work day becomes a form of torture.
And there''s something to be said for extended, quiet, uninteruppted gaming time. It''s the perfect therapy for everything from in-grown toenails to acts of violence upon your asshat coworkers!
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Hell yeah, I''ve done it. Not so much to play games so much as really not wanting to go to work that day. Like others have said, ""Mental Health Days"". And what''s better for the mental health than to slouch in front of the computer, eating junk food and playing games? Ain''t so good for the body, mind you, but it''s not that kind of sick day.
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