Desk-Job Workers - How do you spend your free time?

[Emmry]

I've been a receptionist at a quiet business for 6 months now, and it seems as time passes on theres less and less things for me to do. Every morning I make tea and coffee, update Facebook Business pages statuses when I first get in and ask folks at the water-cooler if there is anything I could help with. I've partially done tax returns, sort and file shoe-boxes full of receipts, cleaning, photography, video and other odd jobs included market research. I get an average of one visiter visiter a day who I greet warmly and help direct them where they need to go and keep of log of who they and what period of time this is.

The above paragraph identifies one hour of my eight hour shift monday thru friday. I do more than I can to feel helpful, and my boss is grateful for this but believes I could make a career out of my social media skills if I go back to College. In the meantime, I need to recover my funds from a previous college if I want to go back to school - so desk job it is, since I can't for the life of me find any other work, damn tiny town .

In my free seven hours i often browse Facebook, MMO Champion of course, WoW Forums and look up unfunny videos of cats and other silly things, maybe even play a game of Drawception if I am really bored. I'd like to expand and share a list of things I can do with out being too obvious if a co-worker walks by and sees my chuckling or obviously playing a game. We do not have a networker monitoring me, and I have my own Laptop that is game capable, I get excited with the idea of farming on WoW but i think my guild-mates and friends on realID may get after me D:

[Forfax]

You should download steam and try out the free games available , or you can simply buy game by steam , there always a low prices there .

[noteworthynerd]

I wear headphones and watch a lot of YouTube videos or StarCraft II streams, also do a lot of the same things you listed: browse MMOC, look at various "funny" picture sites (e.g. www.memebase.com), etc.

[Fumu]

As a receptionist to a quiet business, I know exactly how you feel. I used to hop on Youtube and Facebook, but the corporate office blocked those and it affects this satellite office too. So...I post on here! Lol.

[Deleted]

reddit and 4chan for me
I am now a new man (for the worse)
but fully capable of theoretically do surgeries

[poser765]

I believe you do what 90% of office workers do. I think if I were you i would take a book and read more. I really don't like the idea of having to stay busy just because you are at work. You are hired on to do a job, if you do that job you are done. Now, I am not saying you shouldn't have work all day long, I'm just railing mainly at the idea of busy work. There are only so many times you can clean the counters.

[Deleted]

I have an ebook reader with over 200 books on it. I hate the desk jockey part of my job, it's like herding cats.

[Deleted]

I believe you do what 90% of office workers do. I think if I were you i would take a book and read more. I really don't like the idea of having to stay busy just because you are at work. You are hired on to do a job, if you do that job you are done. Now, I am not saying you shouldn't have work all day long, I'm just railing mainly at the idea of busy work. There are only so many times you can clean the counters.

I have recently discovered desk jobs
I used to work for a 5 star hotel, 8 hours+ standing up, went to bed with bone pains and always seeing people and talking ....
fuck that life...
now that i work in an office iam pissed off all the time cause there are only so manny websites and forums i can lurk in ...but still beats the hell out of standing up for more than 8 hours
conclusion
be grateful you have time to wank..you could be slaving somewhere else

[Emmry]

I have recently discovered desk jobs
I used to work for a 5 star hotel, 8 hours+ standing up, went to bed with bone pains and always seeing people and talking ....
fuck that life...
now that i work in an office iam pissed off all the time cause there are only so manny websites and forums i can lurk in ...but still beats the hell out of standing up for more than 8 hours
conclusion
be grateful you have time to wank..you could be slaving somewhere else

A few years ago I used to do people's lawns and do industrial painting despite having zero experience and enjoyed it as time passed by so quickly. I was working for a relative and he had to cut back on the payroll so I had opted to find a new job.

[Reeve]

I know how you feel. It's a terrible thing to feel underutilized. I'd say just keep at it and keep up the good attitude you seem to have. Maybe you could try to teach yourself a useful skill in the interim, like learning to program in C++ or something like that. I can tell you that at my company we've had 3 receptionists promoted up to departmental administrators in the 5 years or so I've been at this company. Just keep being one of the good ones that they like having around, and prove you're smarter than the average bear and have skills.

[Palmatum]

Read a book/magazine or get a notepad out and work away at projects I have going on at home.

[poser765]

I have recently discovered desk jobs
I used to work for a 5 star hotel, 8 hours+ standing up, went to bed with bone pains and always seeing people and talking ....
fuck that life...
now that i work in an office iam pissed off all the time cause there are only so manny websites and forums i can lurk in ...but still beats the hell out of standing up for more than 8 hours
conclusion
be grateful you have time to wank..you could be slaving somewhere else

No kidding! I start my 9-5 office job tomorrow! So stoked! I have almost always been non regular schedule. From retail, to food service both of which have non banker hours. Schedule changes week to week and two days off non consecutive. My last job was in transportation. NO schedule at all. some morning i would go in a 0400 then the next day not till 2200. Gone from home 5 days at a time. Fuck that.

Different strokes for different folks though. Others seem to get physically ill thinking about an office job. Christ, not me...I dream about a cubicle...My kingdom for a cubicle!

[Deleted]

Why not become the office prankster? Many jolly japes can be had by a good harmless prank, I can give you a few good ideas too.

[poser765]

Why not become the office prankster? Many jolly japes can be had by a good harmless prank, I can give you a few good ideas too.

Just make sure your pranks are cheeky and fun. Not cruel and unusual.

[Deleted]

Read a book/magazine or get a notepad out and work away at projects I have going on at home.

careful with this or people might burn you and you might be sacked

I hate having nothing to do, since i can`t read a book or play video games (someone might see)
but i much rather yawn and browse forums than having no scheduale always standing up

[dPwnShop]

I just started a job working from 8pm to 8am (night shift). My work day normally goes like this...

-Get to work and check email's and job queue.
-Eat dinner while watching whatever sports game is on.
-Catch up on all my youtube channels.
-Check mmoc front page for updates/blue posts.
-Around 12-2am I take my hour "lunch" and go to the gym.
-When I get back from the gym I fix my "lunch".
-Eat lunch while watching a netflix episode (currently Stargate: Generations)
-Fix a pot of coffee and get all my paper work done (usually about 2 hours worth of work)
-Go home when my relief gets to the office.

After reading that over it seems like a pretty gravy job. I am answering any calls we might get throughout the night (usually about 5-10) and troubleshooting with customers over the phone. Also helping technicians get loaded up for jobs in the middle of the night. After pretty much living out of my suitcase for the last 5 years I am digging the new routine. People tell me all the time how they would not be able to do my job out of pure boredom, but I say "bring on the boredom".. i love it!

P.S. I'm hoping to get my Laptop fixed soon too start farming in D3 and WoW while at the office.

[Gringgotts]

I used to play WoW with a guy who was a network supervisor. And the way he "supervised" the network was by playing WoW. Granted he didn't do any serious wow at work, but he did play the auction house a lot and did dailies, etc. If wow started lagging he usually knew something was going on with the network that shouldn't be happening and he would tab out and take care of it.

[Deleted]

If wow started lagging he usually knew something was going on with the network that shouldn't be happening and he would tab out and take care of it.

ahahahahah i loved that !!

[poser765]

I used to play WoW with a guy who was a network supervisor. And the way he "supervised" the network was by playing WoW. Granted he didn't do any serious wow at work, but he did play the auction house a lot and did dailies, etc. If wow started lagging he usually knew something was going on with the network that shouldn't be happening and he would tab out and take care of it.

lol hey a tool is a tool right. Seems like it got the job done.

[Neurodilation]

God I wish my job was that boring/free that I could have that much time to myself. I've had jobs like that before, but they've all been temp positions. The job I have now has me at a desk but getting up and traveling to remote sites all day, figuring out crazy tech problems, and being on call at nights.

What I wouldn't give to have the OP's problem.