back to article Please stop working and abuse your expense account at the beach

Welcome again to On-Call, The Register's usually-on-a-Friday foray into readers' recollections of jobs gone wrong, gone weird or sometimes gone in places that defy even the most lurid imaginings. This week, On-Call has returned from a holiday find a mail bag full of emails from readers paid to do nothing. So in the interests …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nearly: but it happened to someone else :-(

    I worked for a particular American web hosting provider as an network implementation engineer for the EMEA region. My US West Coast based opposite number managed two months in Australia on expenses "waiting for a circuit", thereby awakening a fierce desire on my part to do some Munich based rebuild around mid-September. Sadly, the company went bust shortly afterwards :-(

  2. wolfetone Silver badge

    Jet Lag

    Must be affecting the publication process as well, the 11th is a Monday not a Friday.

    Someone either needs more R&R or less R&R. Delete as appropriate.

    1. shifty_powers

      Re: Jet Lag

      Or the fact that the hack in question has just come back from holiday and has posted an extra session to clear the mailbag. Or you could just read the article ;)

      1. wolfetone Silver badge

        Re: Jet Lag

        It's a Monday, I haven't had a coffee, and words like "usually-on-a" can be missed in times of tiredness and a wanton lust for On Call magic.

        I won't apologise however, as I am recommending more holiday for the chap!

    2. Bloakey1

      Re: Jet Lag

      Perhaps he went on I and I [1.0] not R and R.

      Keep away from Banna Strand.

      1. Intercourse and Intoxication as we used to call it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Jet Lag

        Must confess, tales of epic slacking on a Monday isn't helping motivation.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Jet Lag

          Muuuussst....reeesisssssst. Ah, who am I trying to kid? Pubward ho! [1]

          [1] Don't tell anyone but I was going to go anyway......this way I get to blame Mr. Sharwood if anyone asks. Teeheehee.

      2. Anonymous Custard
        Trollface

        Re: Jet Lag

        1. Intercourse and Intoxication as we used to call it.

        @Bloakey1 - It's more fun if you do it the other way around, although I guess your way could make whoever you wake up with look better (or help you recover from the sight if necessary)...

  3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Well rested ?

    I think I'd be bouncing off the walls after a month at the beach. All that time wasted when I could have played LotRO at home instead.

    At least there would be margharitas . . .

    1. Bloakey1

      Re: Well rested ?

      I once did a support job from 33,000 feet on a Norwegian air flight, all setup via emails and GotoAssist. Another notable one was two jobs , one from the top of Monte Rotondo near Corté and the other from Monte Cinto near Calvi , both in Corsica.

      As for the Margaritas, you would need lots of Monett for those.

  4. TeeCee Gold badge

    Conf call to a colleague out on site in Malta.

    He went through the issues and came up with something puzzling:

    "Ah, could you ask the lads there if they've been doing XYZ?".

    "Er, no. There's nobody in the office."

    "Why not?"

    "It's a Bank Holiday here.".

    "Oh dear, it must be terrible being stuck in the office there all on your own..."

    "Er, I'm not in the office, it's closed."

    "So you're in your Hotel room then?".

    "Er, no. I'm in the pool on the roof."

    <Sarcasm> "Oh, pardon us for getting you out of the pool to take this call."</Sarcasm>

    "That's all right, you didn't. They actually have a bar in the pool itself and I'm using the phone on that."

  5. Alien8n

    Not one of mine (unless you can count 6 months of playing Black Hawk Down on the company's servers while waiting for the redundancy package to kick in. All sanctioned by the management as well, I played on the same team as the R&D manager), but the boss of one of our suppliers took a 6 month sabbatical to hike to the South Pole.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Did he get cold feet? :D

  6. Tom 7

    I spent 4 days in Instanbull waiting for kit to clear customs

    alas the boss who was present didnt want us to venture to far as the kit was always nearly ready. On the 4th day he enquired about the extra cash expense necessary to promulgate the process and two hrs later we worked two days practically non stop to get it up and working and then onto the plane,

    We did get a nice dinner out one night which involved driving down a 3 lane motorway at 90mph while being randomly overtaken and cut up from every direction possible, The journey took nearly an hour and we arrived at a famous restaurant where the food tasted of fear in the knowledge it was going to happen again - being the largest I had to sit in the front and it was fucking scary.

    Nice place by the looks of it!

  7. 404

    Yeah I wish...

    .. they would stop calling, just for a weekend, much less four damn weeks...

    one day...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Amsterdam

    The closest I had was a trip to Amsterdam to help setup a stand at a trade show. My boss managed to get some real cheap airline tickets, so cheap that it would have been cheaper for me to stay in a hotel for nearly a week before the show was due to start! However, bigger boss didn't like that idea, so the air tickets were cancelled - not refundable either!

  9. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    I suppose

    if you wait long enough, the system doesn't count as a "super computer" any more.

    ...What is the first step down from "super computer"?

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