Out of hours work - how do you make it fun?

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Im currently sat here running the monthly patches on the 50+ servers we have in the company on a saturday. Now while this is not the most fun I'm having a whale of a time as I have the my Ipod in, the volume cranked and as I am the only one in for 3 floors in either direction some bad singing maybe featured as well

So my question to you all is: how do you make the invitable out of normal (for your company) hours fun?

 

Haha, interesting question. I personally am the kind of person that in the past, used to spend my Xmas period "working". After all, since most people take a 1 or 2 week vacation, those last few weeks of December (first week of January) are the best times to work when you're an admin since nobody is in the office to bug you, right?

Personally, I was rarely asked to work on a saturday or sunday, I guess I was quite lucky.

But over the Xmas period, I used to catch up on things at work (misc tasks which didn't get done due to lack of time, emails, unfortunately not patching as end of year is usually a freeze period, and mingling with the users due to the free time which let me go and say hello to everyone on the floor(s) of the building I worked in, IF they were around).

Now, things are a little different. Because most people in companies take the last 1 or 2 weeks of December off as holiday, so did I. No use wasting time at work not doing anything, if the customers don't ask me to be on-site... I have no "work" per se on weekends in my current role. But I do spend time fiddling with my lab or reading an IT book...

I occasionally let myself play a flash game or two, but I felt guilty about doing that... so music is always nice (pump it loud!) and maybe I set a laptop aside to play an episode from my favorite TV series while I did more menial tasks (to pass the time ;) ).

I swear I can multitask! haha

 

Sparky,

I had some recabling to do as well and when I finsh here I'm going to hit the pool which is about 10 minutes away, so method in the madness.

Shinigami

My Ipad may or may not be playing some of tv I hadnt caught up on yet...

 

Living 10 minutes away from the office definately helps. Other than that it's music out loud on speakers, legs up on my desk, keyboard on my lap and some bad signing.

Sometimes I order Dominos pizza for lunch and stuff myself so much that I can't move for another hour, so the time just flies by.

 

Sky, iPlayer, C&C Zero Hour, a good movie, iPod...hell it's just like being at home but without the booze!!!! LOL

 

Rarely work weekends, but i did have to do a mass upgrade of 40 machines to windows 7 a few weeks back, so i thought "I know!" i'll work in the auditorium!

We've got a 150 seater auditorium at work, with a decent audio visual setup, massive screen and speakers - so was playing music through spotify fairly loud, ordered a chinese from down the road and did about 8 hours that day.

Although i never spoke to anyone, i quite enjoyed it! don't mind it every now and again

 

without the booze? I never had any problem drinking in the office after hours

I usually crank up pandora and we sit around giving each other ****, eating pizza and watching funny youtube videos or something

if im by myself i would of played some games but as i'm a consultant now I very rarely am working after hours without a client there
I seem to get on well with most my clients, i crashed at one of their houses on a friday night after a long drinking session and got dropped off at the hotel the next morning to check out, and the guys last week want me to come back with my ATVs and go riding with them sometime

 

What are these after working hours that you speak of? You mean that there is time in the week that you're not working? When did this happen? Why didn't anyone tell me?

 

I thought my loud music and dominos was the best it got... note to self, must improve!!

 

Drugs & p0rn, mostly.

 

Is that viagra to help with the p0rn?

 

Dominos, Chinese or any other takeaway is a good idea! If you can multi task, then maybe stick a film on another screen. Music, and take 10 minute dancing breaks every hour or so 