Sick Leave

Being sick is a pain, but it’s often best to just push through and keep going to work. That way when everyone else around you falls sick as well you won’t feel so bad. Misery does love company after all.

But if you do decide to stay home, there is nothing worse than being sick, and not having a “sick voice” when you phone in. People won’t believe you if you don’t sound sick, and they will really think you are lying if you use a fake sick voice. If you really are ill, and don’t want to be thought of as a malingerer then rather than phoning in with a chirpy voice, simply send an email instead. Try adding a sad “smiley” for sympathy and effect:

I won’t be in today, I am not feeling well :-(

Hearts, and possibly flowers, will go out to you.

Carbon Neutral

In this time of great environmental upheaval we are all doing our best to become Carbon Neutral. (I myself am also trying to become tax-neutral, and am hoping that my many past years on various forms of Social Security combined with a big pension will help me achieve that.) But to truly become Carbon Neutral not only must we offset the power that we do use, but we should actually try to use less power.

It’s all very well for the people who work close to the office to ride or walk in to work, but the small environmental benefit of that is more than offset by the detrimental effect of smug people walking around the office in lycra.

So, how can you help? Most employees have a wide array of portable electronic devices which consume a great deal of power. Mobile Phones, MP3 players, PDAs, Hello Kitty shoulder massagers etc.

When you charge these devices at home they consume a great deal of power which would not otherwise be consumed. Why not take them in to work and charge them there? After all, they always leave the power on at work so it is really only using the power that is already being generated.

Remember if ITS didn't want us charging 17 different USB devices simultaneously they wouldn't have given us 17 available USB ports.

Aromatic Dining

After you finish eating a particularly aromatic food, you do not want your bin to waft constant reminders of your wonderful meal for the rest of the day.

To combat this, make sure you dispose of any particularly pungent refuse in the bin under someone else's desk. This will keep your work area nice and fresh and at the same time open someone's mind to olfactory experiences they might otherwise shun.