New way to stave off boredom!!!!

[Giggle Goose]

OK, so today I was working the register in the the morning, and it was kinda slow. So I noticed that someone (like always) had just dumped a pile of crap onto another register, which is nothing new since we all know that SCs think they can come in and tear up a place and dump s just because it's not their home. (Actually, I'd LOVE to see what their homes look like...) But I digress. This was no ordinary pile of crap, ladies and gentlemen.

At the top of the pile was one of those "20Q" thingies, where you think of something and then you press the buttons while the things asks 20 questions and then "guesses' what it is. OMG it is soooooooo addicting!!!! I don't know what I would have done without it, I probably would have died of boredom since I got maybe 5 customers all morning. I just had to be careful and make sure the manager didn't see me. Yes, I feel bad because I wasn't being productive, but I'm supposed to stay at the register, soooo

I ended up buying it since it was on sale. It was fate. I thought the 20Q thing was kinda dumb at first, you can't be real specific when you think of things, but it's still pretty damn accurate. The thing guessed I was thinking of a cloud on one occasion! I had to keep myself quiet so people wouldn't hear my screams of disbelief that a little handheld electronic toy thingie could be so right on....you should all get one for those slow moments at work and on your break, it's really entertaining......(PS: I apologize if you folks from outside the US don't know what the heck I'm talking about, I don't know if these things were only distributed here or not)

[Deceptitech]

Fun and games at work.

Oh yeah, those are fun. My desk is littered with little gadgets to hand off to people who are bored. I have 3 of those 20 Questions games to pass around to new people. I also pass around "texas hold 'em" and even laser pens so they can annoy people in other departments.

Another thing to do is to play "Bejeweled 2". Working for a PDA comapny, one perk is that if you make a certain conversion rate, you get a free handheld. Even more fun is that once someone gets one, everyone there is like "here, let me beam you this game, it's cool."(I think one person there bought the game, then it's passed around to everyone else)

At nights, there is like 5 people in our area, and we all sit there and play games on our handhelds.(even more fun is Bluetooth, we can play against each other without getting up)

What other ways does everyone here use to keep awake when they have nothing to do at work?

[friendofjimmyk]

Eh, I usually peruse the web while I have nothing to do. We are NOT allowed to play games on the computer. Some people bring hand helds, but mostly you're not allowed to have games on electronics that make noise or anything....

I sit on this board a lot. The past two weekends, I've worked Fri, Sat, and Sun 16 hour days a piece. Long day - but I love my job so it doesn't bother me and it's really not going to bother me when that paycheck hits my account next week!

I also visit other message boards - which the verdict is out if we are allowed to sit on message boards or not...chat rooms - no, but boards, eh, we'll find out if we get pulled aside and they say, "No, no!"

I also do my homework too. Next quarter I have 5 classes, so I am sure I will not be short of anything to do while at work!

[Jack T. Chance]

I'm once again doing what I love to do... selling furniture. I currently work in a mattress store, and before this, I spent 5 years working in a bunkbed store. On an average day, I can count the # of customers that come through my door on one hand. Good thing, too, since I work LOOONG hours... 54 a week, to be exact... 4 11-hour days and 1 10-hour day. Luckily, I have HOURS of downtime every day!

So, naturally, I long ago figured out how to pass the time when there's nothing to do:

• The Internet. Whether on your store's Windows machine, your laptop, or even your PDA phone, the internet is a GODSEND on long, boring days! That's one of the main reasons I have a BlackBerry... I'm posting this message from my "CrackBerry" using its web browser! ^_^
• Video Games. Another godsend when you have a long day ahead of you. I've spent many hours playing games on the store computer (which at times has been my own personal PC... ah, the advantages of working for a very small, privately-owned company!), on my portable systems (such as my Nintendo DS Lite that I bought a month and a half ago), and even on the T-Mobile Sidekick I had before I switched to a "CrackBerry"! I especially like games with lots of replay value, such as board games (Monopoly, Scrabble), card games (Solitaire, Uno) and Role-Playing Games!
• Comics/Graphic Novels. I've also spent many hours happily reading trade paperback collections of my favorite comics in the store! :-)
• Books. As we head into the winter months, traditionally the slowest time of the year for furniture stores, I'll also be pulling out and reading various books that I've been saving for a "rainy day". I've still got several more books in Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series to get through, and then I've got the complete, 3-volume set of Robert E. Howard's Conan and then all 7 books of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. Those'll help pass some time!

Now, obviously, not everyone is lucky enough to work in a store as slow as a furniture store tends to be, so some of these possibilities may not work in your particular situation.

[powerboy]

At my store, the owners son and I play video games "To Advertise that we have games to play" . I am thinking about buying that 20Q's.

[lordlundar]

Creepy little device. It guessed plutonium. Plutonium!

Haven't touched one since.

[DesignFox]

I played with the 20 Questions thing at a party. That thing is really neat! We were trying to get it to say some dirty things, cause we were drunk and silly.
It couldn't say the actual words...but it came really damn close!!! It's pretty amazing.

[Giggle Goose]

Well, Designfox, I think the dirtiest word it ever guessed was "a butt." lol but I don't know what the recommended age range is for those things....they should make an "adult" one

[LostMyMind]

Creepy little device. It guessed plutonium. Plutonium!

Haven't touched one since.

I actually beat it. The trick is to think of not strange words but words that are completely not used and have multiple meanings.

[Jack T. Chance]

1 I forgot...

I just realized that there's an option I forgot the other day:
Portable DVD Player. Several of my co-workers have these, and bring them to work to watch movies or favorite TV shows on DVD! I'll be buying a really nice one, with a 10" widescreen display, sometime this week!

[repsac]

Creepy little device. It guessed plutonium. Plutonium!

Haven't touched one since.

Heh. yeah, I had a similar incident with one. I was thinking of my girlfriend and it guessed that. I've got one of those things tucked away some where.