by Tanya Dittberner

Created on: January 23, 2007   Last Updated: April 17, 2007

A wise man once told me, "Work is work. If it was fun, they'd call it 'fun'." Everyone hates their job at some point or another and it's up to us to find ways to make the time pass. If you're a hapless 8 to 5 resident of the cubicle farm like me, you've probably come up with ways to distract yourself from your job. Here are some suggestions for distracting yourself at work:

SEEKING ENLIGHTENMENT: INTERNET
- Read the news. All of it: CNN, FOX, Slate, local, alternative, whatever you can find. Caution: you might be overdoing it if you find that you're reading it as it is being written. I speak from experience.

- Blogs. The voyeuristic escapist in me loves to read about the adventures of a 25-year-old Puerto Rican woman in New York who draws most of her material from her (seemingly) massive vault of experience as a sexual conquistador. Caliente!

- Two words: Wiki.Pedia. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is quickly replacing Google as the online inquirers' source of information. As you can "google" practically anything, you can "wiki" whatever comes to mind and poof! you are the new expert on China's Ming Dynasty.

CAUSING MISCHIEF
- Get up and walk around. You don't have to go anywhere in particular - just do as the senior mall walkers do and "make a round."

- If you can stomach it, imagine the sex lives of all your co-workers.

- Doodle. But look like you're concentrating and keep work papers close in case the boss walks by.

- Guess the age of everyone in your office (or department if your office is large), add up the numbers and find the median age.

- Make up your own Mad Libs. If you don't know what that is, please oh please look it up. And be as absurd as possible.

Happy working, folks!

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