1. Sprawl in the chair of the person two career steps above you with your feet all over his deak. Talk to the other people in his department while gesturing grandly with the knick-nacks on his desk. When he comes in and catches you, jump up and deny that you were sitting in his chair. Ask him where he's been and why he's not "working."

2. If you have an in-basket, you can fashion a guitar out of it with rubber bands. I took a lot of time on mine, adjusting the bands by tying knots into them so that they're tuned very closely to a real guitar. I also went through the bands, selecting them for thickness, width and tone, and ended up lining it with a file folder for resonance. Turns out I'm not the first person to have done this...I'm thinking next week the Processing department and I are going to have to jam.

3. Make a map of the department as though it is a town. Include everyone's desk/cublicle/office and assign them a landmark, such as "Stephanie's Sweet Shop." Make the boss's office the county Sheriff's department.

4. Remember, you're not creating a useless email forward---you're practicing you power-point skills.

5. Medical stories are fun. Get a group together and talk about your scars. If someone has an office, it can be fun to shut the door and show them off. This also works with tattoos. Sometimes gender screening is required.

6. Remember, going to GET lunch doesn't count as EATING lunch. Do you really need to clock out?

7. It can be fun to rearrange the knicknacks people have in their work spaces. It's even more fun to kidnap them, take pictures with a camera-phone and email them ransom notes.

Above all, when you're wasting time on a day the boss is out, or the system is down, or just on a day when you're sick of the corporate job thing...you're getting PAID to act irrseponsibly, gossip about celebrities, and look up bizarre news on the internet, and it sure beats doing it at home while unemployed for free.