Excuses For Being Caught On The Web
October 25, 2003 4:34 PM   Subscribe

What's The Best Excuse When You're Caught Reading MetaFilter... when you're supposed to be working? (More inside.)
posted by MiguelCardoso (39 comments total)
 
What do you tell your boss, wife, husband, SO, work partner? Most difficult of all, how do you justify spending so much time idly interacting with complete strangers, when everyone around you complains you don't have enough time for them? Or, even worse, explain this strange practice to those unfamiliar with - or unsympathetic to - the Internet? (I say MeFi is a forum for writer's block, where similarly challenged writers exchange hints for overcoming the problem and offer web-based ideas for possible writing projects. Not that it works, mind you. A friend of mine alleges, with a straight face, he reads MeFi because he hasn't got time to surf the Web and reluctantly has to settle for this poor man's version of Readers' Digest...)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:35 PM on October 25, 2003


felch.
posted by angry modem at 5:03 PM on October 25, 2003


Heh. I have a rare but legitimate excuse. I work as a recruiter/evangelist for a large online community, and need to stay abreast of all online community news, trends, mores, etc.
posted by scarabic at 5:05 PM on October 25, 2003


What do you tell your boss

i don't know about you, but i quit the fucking job. now i'm all mefi, all the time. and you can really see the difference in the quality of the site. i mean, he's no miguel, but even crunchland, for example, has provided a handful of passable posts since i became a man of leisure. i think we all owe me a pat on the back.
posted by quonsar at 5:34 PM on October 25, 2003


"Well, I gotta tell ya - I'd be very careful who I talk to about this. Because the person who reads MetaFilter is dangerous. And one day they could just snap. And then this button-down, Oxford-cloth psycho, stalking from office to office with an Armalite AR-180 carbine gas-operated semi-automatic, pumping round after round into colleagues and coworkers. This could be someone you've known for years. Someone very close to you."
posted by homunculus at 5:38 PM on October 25, 2003


I gave up my regular job, moved to Middle East to absorb all I could so that I might post on a regular basis about the ME at MetaF.
posted by Postroad at 6:02 PM on October 25, 2003


I work for myself, so I just make a note to tell my therapist that the old multiple personalities are at it again ;)
posted by will at 6:08 PM on October 25, 2003


I gave up my regular job, moved to Middle East to absorb all I could so that I might post on a regular basis about the ME at MetaF.

Now that is funny.
posted by anathema at 6:10 PM on October 25, 2003


Matt is probably the only one of us with a cast-iron excuse, e.g.:

Sorry, darling - got to check what those (expletives deleted) are up to today.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:26 PM on October 25, 2003


I work as a recruiter/evangelist for a large online community
where? somewhere good? (because since quonsar's been spending so much time here, it's sucking) ; >

I always tell people at work about mefi when they see me surfing here--it's led to some good discussions on various subjects. (my office is very casual about stuff like that anyway)
posted by amberglow at 6:34 PM on October 25, 2003


What's The Best Excuse When You're Caught Posting Discussion Topics... when you're supposed to be filtering the net?
posted by languagehat at 6:49 PM on October 25, 2003


I work as a recruiter/evangelist for a large online community

scientology. all your e-meters are belong to us.
posted by quonsar at 7:05 PM on October 25, 2003


oh, scientology---can you fix me up with tom cruise? ; >
posted by amberglow at 7:08 PM on October 25, 2003


i always wanted to be kirstie alley's harley saddle.
posted by quonsar at 7:22 PM on October 25, 2003


Go for it, Q! :)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:26 PM on October 25, 2003


I always tell people at work about mefi when they see me surfing here--it's led to some good discussions on various subjects. (my office is very casual about stuff like that anyway)

you're lucky amberglow. not that my company (ya know, one of those cutting-edge web-development thingies that happened to survive the crisis a few years ago) really cares what it is i'm surfing because the egos are too big to even acknowledge that mefi is anything but just another blog, because ya know, they're cutting-edge. it's not like they've heard me talk about mefi, blogger, MT, etc. before. it's not like i hear quiet chatter behind closed doors on how far behind everyone else is even though they didn't even know what the fuck a blog was 3 months ago. heh. yeh, i love my company and if they ever threaten me because i'm surfing MEFI, i'll tell them to blow it out their ass.
posted by poopy at 7:31 PM on October 25, 2003


I just say I'm looking for a job.
posted by hama7 at 7:42 PM on October 25, 2003


if they ever threaten me because i'm surfing MEFI, i'll tell them to blow it out their ass.

hell yeah, man, if you didn't have those bastards to hate you'd like, probably have to change your username and stuff.
posted by quonsar at 7:54 PM on October 25, 2003


we're both lucky poopy. (you're especially lucky because your company survived--i know lots of people who had to start from scratch at a regular company after the bust--it was a rude awakening for them)
posted by amberglow at 8:28 PM on October 25, 2003


I wasn't given a chance to submit an excuse, I was fired summarily. Oh yeah, and branded as a pedophile, and accused of viewing "sexually explicit material".
posted by beth at 8:51 PM on October 25, 2003


Usually I get a wild look in my eye and start shouting things really loud until the boss goes away. I have a stash of prepared rants that I've run through Babelfish a few times for extra crazy factor. Here's the one that I used most recently (remember, it's bold because I'm shouting):

Verily there the new blog that being to happen to substitution, we do not fear the death of the blog! And because of the 3rd blog, and that 1/4, and its 5th side you throws this blog! And the rejoice namely the prophecy it can inform the best 5th Blog at the time of the worldwide thing which supposes that, it comes! BLOG! EVAR!

Works like magic, especially if you follow the performance up with the evil eye stare-down. Boss scurries off and I get back to web browsing.
posted by tss at 9:02 PM on October 25, 2003


scientology

Close. Epinions.
posted by scarabic at 9:25 PM on October 25, 2003


Verily, you must work in some unique place where you can get away with something like that, tss.

epinions---ahhh! where i work is reviewed there : >
posted by amberglow at 9:36 PM on October 25, 2003


Yea I must admit I can surf where and when I want. Although when I have caught my employees doing same I have been known to launch into tss' speech which completely gets them focused on the task at hand in order to avoid my evil (& squirrelly) eye.
posted by filchyboy at 10:15 PM on October 25, 2003


My employer won't let me even touch their computers. I have to waste my own time. Just to give myself that good, "stickin it to the man" feeling, sometimes I pretend to catch myself and give myself a stern talking to.
posted by faceonmars at 10:30 PM on October 25, 2003


Yeah, let every employer reading please note we're all posting on our own free time, on a Saturday night.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:38 PM on October 25, 2003


I'll let you know if I ever get a real job, or start a career of some sort.
posted by The God Complex at 11:30 PM on October 25, 2003


let every employer reading please note

oh yeah, and kurt - you suck.
posted by quonsar at 11:35 PM on October 25, 2003


I do the same thing I did when he caught me in high school. I tell him I was combing my hair.
posted by vito90 at 12:44 AM on October 26, 2003


[track]
posted by konolia at 3:38 AM on October 26, 2003


Now look what you all made konolia do.
posted by ginz at 5:49 AM on October 26, 2003


My work thinks I'm just e-mailing, been asked why I don't send blue background e-mails to them.
posted by thomcatspike at 7:48 AM on October 26, 2003


voodoo dolls, that easy,
VOO
DOO
posted by clavdivs at 8:56 AM on October 26, 2003


When I'm caught reading MeFi, I just tell my boss it's porn.
posted by kindall at 2:27 PM on October 26, 2003


I saw somewhere -- perhaps here -- a stylesheet that could be made the default stylesheet in a browser such that all websites would look simple and sort of spreadsheet-like. Despite a good thirty minutes' googling last week, and another ten minutes of combing through MeFi archives, I've been unable to find this again. Anybody have any tips?
posted by waldo at 3:16 PM on October 26, 2003


Simple - don't get caught.
posted by dg at 3:44 PM on October 26, 2003


waldo- ghostzilla?
posted by dogwelder at 8:03 PM on October 26, 2003


You know, I didn't think that ghostzilla was what I had in mind, but I think you're right -- I think that's exactly what I'd seen previously, but I had just somehow managed to forget that it was more than just a stylesheet. Thanks for the pointer to that, dogwelder. I've downloaded the source, and now I'm combing through it for the default stylesheet that I presume it uses to accomplish the bulk of its effect.
posted by waldo at 9:14 PM on October 26, 2003


When I'm caught reading MeFi, I just tell my boss it's porn.
MeFi slash?!?
posted by amberglow at 9:20 PM on October 26, 2003


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