What do you do

In my free time I come to TR.

If I get free time? I think I would go home to my lovely wife and childeren, forget all about bits and bytes and just have a wonderfull time.

Each minute you are not producing for the company impacts the bottom line! Any spare time you have should be devoted to growing your skill set for your position or helping your coworkers!
*looks left*
*looks right*
I like to lurk on Usenet and - if it's really slow - I get on Yahoo Pool.
It's addictive!

Free time? Bah!

Free time should be put to use.
- Refactor some of that code that you have been meaning to get to.
- Sneak in a quick speed read of a new few thousand word article and put it to use somehow. Don't just think about using it... use it!
- Learn some new business concepts. Maybe something that will give you an edge in understanding your target business domain.

Do anything that will maintain your worth in the workplace. You are your own employer (in a sense) even when you work for someone else. Take yourself seriously and don't waste time.

I usually warm up the back-burner projects, the ones that everyone said last year, "Yeah, that'd be nice, but no chance in a blue moon..."

It's amazing how back-burners can cook some hot projects. For instance, one of those projects involved a trial of Sharepoint Portal Server. Our nonprofit educational org had no portal, no digital interface better than email for student & staff interaction. No one asked for it, but a little spare time yielded a compelling demo, and the project got the green light. Today everybody--staff and students--uses our portal.

Of course, this drives the IT budget manager nuts. There's no telling what new project will demand a couple grand.

Push yourself. Push others. Improve. Innovate. Discover possibilities in the direction you want your career to move.

When I get a break from the typical, I use it to start thinking creatively. I look at the big picture, and seek opportunities to apply both current and desired knowledge to benefit myself, my team, our division, and our company. We may be "Forture 50" today, but we could lose it all tomorrow if our edge goes dull.

So when I'm not chasing a worm or something running a muck on someone's computer, usually I go to tech sites and read about breaking threats and then I test the exploits and so forth on our network. My boss regularly gets called about malicious activity coming from one of my IP address... breaking into servers, port scans, etc. He usually comes over and I show him what I've done and we fix things or change standards as quickly as possible without negatively impacting the end users.

Yes, I work in data security, and yes, I've been breaking into various sytems since early in highschool... I have more of a passion for programming, but security is where I keep finding myself.

and break out the air guitar...

I have to agree. It makes much more sense to study and learn something new that will help you in your career (and can be justified as business-related) than duel with light sabres or throw balls around the office (has happened in one where I worked).

I had a couple of jobs that could be intermittenly slow, and I got three certs while others stood around the water cooler waiting for life to happen. It's not going to happen unless you do something about it!

I don't have a whole lot of time as I am finishing my BA and we are in the middle of the single pixel gif method. I am an artist at heart so, with this information.. IS there a way to make a silge pixel multiple colors? Without having to write several codes? Has anyone played with this idea?
Back to studying.. those free little gifts of time..
Thanks,
Jenn

When I had a job like that (back in college), I taught myself how to program in C. To do so, I participated in coding an online game (a MUD to those who know what they are). Granted, I already knew coding methods and such and knew how to program in Pascal, so I wasn't totally new to programming. And by coding a game, it kept my interest up and was more of a hobby than a study time. It did broaden my horizons, though. And, it turned out to be one of the factors in finding a job after college, as it showed that I could learn new things and didn't need a lot of babysitting to do so.

When I'm waiting the endless, boring minutes that a software install can take (Microsoft Office, anyone?), or waiting while an export finishes in the user's PC or whatever, I play Minesweeper! It's such an innocuous little program that it doesn't interfere with anything going on. And I like putting records up on every user's computer! It's pretty easy to do since no one else ever plays it. ;-) Can anyone beat 6 seconds for the beginner level?

People have IT jobs with FREE TIME... IT job.... free time... IT JOB..... FREE TIME..... IT... FREE... I...FR.... AAAAUGHHHHH! DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE! :::::::SIZZLE::::::::
:::::BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!::::::::::

It's a free download from Microsoft Catalog. Only a network version so I play against co-workers. Good way to pass time.

Short list....

Made 4ft tall paper mache snowman.
played hide and seek with other techs.
Used lunch trays to slide down stairs in a race.
Group of us made a fort out of dell boxes and ate lunch inside it.
Play countless online games against one another we usually do techs vs admins.
play make the new guy cry... (only worked once but he finally came back and we bought him lunch and explained the game.)
made annoying log on scripts to make people thing the were going crazy...
A while back we started rumors that we could monitor people through the new LCD monitors. actually worked in some cases.
Used the security cameras to watch people doing all kinds of things in their cars out in the parking lot.

Plus many more. I say if your works done and you can get away with it, do it. That why i have a very happy and productive team.

The free time at work is usually short spurts between addressing uneducated users. I have used web surfing via StumbleUpon. But, mainly I play gin rummy from Sierra. I work for a small manufacturing company. The enovironment is not geared towards I.T. They could care less about certifications. The interest is producing product and very little regard for what I do. I am the PC/LAN/Wan/Repair man support.

I start a new teporal shortly relation via chat.

Girls, add my hotmail fiorottoci@hotmail.com ;) I have a lot of free time :P

I come from a large corporate background (60,000 employees), but I just started a new job in March with a small IT department (6 guys). We provide all the IT related support, hell, our manager even works and our CIO writes some code.

Anyway, when I came in they were building a new PC from scratch and then update the OS and install software. I came in with a little knowledge of Ghost, but have now learned a lot. After much trial and error, I have now been able to create an automated installation of XP with SP2 and Updates integrated. Then I created an image with all the base software we use.

So, basically I created work for myself. I like to stay busy, and since I am new, I really want to make an impact and provide worth to the company.

Next, we need a database to track our assets. One of our guys keeps it in an Excel spreadsheet. NEXT...

While I have been in contractor hell for 5 years, in spite of almost always finding something productive to do (even if beyond my job description) you have been struggling to fill your time. Tell you what, have your boss hire me instead of you and get even more free time!

Take a writing course after you take one on spelling and grammar. Not only your attitude but also your communication is sub-par.

p.s. Please leave terms like alot to the juvenile message boards.