Have Yourself an Irresponsible Little Post-Christmas

I've remarked elsewhere on the gauzy, energy-sapping air of unreality that prevails during the extended holiday period. This year-ending torpor, which reaches its peak in the week between Christmas and New Year's, falls particularly hard on office workers, who have to maintain at least the appearance of best business practices during a period when they'd really rather just down the last of the Snowman-shaped chocolates and stumble off to bed. So for new readers dropping in via the Fast Company weblog, a few tips on how to make the best of this sleepy off-week in the office.

1) This is an excellent week to steal office supplies. Efficient office managers, unwilling to lose any budget dollars left unspent in the last few weeks of the year, will have laid in a princely stock of legal pads, pens and those nice rubbery desk blotters. Now go nuts! Fill a pillowcase like St. Nick himself with Swingline staplers and multicolored Post-Its. Don't worry about getting them out past the drowsy security guard, who hates your employer even more than you do. In fact, brighten his day with a broad, larcenous wink as you roll the boss's personal copier out to your car. He'll appreciate the personal greeting, which is more than the boss himself ever gave him.

2) If your company was kind enough to give you a Christmas gift, use the corporate T1 connection to list it for sale on eBay. The lightning-quick upload of your descriptive text will enable you to beat the rush, and is sure to help you secure top dollar for your faux-crystal desk clock or motivational paperweight. (And remember: It is not actually your attitude that determines your altitude. It is much more accurate to say, as my friends at Despair.com do, that "Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.")

3) Finally, take advantage of the relative quiet and isolation to gather dirt on your co-workers. In a nice coincidence, the ones you will most likely want to incriminate -- i.e., those higher up the ladder -- are also the ones who are most likely to be spending the week elsewhere. So look at this week as a chance to redress some of the cruel inequities of office life, like the one that traps you in an airless maze of cubicles while your boss takes his idiot son snowboarding in Vail. Thus emboldened, dig deep. Waste baskets and recycling bins are a rich, loamy source of incriminating data. And when your boss drifts back in sometime after the 3rd and demands to know why he's been summoned to Corporate for a dressing-down, and what the hell happened to his copier, anyway, just smile. And enjoy your Happy New Year, courtesy of Mr. Irresponsible.