tis my last working day of the year and i am antsy as hell to get up out of here. i’ve already had a meeting with the majority of the people on my floor that are actually here today – 5 people plus 1 escapee from the 3rd floor – and established that even if the 3pm “release your team” email does go out, many of our managers aren’t here to release us. And that’s besides the point, because most of us don’t have enough work to keep us busy until 3pm. Only 1 of the 6 people surveyed will be here for even a single day during the week between Christmas and New Years. The 1 guy that’s going to be here next week keeps coming to me and asking me about work. Very soon I’m going to suffocate him with my collection of stress balls.

Therefore, our little sect is contemplating attempting the infamous “Lunchtime Dip” operation. Meaning, screw the 3pm release time, we’ll just go to lunch and not return. What’s the worse that can happen? Your absentee manager pulls you up on January 3, 2006 and says “I hear you were part of the lunchtime dip. You owe me 2 hours”? Right. Mind you that my manager is currently executing the “my manager is on vacation so i’m just going to conveniently not come to work and hope that nothing happens today that i should have been there to manage” maneuver. Its classic. You imply to everyone that you’ll be here on the day before the holiday and even express hope and concern that the 3pm release may or may not happen, and then, just when you’ve faked everyone out, thinking that you’re in the same pathetic and hopeful boat as them, you put on your out of office voicemail and leave town. Its a bit tricky, but with the right preparation and convincing acting, 1 in 19.6 people can pull it off.

When I was a developer for a large global bank 20 minutes north of Manhattan, I set a record for the number of consecutive “Mission Impossible” Friday afternoon escapes. For a year and a half I was able to vanish into thin air at about 1 every Friday. By the time anyone noticed, I was halfway to Baltimore. What could they say? “Wasn’t there a little black girl here a few moments ago?”

Its 11:06 now and coming down to the wire. I was starting to lose my nerve, but a quick walk around the building has increased my confidence a bit. There isn’t a single solitary office with a light on. There’s already a steady trickle of cars leaving the parking lot. I see a bunch of foreign programmers at their desks, but they don’t know any better.

Anyway, enough about how I’m shirking the man on my billing rate. I want to send a shout out to all the Christians in the house. Merry Christmas!! And I can’t forget my brothers and sisters in Judaism, Happy Hanukkah – Put your menorahs up in the air!! And a big Habari gani to my Kwanzaa peoples!!

*”Mission Impossible” music begins…....*