Skills

You know, there are a variety of work-related skills. I consider myself a pretty good worker, but I tend to get rather unproductive during these summer months without classes (so I guess it's fair enough that I'm being sent all over the place to help at other schools this summer). When you're working in such an environment (usually an office), there is a skill that some are born with and some must learn: skipping out early. Leave too late and what's the point? Ooo, look at me, I left 5 minutes early. Exciting. Leave too early and not only do you run the risk of feeling bad for essentially stealing money, but you also run an increasingly large risk of getting caught.

Being that things can get around the interwebs, I don't think I'll tell a personal story. Perish the thought of leaving work early. Here's a close call that someone had yesterday. Someone called, huh...Peter.

Yesterday Pete decided he had been sitting at his desk reading that Earthsea novel long enough and decided to clock out about an hour early. Without actually clocking out, of course. A glance at the Vice Principals' desks (yeah, his school has 3 VPs; it's special): only one was there. Either the other two had clocked out or were off doing Vice Prinipaly things. Out the back door! Down the stairs, outside, almost home free, and...oh,  one of the VP's was walking towards the school. Seems he had hit up the convenience store. Pete waved, trying to be all natural. The VP stopped and half smiled. He knew. 「どこに行く？」("Where you going?")
A little off-guard, Peter feigned ignorance. "Hmmm?" 「もう帰る？」("Heading home?") The VP asked.

There was no going back now - they say that follow-through is the most important part of any sport it can be applied to. Pete nodded and smiled 「はい！」Luckily this was the VP that didn't really care to bust peoples' balls. 「じゃ、お疲れ様！」("Well then, good work today!"). Peter waved and headed home.

Close call for Pete. He'll have to be more careful next time.