No Work Day

As fantastic as a "No Work Day" sounds, it is in fact quite the opposite. As many engineers know, a NWD does not come about because your boss told you to kick back, open a cold one and watch the greatest YouTube vid ever, it happens because all of your projects are in a "holding pattern" of sorts. Whether you are waiting on a surveyor, waiting on a client, or whatever. The only thing that you really CAN do is just that.... wait. Sure, you can set up your plan sheets.... add title blocks, North arrows.... etc, etc, etc.... but then you realize that it took all of one hour to do all of that. Congratulations! You only have 7 more!

On a NWD, a young engineer must do what is possibly the most shameful thing you can do in an office environment. Ask for work. You have to drag yourself into a manager's office, stare at the floor and sheepishly ask for something to do. This usually has about a 10% success rate because when one engineer is slow on work, chances are most everyone else is slow too. If they DO have something for you to do, it's usually some extremely menial task.

Me: Uh.... I'm kinda short on work right now, is there anything I can do for you?
Boss: Well, I don't really have anything, but I do need one copy of this standard 8.5"x11" piece of paper. That oughta keep you busy.
Me: Good thing I went to college.

Just a bit of advice.... if you're keeping that fake CAD drawing open so it looks like your working, make sure and pan the screen around every so often or someone might catch on.