We have reached the greatest week of the year. Thanksgiving week. No one’s doing anything. Anyone doing anything is an enemy. Play catch up, take a couple of meetings to appear busy, reply to every email with a “Sounds great. Why don’t we regroup on the other side of the holiday?”

Do not let any corporate overlord shame you for the made up concept of “time theft.” It’s not real. It was made up by some MBA in the ’90s when 80% of the average corporate drone’s workload became automated and digitized.

If you are a salaried employee in the United States of America, you are not paid by the hour. You are paid for the amount of problems you can solve and the amount of revenue you can bring in. You’re not paid to look busy. This isn’t second shift at Dick’s Sporting Goods where the guy with the associate’s degree tells you “if you’ve got time to lean, you got time to clean.” You work your ass off 11.5 months a year. The least the despots in middle management can do this time of year is turn a blind eye in your direction as you tidy up some administrative work you’ve been putting off or do a little early bird holiday shopping on Amazon.

When I was WFH during the holidays some years ago for an undisclosed employer, I once opened an empty GChat window and put a coffee mug on the keyboard for four hours while I grinded out levels on Skyrim and ordered Dominos for lunch. Do what you gotta do to stay sane this time of year. Your moments of personal time are fleeting around this time of year. Enjoy it.

There is an unspoken agreement among the working class dregs around the holidays. Won’t start nothin’, won’t be nothin’. Don’t shoot me that Outlook invite for 3pm Wednesday, I won’t ask you for those travel receipts. We are engaged in a high stakes game of chicken. The minute someone puts that meeting on the books, the closer we are to adding more crap to the plate.

Three day week. Focus and finish. Or don’t. Listen to an audiobook, check out Cabela’s early Black Friday deals, do the NYT mini crossword. Time’s yours.