Oh dear. And here I thought your wife would be into it! Rip and tear!

Ha! Thanks for conjuring up all sorts of highly entertaining images in my mind. :D

By the way, I thought that was the main staple of birth preparation for the male: playing Doom in anticipation of the screaming and gore.

Several times years ago I was given all weekend to keep up with ever growing workload. Worked like a demon all day Saturday, then got paid double time Sunday to sneak in my Amstrad and play Colonization all day.

I got paid many hundreds of $$ to play and complete Final Fantasy 4, or at least that's the way I looked at it.

Technically, I was working the security desk at the main branch of a world renowned industrial company that makes products which almost everyone of you entrust their lives to, often several times a day. JRPGs are ideal distractions because most of those games are turn based, grindy and don't require too much brain power so it doesn't detract from the gameplay too much when you have to check security cameras, deal with false fire/burglary alerts, sign in people, pick up the phone etc.
And we all know that if Neo & Konsorten want to break into your company, they'll get in anyway regardless of whether you're playing games on the job or not. My supervisor didn't mind as long as I was using my private laptop and didn't use the company's electricity. If there was an alert anywhere on the compound, I would send the mobile guard there because I had to remain at the desk at all times. Most of the times I was doing the rounds which was less boring but when you're working the desk during weekends you'd die of boredom without some form of entertainment.

Thanks to you I now feel like rewatching Mike Leigh's brilliant Naked. Here is a mesmerizing clip with Johnny and Brian, the security guard (who guards space):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N90sl94g7PE

Usually British, but sometimes Dutch as the trade benefit was worth having. Never the French. Just....no. Sounds as though you have played some as well. Any preferences?

England and Dutch, my aversion was towards Spain, however. I also tended to play as IKEA in FreeCol.

That was amazingly hilarious! Haven't seen the movie but this scene is very amusing because I spent many a night walking around a big industrial site for 12 hours all by myself wandering through endless offices hunting down rogue open windows and worming my way through the deep bowels of badly lit or completely dark warehouses that looked like Doom/Quake/Half-Life levels and in time you get all sorts of thoughts and you will start talking to yourself. I would usually mentally count the money I was making like Uncle Scrooge the duck and imagine where I could fly to for my next painting trip. Some offices had world maps and I'd stare at those maps and contemplate my future, less philosophical than in this movie scene as I was making specific plans which I also set into action whenever I had saved up enough money for traveling.

Ever once in a while I had to train a new guard by taking them along on my shift but conversation never got as cray cray as in the movie. I had to use the same kind of gizmo though and with that thing I had to activate quarter sized tags that were hidden all over the compound, under desks, behind steam pipes and potted plants or wherever. Each shift I'd alternate my rounds and sometimes I'd even do watercolor paintings in my pocket sketchbook which was quite a challenge as I had to run to a different tag every 15 minutes and back. My boss would periodically check a log of the tags to see if the rounds were done thorougly. If you missed even one tag it would be highlighted in the log. But with experience you'd start to freestyle, at first it was like a "find the Easter eggs" game to me but then it became routine and I felt overleveled for that kinda work. Nowadays I flat out refuse to work at night, it's not healthy anyways and it's weird when you commute home in the morning when everyone else commutes to work. This used to not bother me but nowadays I participate in various sports which means I need to be up and operational at the same time as normal humans.

Thanks for sharing the anecdote (and for the vivid imagery) awalterj! I know what you mean: imagination is the safeguard of sanity in many aspects of a person's working life. :)

Cool! Actually, Brian also had a specific goal in mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4euaY6XlV60#t=1m18s

Ha, that's hilarious! It almost sounds like a lone gunman's game of laser tag (though I guess you'd have to get pretty close to each of the barcode bastards in order to finish them off).

So what were your paintings depicting?

A freestylin' Duck Tales inspired, watercolour painting security guard, eh? That calls for a sequel! :D