Unless your boss reads Kotaku Australia, you’re all safe! You can admit it, you pulled a sickie to play Grand Theft Auto V. Or, if you’re a responsible cat, maybe you took a legit day of leave? Anyways, how is everyone going with the game so far?
Sick day image taken from Shutterstock
And if you don’t have the game, I have a question for you regardless: have you ever taken time off work to play a video game? If so, what was it?
The question is kind of redundant for me considering I write about video games for a living, but when I was working on the Official PlayStation Magazine, I took a day off to play the Xbox 360’s flagship game Halo 3! True fact: both me and the Editor at the time both took a day off to play. We were both massive, massive Halo fans.
Comments
46 responses to “Off Topic: How Is Your ‘Sick Day’ With GTA V Going?”
Haha. I had a sick day yesterday, and played GTA IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony. I am completely serious.
I think I’m doing it wrong.
Had my sick day yesterday got GTA V on Sunday 😉 not bad now just waiting for GTA online
I took a day off for the Wii launch, and the WiiU launch (which I spent downloading that stupid update) and I probably will for the PS4 launch too.
Hmmmm…. not sure I ever did it with games. Only time that comes to mind was chucking one to see Kill Bill Vol 2’s first screening at the cinema (and regrettably feeling guilty through most of it)
My sick day was going great until I got called into work because the person that was covering me apparently had to attend a funeral and so I had two choices..go to work and miss out on GTA while being sick (I have a cold and a headache) or say sorry I can’t and probably get told to take the rest of the week off (because I’d get fired)
Suckage. Though I’ve always held a policy of ‘funeral trumps pretty much everything’. Though I did get told not to come back in to a telemarketing job when I asked for a day off to attend one. “We need someone who can be here.”
Yeah I’m all for funeral is more important, but when you find out the guy didn’t actually go because it was 2 hours away from where he lived and didn’t wanna drive so he spent all day playing GTAV at his friends place
Uh… we all grieve in our own, personal way?
…Yeah. Nah.
I still think the funeral, like the cake that precedes it, was a lie
‘Fake funerals’ is about as low as you can get. It’s incredibly disrespectful to the actual dead and bereaved.
Up until 10pm last night I was seriously considering driving to the nearest midnight launch which was at JB Hi-Fi at Liverpool, then I realised I really don’t know my way around Liverpool especially at night and that was probably a bad idea.
I rationalised that I wouldn’t be calling in sick today anyway so really it was for the benefit of my wife, who can go get the game herself, which she is doing probably right now if she’s not already back home with it.
So. I’m at work. Finding time to comment on the interwebs.
*unproductive-five*
I went to work (still am).
When I finish at 4 I’ll walk past my unplugged PS3, boot up my gaming PC and settle for a night of not GTA.
I’ll buy it when they PC release it. I they don’t, I won’t buy it. I don’t care that much about what game I’m playing. I just like to play games.
I love how there is always a “waiting for PC comment”.
I said the same thing… Then at 9am this morning I went and bought a second hand 360 and a copy of the game. WHY AM I SO WEAK
I might be tempted to get it in october when multiplayer comes online, but until then, I want to finish spliter cell blacklist. (on PC of course)
I take time off for games every now and then, usually a Friday/Monday for a 4 day weekend. I don’t chuck sickys for it though, I work so much overtime I have hours spare and use that. Taking next Monday off for GTA seeing as I’ll be preoccupied this weekend.
Edit: I should add however, my boss has taken the morning off, he isn’t starting work til 1pm. (he went to the midnight launch last night).
Not GTA, but Civilisation, and not so much a day off to play but a day off after playing. I remember firing it up early evening and suddenly I could hear birds chirping and turning to look out the window I saw the sun just having fully completed cresting the horizon.
I rather enjoyed my sleep last night. Got up early, got to work half an hour early. Will likely be home by 5:30, at which point I can… wait half an hour for GTA to install while I have dinner… but then I’ll play GTA.
Interestingly, you may find that most people here are actually not calling in sick today – those people are all too busy playing GTA. We’re the poor schlubs that have the time to comment on the internet.
I was going to chuck a sickie today but on the weekend one of my rotten diseased riddled children coughed on me while my mouth was open…….now i’m taking an actual sicky, I have a bad cough, a headache, my right ear feels like its filled with god knows what but worst of all the bloody postman is late!!! He normally drops stuff off at either 10am or 3pm and today it seems he had chosen 3pm. My lawyer says I can’t sue the postman for deciding to do his route backwards sometimes so I guess I will have to wait.
Actually being sick is one of the worst things when taking a sick day, because you can’t enjoy it!
WoW: Cataclysm launch I took 5 days off. Mafia 2, Uncharted 3, The Last of Us all had time off too.
I dig excitement, but over the last few years I’ve learned not to book time off for MMO/major expansion launches. Way too much server instability/player overcrowding. (Cataclysm’s probably a fair exception, I’d expect Blizz knows their way around a launch day by now. D3 notwithstanding.)
Yep, i laugh when people take a day off only to spend all of it watching a patch screen, server disconnected screen or loading screen.
I honestly expect that’s probably the unspoken reason behind most, “THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE IN THIS DAY AND AGE, COMPANIES SHOULD KNOW THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN AND IMPLEMENT REDUNDANT AND EXPENSIVE SOLUTIONS WHICH WILL NEVER BE USED AGAIN… because I took today off and now it’s wasted.“
I’m about to go to the post office to pick up my copy of Tokaido.
Woo! BOARD GAMES \o/
Played till 3:30 in the morning, got 4 hours sleep, took my son to kindy and went to work. Don’t finish till 4 and then I have to wait till he goes to bed at 8. Then it’s GTA time.
Loving it so far.
I have every tuesday/ wednesday off already so, meh. I should’ve sliced my thumb this week instead of last week though 😛
I took the day off school to play Sega Bass Fishing on Mega Drive. I also convinced a friend this is a good idea.
Had an unscheduled day off for ME3, back in the day when I could pick it up from EB George Street, nip down to the Darrell Lee on the corner, and go home with an N7 edition and a fat bag of liqueur chocolates…. sigh.
Nope.
Calling in sick to go to Alton Towers is the closest thing for me.
You know whats shit?
Im actually at work, sick!
Will be picking the game up at lunch – school holidays next week so ill have legit reasons to take time off then
I’m pretty confident I’ve rostered days and even an entire week at a time, on occasion, JUST for playing games.
I know this only because my calendar says I did, not because I can remember a single damn thing from those game-addled moments. It’s kind of disturbing that a few days of travel to another city or country leaves a far greater impression on my memory than entire weeks lost to gaming.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my hobby and would hesitate to call the time ‘wasted’ because I don’t remember anything about it, but that’s an unexpected side-effect. Separation of real time from game-time. I probably remember the actual events of the game experience, utterly divorced from the reality of meatspace timelines.
Until 10 minutes ago my day was going great. Then I had the brilliant idea of picking up my collectors edition pre order during lunch. Now I might as well be sick because I sure can not concentrate on anything other than how bloody big my box is
Thats what she said……..
NO!!!
BAD GOOSE
BAD!!!
I laughed out loud in the classroom when I read that. +1
I think this post is redundant. If you’re pulling a sicky to play GTA, wouldn’t you be playing GTA not killing time at work on Kotaku? =P
I had the day off anyway but skipped on GTA as i would get bored after an hour anyway
I havent bought GTA5, probably won’t either. GTA4 burnt me too badly.
But yeah, I’ve taken days/weeks off for games or consoles. Halo 4, Splinter Cell Conviction, Xbox 360 launch, GTA4, Zelda Skyward Sword and I have a week booked for the Xbox One and PS4 launches. So inlcuding the weekends, I’ll have 9 days to play both consoles.
I MAY not end up with the PS4 though. Still uncertain.
No sickie… about to collect on my lunch break, no sickie tomorrow either.
Likely to install the game and not play it tonight, lol
I have the day off anyway and I’m not even doing anything with it. I am terrible at time.
My boss gave me an annual leave day to “run some errands” that I couldn’t do outside of work hours.
Picked up GTA5 at 9:10 this morning and except for a quick lunch break I’ve been playing it since 9:30 😀
No need for a sickle… arriving back in Sydney after a month holiday in Asia on Thursday, and I am wonderfully unemployed. I think I might need a week or two “rest” before I go looking for a new contract. Might just have to dust off the old ps3 and be a total bum for a while. 😀
I work away on a boat so I don’t have sick days, I do however have 6 months of paid leave a year of which the current 5 week block ended the day GTA was released. Conveniently I am now back at work on night shift and got to play GTA for a solid 5 hours from midnight til I had to get my sh!t together for the plane ride to work. Now I get 2-3 hours a day after my 12 hour shift to play uninterrupted. Boyyyyyy!