So, how are you spending your bench time?

[DS23]

i'm building an enormous viking longboat out of cardboard

and cleaning & re-painting the garden furniture

and researching some oracle apps

and listening to sonny rollins

and playing the wii u

and my guitars

[SimonMac]

Bench time for me is always a choice, so for the first two weeks i sleep as much as I can (usually in a cave in Spain), couple of weeks after that popping round the country visiting friends, couple of weeks then doing jobs around the house (read playing Xbox and watching TV Boxsets) then I start looking for a contract as after 6 weeks of not working I am usually bored

[sasguru]

Voluntary bench time for me - apart from Cretin Watch, working my way through some machine intelligence texts.

[Bunk]

I don't call it bench time if I'm not actively looking for work. It's just leisure time, a perk of being a contractor. If I want work and I don't have it, that's bench time.

[sasguru]

I don't call it bench time if I'm not actively looking for work. It's just leisure time, a perk of being a contractor. If I want work and I don't have it, that's bench time.

Fair enough, enjoying my leisure time then. I only want to work for 6 months of the year (ideally Oct-March), problem is that the interesting jobs don't follow a nice pattern and some have the cheek to pop up in spring and summer.

[MarillionFan]

What is this 'bench' you all talk about? Are you all homeless?

[fullyautomatix]

Sell your house, buy a camper, paint it pink and spend the rest of your life sh.gging hippy chicks.

Alternatively get a Microsoft certification, whatever that means.

Loser!

[JRCT]

I started contracting at the same time that my wife went back to work from maternity leave. I have to say that, without doubt, the BEST thing about this is being able to take 2-3 months off between contracts to spend some quality time with my little one. It's great.

Other than that I'm basically

2-3 months of - Lots of money: relax, relax, relax........

2 weeks of - No money left: Sh1t! Get another contract!

[Dallas]

I expire next thursday and am keeping schtum no one said anything yet as I eye up the bench after over 3 year here.

If I am lucky I will be poncing around the gym for at least a month.

[MicrosoftBob]

I haven't been on the bench since the summer of 2010

Saying that having had an extension mooted and gone nah not without home working it might turn into a long hot summer