Earning money sitting at computer - any ideas how?

[titchy]

I curretnly have the dullest job in the entire world. All i have to do is sit at my desk manning the office. I'm on my own in the office with very little interuptions or actual work to do.

Lovely as you mumsnetters are I really can't spend 5 hours of my day mumsnetting and surfing the internet. So does any one have any bright ideas as to how I can fill my time more productively, preferably earning a few quid?

titchy don't want to rain on your parade but if you are thinking of earning money elsewhere while on your current employer's 'time' and using their equipment you could find yourself in trouble.

Apologies if I have misunderstood and I don't really have any helpful ideas either, but thought I'd just throw that in in case...

Flowery's right - one of my colleagues tried to do that a couple of years ago (she was selling herbal products or something from her desk - her sales patter drove me INSANE!) and got into huge trouble. The only reason she wasn't sacked (after 18 years in the company) was because she does have a fairly difficult life and the company took pity on her.

I used to be bored sitting at my desk with little to do all day (very different now: I don't know where all the work's come from this last year or so, but I'm completely overloaded!) and often imagined I might write a novel whilst sitting at my desk. Was of course far too lazy, but you could try that?

can you be proactive and ask colleagues for work to do. maintaining spreadsheets, typing, anything to keep busy, show you're flexible/have initiative and you might learn some new skills along the way, and be able to move into a different job in the company?

Could you do some distance learning? For instance Open University or a vocational equivalent.

BrownSuga's idea excellent.

re studying - not sure about how happy an employer would be about you sitting there typing up OU essays or whatever either, tbh, unless you were open about it beforehand and they supported you.

I think that depends flowerybeanbag. I had a job that really wasn't full-time but it's a specialist field and they found it hard to recruit for the job so they really didn't care what I did with my spare time so long as I was there if they needed me. The guy I replaced had worked there for 3-ish years and he had done some computer networking type of qualification mostly in office hours.

I did take on some other work, but I told them that I didn't want to do dreary stuff that others didn't want to do, and they were fine with that as they wanted to keep me happy. I left after a year anyway as I moved house and the commute was a nightmare.

have you considered trading on ebay - you have buy and sell on but you can upload and manage it all etc while at the comp

can i send you some of my work to do to pass the time you could do peoples admin/pa type work

write a book

venue finding ..

short stories to sell to magazines, mills and boons ..

blogging ..

can you sew? you could do alterations ..

you wont need to pay for postage with the ebay stuff either

competitions ..