Steal some time - it's good for you.

Time is the ultimate currency.

'Time theft' aka 'taking a break' or even 'pulling a sickie' is a great Australian tradition that has been much neglected since the turn of the century (the 21st century, not the 19th that the government are still living in).

Maybe that's why there's so much stress around. It used to be OK to have a day off without a doctors note and all that rigmarole. Generally, one did it when one had an important event on outside of work or, more often, when one had been through a gruelling period of work or even a period of conflict at work.

Bosses would turn a blind eye to the occasional sickie because they usually resulted in the employee being refreshed, happier and more productive when they returned to work.

Timing a sickie was a bit of an artform. One would never take one on a Friday or Monday, less one be accused of trying to get a free long weekend. One would never take one on the Thursday before or the Tuesday after a long weekend either. That was plain disrespectful to the boss and your fellow employees.

You would never pull a sickie on Melbourne Cup day either. If you did, how would you get your workplace bets made?

Work time breaks were another thing that were often bent to suit the employee (or 'time theif' as they're now, so disrespectfully called). There was usually morning 'smoko' at around 10 - 11 am. That could be 15 minutes to half an hour depending on where you worked. Then there was lunch, being an hour back in my earlier careerbut later, whittled down to 20 minutes at my last job. We usually had a 15 minute afternoon smoko around 3pm. That was mandated at some places and up to the employer's discretion at others.

A long lunch break was not always a luxury though and often one had no time to actually eat! Lunchtime was when everyone rushed around to pay their bills! There was no phone banking at the time and bills had to be paid over the counter at the bank or motor reg. We couldn't even pay many bills at the post office as we can now. The banks closed at 3pm too, so one couldn't shoot off at afternoon break time to pay a bill quickly. It was horrible at lunch time, especially at a place like the motor registration department. There were long lines of edgy, rushed workers hoping to get to the counter before they had to rush back to work.

Smokers had it good. In most factory or labouring environments, one could have half a dozen smoke breaks a day. It was polite to keep your break to the length of time it took to finish one cigarette.

Non smokers were denied that privilege I some places and once, I took a 'fresh air' break and was docked for it!

Random toilet breaks were somewhat of an artwork with some men (it never seemed to be the female workers) managing to wrangle lengths of time of up up to half an hour sitting on the 'throne'. The truly daring could pull off one of these each side of the lunch break! They were legends!

Things are harder now and there are labels being added to workers. Time thief for one who 'inappropriately' uses work time. 'Quiet quitting' is my favorite. That means, only doing what you are paid for, what is in your job description. Wow! There's a label for that!

Doing more than one's job has always been applauded by bosses but ultimately, they haven't benefited the worker. In fact, one could say that the efficient worker is punished by being given more work. There is this obscene compulsion for management to make employees keep or appear to be busy foe their whole work day, even if that meant doing wasteful 'make work' kind of jobs.

Things have changed but taking a break is probably more important than ever for one's nerves and even sanity than ever. Dr Malcolm (i.e me) recommends squeezing in a couple of minutes to yourself on both sides of lunch (if you get a lunch break, that is), being late at least once a month and slacking off whenever the boss isn't looking.

Make your time work for you. It is empowering in these days of disempowerment. Even if you're sitting on the toilet, doing nothing, it is your time time that you have selected for yourself and time you have 'stolen' from a system that steals more than that from you.

Good luck! Ultimately, time is all we have.