Shrugged and said that I’d been arranging the handover of my case load, which obviously isn’t billable work, and now that’s done I’ve got nothing to do. Which is why I asked for early release from my notice period, like the last three (!) people to quit had been granted, and yet they were making me work mine up until the very last minute.
Sounds convincing, doesn’t it? I’d actually been reading pdfs of ebooks at my desk for a fortnight, which is why I don’t know where those 17 minutes came from.