In lieu of a proper news lede, I will now ask all of us to give this man a standing ovation.

Shri A.K. Verma, an executive engineer with India’s Central Public Works Department, took a vacation in December 1990 and decided that he was done with work. Just done with it. Of course, since he was a government employee, he continued to get dem checks for 24 years from the Indian government.

So how did Verma get away with it? Government incompetence, basically. India’s bureaucratic process is so awful that it literally took them two and a half decades to process his termination. In the Indian government’s defense, India’s labor laws are so strict that it’s often very difficult to fire a public official for anything if they don’t break the law.

India hired a new Minister of Urban Development who decided to cut the shit. Really whip the troops into shape. He opened a drawer that contained Verma’s case, virtually untouched since 2007. Needless to say, the jig was up for Verma. He got the ax.

This is truly living the dream..

[via Mashable]