Using Our Time Well, by David La Mar

There’s a short story—more of a modern-day parable—about a man who found a TV remote control on the street with no batteries inside. None of the buttons worked, except, when he pressed the fast forward button, the entire device lit up in a neon red color. He then looked at his watch and noticed that an hour had gone by in an instant. He pressed the button again. Another hour passed in a split second.

Amazed, he thought he had discovered a crack in the time-space continuum. He seemingly suffered no ill effects from this time travel. So, when he found himself in long meetings, uninteresting activities, and burdensome obligations, he simply pressed fast forward, sometimes repeatedly, and time advanced. …