Slashdot Mirror
How to Fake A Hard Day at the Office
futileboy writes "There's a great article in the WSJ about how to use technology to avoid work, while giving the impression of working. At the bottom of the article is "A beginner's guide to making it look like you're working when you're not." "
Having this story posted on Slashdot is like having an article on a paid porn site called, "A beginner's guide to masturbation."
http://slashdot.org
1. Pretend to work hard
2. ???
3. Profit!
Just watch office space. Lots of hints
my favorite method is the BOSS key
-m
...is my best friend.
Life in Orange County
If you need help getting motivated, just get onto a project whose code you can share w/ your own projects.
/. with ghostzilla.
Then again, it might be easier to IM friends and browse
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Now the question is, how many /.'s are going out and posting the the article remotely now that they read this?
1. How to fake a hard days work at the office
2. How to find a new job after they figured out you
faked a hard days work at the office.
If you use MS products to try and fake a hard day at the office, it would probably just be easier to put in a good, honest day's work.
Learn from the best, learn from Wally.
-jfedor
Didn't I see that crappy software in thousands of popup and banner ads? Isn't there a free, open-source alternative called (Tight)VNC that is probably just as (in)secure?
No, it's not off topic. GoToMyPC.com is mentioned in the article as a good way to remotely control your computer for "only $19.95 a month".
Is it possible to fake a hard day and read slashdot at the same time? I hope so.
Today's violation of copyright:
... If everybody does that, the company goes bankrupt," says Stuart Gilman, director of the Ethics Resource Center in Washington.
(Let's hope they consider it a free sample)
Shirk Ethic: How to Fake
A Hard Day at the Office
By JANE SPENCER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
David Wiskus gives new meaning to the term "working lunch." The Denver tech-support worker installed a program on his Handspring Visor hand-held that allowed him to manipulate the screen on his office computer from a booth at a local diner.
As he lingered for hours over burgers and fries, he could actually open windows and move documents around on his screen via the hand-held -- creating the impression to anyone who walked by that the diligent Mr. Wiskus had just stepped away from his desk.
It has never been easier to be a white-collar slacker. While the uninitiated are still grousing about how mobile technology has created a 24/7 work culture and sabotaged their private time, a savvier crowd has moved on to a more rewarding pursuit: using technology to make it look like you're working when you're not.
The tactic isn't new, but the tools have gotten a lot more powerful. Executives have long discreetly asked their secretaries to flip on the office light to make Friday absences less glaring; leaving a jacket on the back of your desk chair is also an old trick.
But the latest generation of office accessories, from cellphones to the RIM BlackBerry, have brought a new level of sophistication -- and a host of new strategies for manipulating perceptions of your diligence.
The new options allow people to do far more than send e-mails from the beach. Services like GoToMyPC.com -- similar to one Mr. Wiskus used on his hand-held -- let you operate your office computer by remote control. You can even move the cursor on your screen, opening documents and printing them on the shared office printer.
Other strategies involve using existing technology in new ways. E-mail timers, a standard feature in Microsoft Outlook, let you send e-mails hours after you have gone to bed -- a painless way to suggest to the boss that you are burning the midnight oil. (In Outlook, open up a message, go to "options," and fill in the "do not deliver before" option.)
Instant Message programs, a more-immediate form of e-mail now used by millions of employees, can also be reconfigured. Typically, if you haven't touched your computer in a while, the people you chat with online see an "idle" message next to your name. Diehard slackers can crack into the program settings to make themselves appear perpetually available.
Psychologists call these games "impression management," a field whose rules have been transformed now that so many people communicate through technology rather than a handshake and a conversation. In some ways, the e-mail that arrives at 11 p.m. is the modern sign of a dedicated worker.
But others see all this as yet another legitimate technology that has been hijacked by people with skewed ethics. "If you're out playing golf, and you look like you've spent four hours in the office.
Even some lower-tech tools, such as call forwarding, have grown more sophisticated, making it a snap to answer your desk phone from your daughter's soccer game or the pedicure chair. Phone company SBC Communications Inc. currently offers five different call-forwarding services, including a new one that lets you transfer your phone to different phone numbers throughout the day.
E-mails Read by Jenni
Services like Yahoo By Phone also let you pick up your e-mail from afar, even without a hand-held gadget. For $4.95 a month, a computerized voice named Jenni will read your messages aloud over the phone.
Wireless e-mail gadgets like the Palm Tungsten W and the BlackBerry can also be tinkered with to help cover the tracks of an office absence. E-mails sent from a BlackBerry, for example, automatically sign o
Good thing my boss doesn't read /.
I should get back to my pina colada now
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
how to use technology to avoid work
Buy a vibrator.
Best Windows Freeware
So, from what I read, it seems like an aweful lot of "wor" to not actually do any work. Manipulating the screen from your hand-held, sneaking around flipping on and off lights, printing phantom documents to the printer... It seems like you are doing just as much work as you would actually being in the office, except it's relativly unproductive...
It seems to me the way to go would to be use virtual offices where people can do REAL work from the coffee shop or from home without having to feel guilty that they aren't in a cubicle. Why is that concept so hard for many companies to understand and implement?
Seems like a lot of trouble to go to, huddling over a wireless doodad, trying to remotely connect to your desktop, when you can plan a script in advance at your desktop, with a real keyboard and display, and save the script for reuse later.
:)
That said, please take the wireless approach - I work for a company that makes wireless doodads
no matter what my personal opinion is.... i have a dream that one day someone will let a thread ride, without a ms or *nix comment. ok so it will never happen, but a dream is a dream
This article makes it appear to be a lot of work to avoid...work.
It seems like it would be a lot more exhausting trying to appear to work and worrying about getting caught - especially since a lot of the "avoidance" such as checking and responding to email and voicemail actually IS work - than it would be to just work at the office.
I guess some people just need to feel that they are getting away with something.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Add a bunch of fancy titles to your name, including every known Microsoft cert you can get by using cram session, and maybe some of the new Linux certs as well--- and "consult".
Leave the real work for the grunts whom you are helping, and learn how to ask open ended questions to techs who don't express themselves like "normal" people do, so that they come up with their own answers. Don't forget, if you get into a bind, you can always check your resources and go ask on the internet, and just bring them back the emails/posting using the biggest words. More than likely this will cause a light bulb to go off above those tech's heads, and they will go code away for you. (While you consult with that cute secretary down the hall, of course!)
Articles like this may seem cutesy, but the sad fact is that corporate leaders see this and assume all IT workers are/can or will do this. This furthers the mistrust some corporate types have of IT managers and workers.
Worse, it'll make it easy for corporate leaders to rationalize moving *YOUR* IT job to India. The article doesn't seem too funny now, does it.
Damnit, my boss is a /. reader. Thanks for blowing my cover Taco! =P
--
mcpsoaak
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
And they're probably not reading slashdot, so in an era when three-martini lunches don't get expensed anymore, the WSJ is their last friend left in the world.
sulli
RTFJ.
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
Don't have it automagically send out on the tens or fives.
I liked to keep it on the odd minutes.
1 am is nothing, the 3 or 4 in the morning message have that feeling of really busting your ass.
I always liked Apple Remote Desktop for my control the machine from afar.
Hell I could sit at my Mac at home, remote in, turn on Virtual PC and admin the Novell Network.
No really, it is. I should know, I am the master of doing nothing!
(Un?)wittingly copied to /. of course. They manage to plug the RIM BlackBerry Handheld, GoToMyPc.Com, and Yahoo By Phone -- even going so far as to provide prices for the latter two items. Unfortunately the wsj does not appear to have an online advertisers index so I can't just look it up.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Posting an article on /. on how to pretend to look busy while goofing off.
Was someone trying to demonstrate recursion?
The sudden realization of the real reason behind all the dupes on Slashdot... posted by Taco, nonetheless.
Quintus malus puer est.
I've never found it hard to do. Of course, I work for the government :-)
Work or go home please... we are not trying to fill desks, we are trying to crank out software
I really don't care how hard you work as my employee. All I care about is results. If I need a project working flawlessly by next week, and its done, I don't care if you spent half the time playing Quake.
As a programmer myself, I know that code often gets done in spurts, and that a break (especially a nap!) can improve productivity quite a bit.
The problem is there are some people who can do it, and some that cant. If you aren't the type that can do it, you really can't fake it. The people you work for and work with all know what needs to get done. They won't be fooled by late night emails. When the due date arrives and you arent done, they will know you weren't up to snuff.
Had this article come out about a year ago, I might have used some of these techniques just to prove to some people I was doing the work that I was legitimately doing.
On my present job, I am blessed with having a boss that allows me to set my own hours. I typically come in at the crack of dawn (6 AM), have lunch at my desk, and leave by 2:30PM. Combine this with needing only 5 hours of sleep a night and it gives me lots of free time (handy considering my wife and I have a new house with landscaping that is in awful shape, so I suppose "free time" is really a misnomer here :) ).
About a year ago, though, I had trouble with people from other groups thinking I wasn't working my 40 hours a week (which I was), and a whispering campaign started. My boss fortunately stood up for me, since she knows I work those hours, but I had to prove it to everyone else. So I got in the habit of answering all my email from the previous day the moment I got in at 6AM.
Finally one of the ones that I suspect complained about me tested me by coming in early and dropping in at my desk at 6:15 AM. Surprise, surprise, I was actually there like I said all along.
I haven't had any trouble since.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
Funny. In my area, that's the name of a local bar.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Scott Adams has covered this topic many a times in several of his books and comics :)
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
No wonder all you jackasses are complaining about the poor economy and being unable to get jobs. :-P
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Regular readers of the WSJ don't need this advice any more than /. readers.
Most have trancended to such an advanced state of slacking that they can appear/disappear at their desks at will. They can read e-mails via mind control, and need no lowly cheater devices. Mere mortals fear their omnipresence! Bwahahahaaahahaa!
I don't know why I know that.
Irony: When slashdot posts an article about avoiding work.
Go to bed early, but make team members think you're burning the midnight oil by timing messages to send at 3 a.m.
Yeah. Um, listen. Yeah. We've been cutting back recently, so of course our current employees have to work harder to make up. Yeah. So, then, yeah. If you could just, um, stay in until 4 AM, that would just be great. Yeah. Tomorrow too. 4 AM. Thanks a lot, m'kay? Yeah.
I telecommute most of the week, and my boss has no problem with that. Of course, I'm always reachable via cell phone, and due to our deleiverables system, it's easy to tell what I've been working on. And I do have a work ethic. But if I want to take an hour off and take a nap, it's hardly ever a problem. Of course, I tend to work late at night too so it evens out. There are days where I do little, and others where I bust my ass. It evens out.
what happens when you start remotely moving windows and stuff around on your desktop while your boss happens to be standing in front of your desk?
As ridiculous as it sounds, it works.
Of course, George didn't seem to have that much success at work so YMMV on this nugget of advice.
whole new light on the dot com bust, doesn't it?
on the subject is "Lay Low and Don't Make the Big Mistake ---Tha Lazy Person's Guide to Success on the Job" by Harris and Herschlag.
For example, in there they suggest the Phil Jackson manouevre: Phiil has the most championship rings in NBA history. He collected two as a player while playing backup to Bill Bradley and the rest while "coaching" Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan, with the Bulls, and Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal with the Lakers.
Contrast this with Karl Malone, who busted his a55 while playing for the Utah Jazz for a total of zero championship rings.....
Hm. "Diehard slackers can crack into the program settings"?
[_] Auto-Away Mode
Wow. I am the über cracker... um ... "slacker". Where do I pick up my "approved computer genius" shirt?
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
Then spend a year surfing the web to test it :)
My employees' /etc/hosts so that slashdot resolves to 127.0.0.1
Seriously, if I'm managing you and you are getting paid to do 8 hours of work, then you are going to do EIGHT HOURS OF WORK.
Someone had to tell the computer to suggest it.
It's still false. Not True. Unethical.
A large percentage of this article is about altered perception by making it look as if you were accomplishing something you are not.
Deception is being taught here. It's frightening to think I have to compete with liers.
I'm all for people working remotely however. It's not always necessary to be physically present to accomplish a task.
Shouldn't tech-saavy people condone productivity? I mean how are you going to be taken seriously if you deliberately try to avoid work. Do you ever wonder why most import cars are vastly superior to domestics? Maybe North Americans should be more concerned about work ethic. Technology should be used to streamline the workflow and increase productivity, not bastardize workflow, generate annoyances that somebody else has to clean up, and stagnate progress. honestly...
If your job has a lab or server room, do the following:
1. leave your coat in the car
2. enter the office through the door nearest the server room
3. go into the server room. Walk around looking preoccupied by some work thing.
Any one seeing you there will think you've been there a while
4. go to a printer, and pickup some of the waste paper sitting beside it (code, memos,
even blank paper).
5. write stuff (anything) on the papers
6. walk to your office, again looking preoccupied. If anyone sees you on the way,
immediately grab them and engage them in heated conversation (complaints, ongoing
pressing issue, whatever). This, and the papers, will fool them into thinking you've
been here for hours. Success is when they say "hey man, you work too hard, talk a break"
7. go to your office
Want a long lunch - you can "double lunch" by taking two 50 minute lunch breaks
with a twenty minute gap between them. Send lots of emails and do your checkins
or changes or whatevers during this time. If you're smart you can time it so that this
period is right in the middle of your boss's break, so you can call him and leave him
a voicemail (ideally about something you know he won't want to get back to you about).
Don't lunch with co-workers or leave or return when they do (so no-one is entirely
sure when you came and went).
The best office is the least visible one - the one from which you can sneak away
without passing too many important people's offices.
Some people (particularly those who travel) change their voicemail message every day
("hi this is chad. It's tuesday the third, I'll be inthe office all day"). Do this,
but do it from home at 8am, then sleep in till 10 and go in.
making people convinced that you try to appear that you don't do any work whilst in reality do work while actually NOT doing any work.
now that would be more academically challenging and even intresting perhaps, while of course making mad schemes for office domination and driving people crazy.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I can already hear it.
"want to see a huge horse c0ck in a tiny teen c*nt?"
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
I'd expect an article like this to come from the New York Times.
tell your boss that you're writing an article on how to look busy at work.
Gotta be a reporter for that one though.
I read this somewhere on the 'net, so don't give me credit for it.
Step 1: You must have an office with a door, otherwise this won't work.
Step 2: Scatter some paper clips about the office, making sure to get some under your desk.
Step3: Close the door and lie down on the carpet. Place your feet firmly on the door and reach for a paperclip under your desk.
Step4: Sleep the day away.
If someone should try and opne your door, you will be jarred awake and you can say that you dropped some paper clips and were just reaching for them.
--
From my own personal experience, this works very well.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
This one is simple but it really works. It comes from two simple observations:
- If there are serious looking stuff on screen and you use the keyboard a lot, it looks like you're working.
- Your boss has probably no idea what you're doing with all the terminals windows. (Besides if you're like me they are using tiny characters that can only be read by the one sitting in front on the monitor)
So just use lynx to browse the web, (re)play the great classic infocom games, code fun little games and then do the gameplay tests, read ebooks. Just make sure that emacs is open with the current official coding project loaded and NOT always on the same page.
Easy, have fun!
True warriors use the Klingon Google
"If you're a boss, and you send e-mails at all of hours of the night, the subtle message you're sending employees is, 'I'm working, why aren't you,' " says Anne Warfield, a career coach in Edina, Minn.
Poop. If I believe the email time was not caused by exchange choking all day on viruses, I conclude that the boss does not have his shit together. These days everyone is just hanging on to their job at companies and you are lucky if your company is at 60% capacity. The only reason to work late is make work, usually the kind that's laid down to make life hell before firing a bunch of people.
There is no substitute for real work and everyone knows the difference between it, slacking and make work.
I'm not recomending that everyone "wipe the counter" whenever they are underutilized, but cleaning the desk is not a bad idea. Everyone has some down time, and NYC desks are filthy. When that five minute's worth of work is done, there are plenty of things to do with yourself besides sit in a dinner for three hours. You might read trade publications, email your family, hit slashdot and do other normal things. Sitting in a dinner for three hours, that's like punishment.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"GoToMyPc.Com: Download software to your office PC that allows you to control your work computer screen over the Internet from anywhere. You can even operate your mouse remotely. Costs $19.95 a month."
Why pay $19.95 a month when there is VNC ?
Seems a bit silly to me... And of course there is SSH if you are not part of the Borg.
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
Maybe the person who modded Zentec as a troll is a high school or college kid laughing at how funny the story is, how clever you are, and how concerned all of us old fogies are about what's happening in IT.
But when real life jumps up and bites you in the ass, it's not so funny. I know a lot of people who are out of work right now and making very painful decisions about their future (i.e. - do I stay in IT or become a shoe salesman so I can keep up with mortgage payments).
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Ever had this happen to you?
* On a project deadline, they feel your timeline to build the servers can be cut down from a 2 weeks to day, to make the project on time?
* Engineering forces a product down your throat, best of the customer blah blah. And forget to include an admin interface? Places the server 150 miles away, and puts it in a DMZ so you cant remotely manage it.
* Vendor builds a unix box, on the oldest version of an os known to man, and wont run any standard tools, and the only monitoring is a log file with "ERROR" in it.
* Customer is down, on a new service that dropped form the sky into your lap... No support tools, no access, and your Manager is asking why you are taking so long. Dont even think of asking for documentation.
* Your manager learns a new technology buzzword, and all the sudden, you have 10x more paperwork, and nothing has changed.
* The software you run crashs all the time, causing outages. The vendor blames you, and points to internal documentation they wrote "last week".
* Vendor A blames Vendor B for not following the SPEC, but your service is down, and neither will help you get it back in service.
* You call Tech support in the middle of the night to find out your contract number isnt correct, doesnt matter you are the biggest customer and have super duper platnium support. Call back tomorrow.
* In all staff meeting, managlement tells the staff about new work methods, which happen to just only affect you.
* You ask a question to one manager, and 2 hours later, an All Employee email goes out about the same subject, that everyone should have already known!
* You accept a new project, no training, no tools, no documentation, and its now production. Then they fire the Project Manager, Engineer and consultants the day after.
* Marketing sells wizzbang new product, forgetting to see if its really possible.
I tell you, the reason Dilbert and BOFH are so popular, its almost like real life....
"Have you seen Mike?"
"Yeah, Mike was over at the other building a minute ago. But where's Pete?"
"Pete who?"
Well, you get the picture... there's always a Mike or Bob or Trinity *sorry, Matrix overload* around. Just chill and show up at the next meeting with some nice graphs....
Either that, or a lot of people will get fired.
While you're all stuck in the office, I'm hiking ~!!!~~~!!!~~~~~ up here, the view is
LOST CARRIER
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
I also enjoyed the hint that said "(One key: Reply messages sent from a BlackBerry often have "Re:" with a lower-case "e" in the subject line, while e-mails sent from an office PC sometimes show "RE" in the subject line.)"
Seriously, why is Slashdot linking to articles like this that are so technologically uninformed? Alas, at least it didn't post the article twice.
and probably will be your best friend Ghostzilla it is such a noble browser.
That was maybe 20% of a real story. None of those methods could be used more than a couple times before you got caught. Send mail at 2am, then the guy that really was there at 2am tells the boss you weren't there. Doh! And one of the examples wasn't even trying to get away with anything but was a great example of being able to stay in touch even while away!
And don't think your hard working peers will let you get away with it either. Good luck with that slacking guy, I'll just take your job when your booted out thank you!
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
They want you to pay for reproducing content:
...
Get a Quote!
Wow
Wearing pants should always be optional.
I teach a course on technology and reading /. is part of my job :)
The art of looking busy is simple. The easiest way to achieve this is to "LOOK ANGRY!" every time a boss/superivisor is in the area. You're angry, you're angry about work, you're angry because you're working hard and the pressure is on. The company is getting their monies worth. End of story.
Maybe if bosses valued results rather than just seeing your spin your wheels this wouldn't be so much of a problem. I don't see what is so much better about burning the midnight oil rather than getting stuff done early and leaving work early.
These seem like good techniques if you are on top of things and don't need any extra busywork thrown on top of you, but if your just using them to slack off and do nothing they will just make you look incompetent
This is especially a problem for programmer-types who need to get uninterrupted concentration, and can't do that in the daytime because they have cubicles rather than offices.
I tend to check my email before going to sleep, and one of my coworkers in Boston often gets started early in the morning - we've had email conversations at 2am on occasion.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I'm sure there's one out there somewhere (in a galaxy far, far away).
Seriously, there's got to be a way to trick everyone into thinking that you are at school while your at home coding or whatever.
the other day I was playing nethack at work, thinking that if I'm going to play a game it ought to be one without fancy graphics or anything too out of the ordinary from typical unix like work.
A couple minutes later the boss walks by my desk, drops his jaw in amazement and says, "Is that Rogue???" He was fairly impressed having not seen the game in years and asked for a copy of the source code.
I remember an old Windows 3.1 program called Job Saver. It came in the book Windows Sound Funpack as shareware. It played .wav files randomly, with specified frequency (how often), and among the default sounds were 3 different wavs of keyboard clicks, coughing, throat clearing, and computer beeps. It could be set to go off automaticly at after a certain time of Inactivity.
:) Google isn't turning up anything on it, so it seems to have disappeared.
Not sure if anyone actually tried it at work though
Yahoo By Phone and Call Forwarding as suggested, are not really "faking it". in fact you might be working longer than you would have in the office.
I skimmed the article, and saw that it mentioned using handhelds and gotomypc.com to manipulate a computer remotely. If the employee does not take care to connect securely to work, sensitive company data can leak onto the Internet. Should this be a concern to companies?
Crack the settings in your Instant Messenger program and disable the "idle" feature, which tells coworkers if you're online. (In AOL Instant Messager programs, go to "preferences," then "privacy.")
I thought this is aimed at people who use computers at work, not retards?
... then the employer is screwed anyway. Only a totally mismanaged outfit would judge an employee by how busy they look. If management actually cares about whether employees are earning their pay, they're keeping close track of what they're working on and whether they're delivering on time. They're not going to be fooled by Ferris Bueller tricks.
There's an outside enclosed area next to one corner of Moscone Center South (Moscone is the big conference center in San Francisco.) A friend of mine pointed it to me one day during a mostly-uninspired trade show, saying "We're having an important meeting at 4:20 in The Office." Some of the tobacco smokers use it too...
who explained this to the idiots at the WSJ, my boss tries to read that everyday......
:(
Great now I am going to have to go back to actually producing somthing again
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Typically, if you haven't touched your computer in a while, the people you chat with online see an "idle" message next to your name. Diehard slackers can crack into the program settings to make themselves appear perpetually available.
... hang on ...
Sheesh, in MSN you can "crack" this setting by going into Options and unchecking the checkbox for 'My Status'
i.e. setting "Show me away when i'm inactive for 'x' minutes.
I wish 'cracking' other Microsoft products were this easy
That was the funniest thing I've ever seen!
In a cube. With people interrupting me. And annoying me. Whenever I have a long task to complete: programming, writing a scientific paper, etc, I took my cell phone and my computer to Starbucks and WIFIed in. No one knows where I am, and those are my most productive times. I won't work any other way!
A friend of mine had an incompetent boss who, he suspected, never actually did anything productive. Once he snuck up behind the guy and just stood there watching for 10 minutes. His boss was sitting at the computer doing nothing but repeatedly scrolling a document down to the bottom, and then back up to the top, and back again. He obviously wasn't reading it, but wanted it to look like he was, in case somebody walked in on him.
My friend never said anything about it. The boss later quit and reportedly was hired at another company for half again his original salary.
GoToMyPC.com is not a bad program solely since it is "in thousands of popup and banner ads." It's a web-based app that includes a file-transfer component (TightVNC does not) and encrypts sessions.
For more information, CNet has a review. Please read it.
For more information, click here.
I noticed that myself - who would pay $20 for a friggin glorified VNC system? If the dynamic-IP adress is a problem, then just get a dynamic-IP redirection service like dynip.com - that's $25 per year for a big, user friendly business.
Great, I can replicate their service for 1/10th the cost, and could set it up in five minutes flat. Don't even have to memorize an IP address. Not to mention that with the IP redirection, you could also set up an FTP so you could get your files locally.
Hell, I don't see why anyone should ever need to use such a service. With ICQ2Go, Webmail service, and MSN I can log in to all my communications systems at any net cafe or handheld. I can keep in touch just fine - I only VNC to my machine to use the compiler.
Telnet. :)
Small black "DOS PROMPT" window, they don't know wtf your up to.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
Holy crap. I've been working in IT consulting for seven years and I never ever even thought that those emails I get at 1 AM were faked. Although they usually weren't (since I would reply and get a response immediately), no doubt some of them were.
This reminds me of the advice another ten year consultant gave me--no matter if you're busy or not, always claim that you're doing more work at home or at the hotel. He would declare almost every single night that he was working in the hotel. And we would all naively believe him. He later confided to me that he spent most of those nights in the strip club.
....Or whatever's replaced Quake this year....
a Beowulf cluster of threads that do not have a ms or *nix comment.
They can't fire me if they can't find me.
Did I mention there's a Starbucks in my lobby? Now if only they'd hurry up with that wifi I could take my laptop down and get some real work done.
Hmm.. do they have Starbucks in India?
E-Mail Timers
Yeah. Okay. Most users barely know how to send regular e-mail.
BlackBerry
That's why bb mailboxes are separate from regular mailboxes.
GoToMyPc.Com
Aside from probably getting you fired, every good admin blocks crap like this at the firewall. The only out from your PC is through the proxy and firewall. The only way in leads to the DMZ.
Instant Messaging
Also blocked at the firewall. Get to work!
Yahoo By Phone
You can't forward your mail an SMTP address, only local accounts.
Call Forwarding
Not our phones.
If you RT(F)A, a lot of these "techniques" are just ways to do your work while not at your desk.
... time to check what's new at ThinkGeek.
They suggest having emails fired off automagically in the middle of the night, using a blackberry to send email from the car, using GoToMyPC (which I assume is a VNC-type thing), getting calls forwarded to your cell, or picking up email with Yahoo by phone "to make sure you're not missing anything urgent".
The fact that you are doing all this from your car, the massage parlor, the park, or the deck of a cruise ship is kinda irrelevant. You are still *doing* it: still checking email and phone calls. Still manipulating documents on your PC. Just not in the office.
I guess some companies aren't savvy enough to realize that employees -- particularly IT employees -- don't necessarily need to be at their desks to do your job.
True shirking would be not doing your work. Or having an Inflatible You to stick in your chair and fool the PHB.
Hrmm
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
According to George Costanza, the best way to fake it is to look and act annoyed. And, quite honestly, it works. Just sigh a lot and run your hands trough your hair (or lack thereof). People always think that you're working hard if you're annoyed.
...I use is to set the timer in the BIOS to boot the computer at 0900. When I roll in around 0920 it looks like I've already arrived and I'm just away from my desk somewhere.
(AC cos my login is nerfed for some reason.)
A silly article in some ways; but this promotes two thoughts:
(i) If you are employing people to do jobs that can be faked from a remote location, then they probably aren't doing enough work to justify their wage even if they are at the office... (afterall, enough time can be wasted on unproductive talking for the sake of talking in meetings, lurking at the coffee machine, surfing the web etc) Without wishing to hit a slashdot moan stereotype; this sounds like a we are talking about the management class here. "Real jobs" can't be faked, which includes everything from manual labour to coding. You can't fake metal work anymore than you can fake having written an evaluation paper. Genuine, high quality, interactive and intelligent management can't be faked either for that matter.
Alternatively,
(ii) We need flexible working practices. If its *only* your physical location which is an issue, why should you *have* to fake working in the office if you can be just as productive sitting in central park with a laptop and happier at the same time? Its hurting no-ones bottom line and indeed, your staying in the job for longer because you are happier is saving money, because employee "churn" cost money.
In conclusion, the article raises some interesting points, albeit indirectly. But both the above arguments suggest we should feel little or no sympathy for the companies that might "suffer" from this.
Excuse my english if it is inaccurate btw.
Brilliant!
I thought the delayed email tip at the bottom was the best, but of course you need to be smart when using it.
I use Mozilla as my mail client. Is anyone aware of a way to delay mail sending in Moz-Mail?
Sure, your tech grunts can do clever things with remote controls, cron jobs, and the like, but it is upper corporate class who salivate over Blackberrys, get slick Centrino laptops, and as the article mentions, have secretaries who actually do the tedious, time-consuming work for them.
These same alpha types will always be contempuous of the mere technology worker, irregardless of how much of a mental slave he is willing to be. They do not like it when the servant classes weild any kind of power.
-------------------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Dam, maybe i'll get to read this when i get my tps reports done.... now where is my stapler ???
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
Way back when a Mac Plus was state of the art, there was a Space Shuttle simulator/game, that had a panic button for when the boss walked by. Hit that button, and a fake spreadsheet would cover the screen. :)
1. Deactivate the screen saver and energy saving features of the monitor. This gives your cubicle that fresh 'just stepped out' feeling all day long. No need for remote control products. If you don't like leaving your computer unlocked, set the screensave to a screenshot of your desktop with some important looking spreadsheet open.
2. When leaving early, use the stairs, or if in a taller building use the stairs to go to another floor to wait for the elevator. Nothing like getting caught by the boss at the elevator banks at 4:15.
3. If you can, ride your bike in to work every once in awhile. You'd be suprised how impressed people are by that shit. It gives the impression that you are dedicated and athletic - the boss will think that these qualities will transfer to your office work - coworkers will think you have a life outside of work, and be jealous, thus increasing your status in their eyes. Make sure to leave your bike helmet and gear prominently displayed in your cubicle to maximize the benefit.
4. Use dialup and remote control products to send emails on the weekend. The time of an email can be too easily overlooked - the date not so much. It's easy to log on for a few minutes on the weekend. Saves some Friday emails to respond to.
5. The time you leave work is much more important than the time your arrive. Nobody cares that the idiot that leaves at 3:30pm actually gets into work at 6am - the general perception will be that he's a slacker. Even if you get in at 10am, if the boss sees you hanging around at 5:45pm, you'll look dedicated.
6. Try not to carry a backpack or bag - on days when you don't need a coat this allows you to enter late without making it look like you just got there.
7. If you are planning to be late, call people and leave random unimportant voicemails early in the morning. When you see them at 10am they'll think you were there all along (note, some voicemail systems reveal the source of the call, so be careful).
8. Slacking in the middle of the day is much better than showing up late or leaving early. People are paying the most attention in the morning and at quitting time. Arriving early and leaving late will give the semblance of dedication, even if you are taking 2 hours lunches, and hour long trips to the bookstore in the afternoon.
9. Find a sleep hideout. Most places, especially larger corporate offices, have some nook or cranny where nobody goes in the afternoon. Maybe it's a corner of the caffeteria, or perhaps a storeroom somebody forgot to lock. These places are great for sleeping off a hangover, or just reading the newspaper when doing so at you desk would be too conspicuous.
10. When pushed for work, create documentation. Management loves documentation, and doesn't realize how little time it takes to create. A well formatted ten page document with a table of contents and some nice graphics might take a day to create, but the boss can easily be convinced you've been working on it for many days. Frequently submit 'drafts' to the boss (which he will never read) - this will make the boss feel guilty for holding you up, and give you an excuse to take more time.
incidentally, he started http://www.slackersguild.com. its been mentioned before on Slashdot when the For Dummies guys threatened the place for their Slacking for Dummies article
If my job was so boring/uneventful/restrictive that you I needed to fake working, I think I'd
start looking for a new job.
You can only fake it for so long before you are going to get caught. Unless you work for the
government or other large bureaucracy, in which case you could probably carry on until they hand
you that nice gold watch for long service.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
Pop quiz, hot shot.
Your work machine is behind a firewall. You're visiting a client. The client has its own firewall. You need to access your work machine's desktop. What do you do? What do you do?
While you're hacking together 150-character command lines, I'll be making money off of GoToMyPC.com, the product that I created with my own two hands.
I'm not Seth Finkelstein. I still speak the truth.
Let's just ignore the security implications of using this PoS for a minute and consider the fact that I would imagine most companies NOT allowing incoming access to the users' desktops. gotomypc.com gets around this by establishing the connection via an intermediate. If I worked on the IT staff and saw this it would definitely me a trip to the woodhouse to the idiot who setup it up. Course we block this crap at my place.
There's this commercial (british, by the sound of the actor's accents) for drink called Smirnoff Ice.
:)
It starts with this guy leaving a car late at night and saying goodbye to his friends (they've obviously been partying), after which he enters a corporate building. He finds what appears to be his desk, sits behind it, places some papers on the desk and rests his head comfortably on the keyboard. The next morning he is woken up by his boss who walks by and says "Been working all night, have you? We need to discuss your salary!", after which the "hard working employee" shows a big grin on his face with the token "As Clear As Your Conscience®" sparkle.
Many commercials are crap, but I found this one to be pretty funny.
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"
If you have to fake your work you obviously don't enjoy your job. Quit. Find your dream job or go back to school. If you are sitting in a job and purposely trying to find ways to pass time you really need to sit down and think about where you are in life.
I first read this in the Dilbert book "The Joy of Work: Dilbert's Guide to Finding Happiness at the Expense of Your Co-Workers" (1998).
If I recall correctly (With a title like that,the book isn't exactly work-safe), Scott was actually quoting an email he received, so the description likely goes back many years...
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Good old tricks,
but I would just suggest the free VNC instead of the quoted GoToMyPc.Com which costs $19.95/month.
It has versions for PC, unix, PDAs, etc.
{Science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme}
Maybe a little of that on your own system would leave you a little more time to come up with a more effective filtering policy...
It's a bit like slashdot, find other people's articles and post the first paragraph of them on your site. Setup a forum and charge high prices for banners on the site. Since we're posting other people's articles we don't need to pay any editors or journalists, just the maintenance of the site. Sit back and watch the banner ads business roll, oh, and charge people for getting the articles first.
You're fired
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
5 Minutes is 5 minutes too long. if it's not done yesterday it ain't no good.
Remember : these people have lives, they aren't geeks and don't care about VNC-whatever or how secure it is or isn't.
AS LONG AS IT DOES THE JOB. P.S. that is why you are unemployed.
If there is one thing George showed me it is that angry people look busy...
Also for everyone who though Dilbert was like life in an office take a look at The Office
+4 for a post containing both goatse and tubgirl links. Good job!
I mean TRULY windows free, lead lined, even.
You can run but you can't hide....*g*
This little program will give a install or download progress meter on-screen, great for when you want to take a smoko :)
t ag =lst-0-1
From the site.. "Slackers: Run this bogus "installation" routine on your PC to take a work break."
http://download.com.com/3000-2115-4605619.html?
But who the fuck would let their employees install this shit in the first place?
Saw off the side of your cubical, play tetris and tell your manager you have a business meeting to go to when he comes over.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Please like I need to have someone tell me how to look *busy*! That has been my job for the last 5 years.
Scott
i personally have started a career with said theory... so far, so good.
Did anyone else automatically think of George Costanza from Seinfeld??
i remember seeing an email with his "words of wisdom" which included think like "Use computers to look busy, to the passer by it will look like you are frantically working"
much like me typing now!!
"When that five minute's worth of work is done, there are plenty of things to do with yourself besides sit in a dinner for three hours."
I recommend wanking off.
get a job doing something you enjoy.
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
but four people read that site
We know. We run your Novell Network from time to time when we are bored. Keep up the good work. For all you folks running propriatory software, thatks for all the spare cycles.
If you really think that the corporate world doesn't know the producers from the dead-weight, especially in _this_ economy, you're sorely mistaken. I get projects thrown at me almost daily, and right now I wouldn't have it any other way. Right now, I consider myself _privileged_ just to have a job (and doing what I enjoy I might add); and as such I'm busting my hump just to help my company (and my job) achive it's goals.
The slackers out there that are hiding behind their bash scripts, are sure to be disovered and their jobs are sure to get passed along shortly thereafter.
I'm not quite sure what the Win/MCSE crowd is going to do though. I highly doubt that Win/MCSE certification/experience are going to be in high demand anytime soon...
Especially with *nix/*BSD kicking in the door like it apparently has been.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Sure, so you _crack_ into your IM settings so it shows you as being there when you're on your three hour lunch. Ok, what happens when someone IMs you? You really look good when you don't reply for an hour or more.
I'm a slashdot article!
Now allow me to link to what the WSJ didn't, Slackers Guild.
I had agreed to let them use my real name only if they used my pseudonym and mentioned my site. Thanks a bunch.
The reason is that WinVNC, TightVNC etc. use port number 5800 and another one (I forget) for command and screenshot transmission. If you are behind a firewall and have only port 80 enabled, then you have no luck, you can't access anything outside. Yes, true, VNC has a way to change the port number to 80, but if you look closely at the documentation and what people says on usenet, you will find that it DOESN'T work without a bit of code hacking. (in some tight proxy env. this won't work either)
While GoToMyPc will simply do what it says, you can use a browser with port 80 opened to access your pc at home, nothing else. That's why it is still useful.
I'm curious because I'm a grad student now, and while a few years ago I could seemingly go 5 consequitive nights with 2-3 hours of sleep, my body can't handle those kinds of hours anymore.
Or are you on one of those weird sleep schedules where you take several 20-25 minute naps scattered throughout the day instead of sleeping 6-8 hours (5 in your case) in one block? The idea behind this schedule is that you go right to REM sleep, and thus don't waste time in the other sleep modes which in theory your body doesn't really need. This sleep method is supposed to use only 3 hours of total sleep per day (scattered throughout the day), but takes a few weeks of getting used to.
make world, not war
...by Jason Blair, formally of the NYT
Few weeks ago I had the system time set to somewhere far in the future (2 months in the future), and all the mails that I send were on the top of everyone's e-mail list (assuming they sort by datestamp).
Now I'm thinking I arrive on Monday morning, and still make a Sunday e-mail by backdating my clock a single day early!
Surely the mail will arrive late, but it will be sorted as such that it appeared to have been sent a day earlier!
I'll try it today, if I don't reply your message tomorrow, please help me retract my statement!
Here is a quote from the article:
"Instant Message programs, a more-immediate form of e-mail now used by millions of employees, can also be reconfigured. Typically, if you haven't touched your computer in a while, the people you chat with online see an "idle" message next to your name. Diehard slackers can crack into the program settings to make themselves appear perpetually available."
Diehard slackers can crack it? Come on...
I cannot for the life of me understand what you're getting at. I PROTECT my systems. I block unnecessary traffic. I keep the network running and minimize the chances for compromise. It's MY decision what comes in and what doesn't, not my boss'.
As for the rest of your rambling - it simply makes no sense.
Most places, this will get you fired as soon as confidential/company proprietary info gets forwarded outside the firewall and you get caught.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
what people will go through to give the apperance of work, check out Time Out
Yes sometimes you need a break every couple hours so I tell my boss. A good one will know that it will increase productivity. I am not a workaholic but I love the satisfaction when I am done.
Its great to kill time and I do not feel uncomfortable doing it obviously. After all someone is paying you? How does it feel that someone is handing you money while you do nothing?
If you were at a Mcdonalds and ordered a BigMac, would you be happy seeing the staff just sit there after you paid the cashier? Same is true from a company owner or manager standpoint.
I have no respect for people who do this. Especially in this economy like another poster mentioned "gives an incentive to kick your job to India". American workers are more productive if they have more experience but if they do not apply themselves what is the point? Would not Indians will provide a better value then?
Its also not fair that I am unemployed, applying to subway and starbucks, and live at home with my parents in total missery, while those reading this make 65k a year and piss off on the job. I would work for 20k right now doing help desk type stuff.
Hmm, come to think of it, if any Las Vegas employers need help and are having trouble with slacking employee's feel free to respond.
http://saveie6.com/
Some employees are hard working, self motivated go-getters that are willing (under the correct circumstances) to burn the proverbial "midnight oil" in order to accomplish a goal. Other employees are pay-check collectors that look for hand-outs and will come up with a dozen excuses of why they can't accomplish their assignment in a reasonable amount of time.
What I've learned is that you'll never convert members of the latter group into members of the former. Very rarely does a slacker suddenly find inspiration and become a hard worker. I'm sure this isn't news to whoever might be reading this.
But why do we (as members of the hard working croud) care? Assuming a strong ethical standard exists in your management chain, slackers will either be terminated or reassigned to meaningless tasks while you enevitably rise up to the next level of the food chain. So what good does it do you (other than personal frustration over seeing a coworker shirk while you work your tail off) to try to convert those that don't want to be converted? Come on, give up!
On the other hand, hard workers can easily by exploited if the management chain is also a collection of slackers. In this situation they will either be slow to recognize your talent and hard work, or what's worse they'll recognize and exploit it (that's when you get pigeon holed into a task you don't necessarily enjoy or feel passionate about, but are responsible enough to take up the reigns because "it has to be done by someone"). When this happens, *you* (the reader) become the sucker in the situation, and need to find a new job.
Don't let yourself be taken advantage of as a hard worker when all around you are putting their AIM clients on "Always Active" - find a new job. Until you do that you will never be happy.
Hope this helps someone...
Do it for da shorties
Wow, the rumors that you are an asshole were greatly over-exaggerated.
"How to fake a hard day...."
Put a dildo down your pants?
Cha-cha-ching!
[runs]
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I demand that you tell me who started those rumors. Please post his full name, address, phone number, and most importantly, e-mail address. I'll deal with him.
On second thought, I'm just going to assume that it was Michael Sims. Watch out! I'm coming for you, Michael!
I'm not Seth Finkelstein. I still speak the truth.
Is it just me or the whole WSJ article is just a big friggin commercial!?!?!?!?!
My less computer-inclined friends all thank me for teaching them this trick.
Another favorite -- always have a question ready for your boss. Even if it's a dumb question. That way, when he/she emerges from boss land to check on you, it really sounds like you're happy to see him/her. "OH, good! I've been meaning to ask you..." Also, if you are talking and making eye contact while you do the alt-tab move, they're less likely to notice it.
At my old job, I stayed in a cubicle for years because my monitor faced away from my boss. If I had moved into an office, where the computer's only possible position was with the monitor facing the door, I wouldn't have a chance to see her coming.
I'm a freelancer now (and no, i never got busted for slacking, i left on my own!) But I have to say, when you're working from home, alt-tabbing is a lot less dramatic.
past several years, boss has seen my massive amounts of slashdot reading.... but he figures as long as i am slacking, it may as well be semi job related...
Alicebot with the Anna bundle is quite nice, though you might need to hack you own AIML to make it talks like you.
15. "They told me at the blood bank this might happen."
14. "This is just a 15 minute power-nap like they raved about in the last time management course you sent me to."
13. "Whew! Guess I left the top off the liquid paper"
12. "I wasn't sleeping! I was meditating on the mission statement and envisioning a new paradigm!"
11. "This is one of the seven habits of highly effective people!"
10. "I was testing the keyboard for drool resistance"
9. "Actually I'm doing a "Stress Level Elimination Exercise Plan" (SLEEP) I learned it at the last mandatory seminar you made me attend.
8. "I was doing a highly specific Yoga exercise to relieve work related stress."
7. "Darn! Why did you interrupt me? I had almost figured out a solution to our biggest problem."
6. "The coffee machine is broken...."
5. "Someone must've put decaf in the wrong pot."
4. "Boy, that cold medicine I took last night just won't wear off!"
3. "Ah, the unique and unpredictable circadian rhythms of the workaholic!"
2. "I wasn't sleeping, I was trying to pick up contact lens without hands."
And the #1 Thing to Say If You Get Caught Sleeping at Your Desk is...
1. "Amen..."
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
when all games had a "boss" key to make a fake DOS prompt. However, once I tried to use it (I think it was Leisure Suit Larry or something like that), and I was about to score, but the boss key exits you out of the game afterwards!
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
The boss of that WSJ reporter is now having some difficulty. He's trying to figure out if that reporter is working, whether he is pretending to work, or whether he is working at the responses to his article about pretending to work...and testing the new suggestions so he knows if his source material is correct.
One can do excessive amount of work for not having to work.
ummm... since when did changing program options become cracking?
Guess if I add gas to my car I'm a mechanic? If I brush my teeth am I a dentist? Does building a toy rocket make me a rocket scientist?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Went to the site and some of his "Stealth Surfing" advice seemed a little low-tech... then I noticed the dates:
"(#3) "A Little Known Trick"
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 10:07:26 -0500
1996! That was 8 years ago! And the best slacking advice in the past 8 years is to set the task bar to auto-hide??
I'm not picking on him for one old tip either, all the Stealth Surfing tips all 7 or 8 years old.
think it's time that guy update his site...
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Just come in and put in your 40 hours in one shot. Then you can leave for the rest of the week. This is especially effective if you call sales at home at 2:30 am to check on ambigous specs. After all, they ask to have this done NOW.
When you work at a hospital it's easy.
.. but after 2 months of working 60 hours a week and getting the network in shape .. I only had to REALLY work 3 hours a day.
.. but was still as productive. They let me go .. go figure..
First, you have to get others in on your gag.
Second, you have to know ALL the smoking areas (even if you don't smoke)
Third, you have to be a network guy..
Ok..Complete timewasters if you REALLY have to be there! (TM)
1. Play pass the candy. Everyone has a candy dish. Take a handful. Distribute it around to other candy dishes. Do the same at all candy dishes and every dish will have the same mix. Of course, the good stuff ends up in yours!!!
2. We had a 5 up and 2 down story building. Servers were scattered. Walk to the 5th floor and talk to the parts guy. Then to the 1st and talk to the receiving girl. Have a smoke right outside her door. Go downstairs to the dock to see if there's anything there for you. Go visit the cube farm downstairs to see if anyone needs anything. Back to your desk, read an email, fix a problem in 3 seconds then go on another round.
3. Invent a problem at a remote facility (180 miles away). Drive there and enjoy the mileage compensation. Fix the imaginary problem. Have a beer. On company time. Drive back. (one beer, alright?)
4. Use both a laptop and a dual monitor setup on your desktop pc. Bring up all sorts of monitoring stuff on the desktop -- actually work on the laptop (work..slashdot..or yahoo games...doesn't matter).
5. Do the wiring guy's job (or make his job harder) by messing with the wiring closets. Whoops. Network is down.
6. Periodically bounce servers. Tell em they crashed. It's easier than asking for downtime.
7. Put in requests for $25,000 orders. Tell them they're critical upgrades. They always got vetoed, but you look like you're working hard.
I worked a required 8 hour day
Then I started only coming IN three hours a day
Oh..their network? Went back to shit wihtout me.
= Grow a brain...
There's a significant difference between the two products.
With VNC, you must have access to your machine. If it's behind a corporate firewall that doesn't allow inbound connections (i.e., virtually all firewalls unless you personally control them), VNC isn't going to work in this scenario.
GoToMyPC, though, utilizes a type of push technology. You run a 'client' on the PC you want to remote control. Said 'client' establishes a connection to the central servers at GoToMyPC.com via HTTP (since many corporate firewalls allow outbound HTTP access without issue).
Then you, from the remote machine, go to the GTMPC(had to give up typing the whole thing) servers with YOUR web browser, and they do a form of proxy that, voila, allows you to communicate with a machine inside the coorporate firewall.
It's also a serious security breach that I suspect many companies would frown on if they found you using it -- ultimately, everything passes though GTMPC -- do you trust them with all your data?
Steve
- I generally come in at least 15 minutes late. I use the side door, that way Lumbergh can't see me. And after that I just sorta space out for an hour.
- Space out?
- Yeah, I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working.
does posting to slashdot count as a hard day at the office?
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time" -- A. E. Neumann
No joke for you!
In my experience, there's only one true way to make it look like you're working hard the whole day long - get ssh access to your box at home, then spend the whole day screwing around with it.
:)
;)
If people come into your office, and see you frantically hacking away at some code, or examining syslogs or whatever, they automatically assume that it's work.
Funnily enough, my machine at home is now about 100 times more secure and those personal projects keep moving
Having said that, if I have a deadline, I'll always make it. Too bad the boss doesn't know that most of my tasks take hours and not days
tom-george.comBecause geeks rate higher t
A certain well-known software company gives all its engineers (and various lesser mortals, as space allows) private offices. Not that unusual, except these offices (designed by the founder of the company) do not have any eye-level windows facing the corridor. So if you don't want anybody looking over your shoulder, all you have to do is close the door and lower the blinds.
When I had one of these (I'm not an engineer, but the building was underutilized when I was hired; later I was exiled to a cube) I found it extremely pleasant. Closed the door, cranked up the Hilary Hahn, and cranked out the prose. But after a while I came to realize that the company had a lot of organization and collaboration issues. I don't think "pathologically extreme individualism" would be an exagerated description. The offices weren't the primary cause of this problem, of course, but they did make it hard to stamp out.
One big giveaway in the image of the person who's been working away is the 5 1/2" floppy lying on the desk... They must have been skipping work a /long/ time! ;-]
Problem is, it is not that easy to satisfy such a boss. There's never just one simple rule you can obey and forget. There are always dozens of strange little policies that interfere with your job, and even each other. People who obsess over that kind of trivia do so because they're out of their depth. Their rules aren't an expression of any actual management policy -- they're symptoms of performance anxiety.
Now, if that kind of nervous management is something you can cope with, fine. Some people, particularly those in the project management profession, make a study of handling manager neurosis. I have a lot of respect for people who can deal with shit like that. But I'm not one of them.
"Well, that was some of the song. Enough on that tangent. We can all fake work and make the fake work. That is until the deadline is due."
Is that anything like "faking an orgasm"?
Shock Exclusve - Reporter tells lies - wasn't there when he did it! Pix!
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
There's nothing to "install". It's a Java or ActiveX app if I recall. You just need a supported web browser to connect to to GotoMyPC. Since our business doesn't allow remote control of users' desktops, especially from outside the firewall, this is a big no-no. The fact that there's nothing to install and that it works through a normal HTTP proxy is a big problem. You end up blocking the site or the network.
I have nothing against getting coding done, I just do not seem to be up to it at my old age (33). Loafing on the job is easy, I want to be a better coder so I can loaf less at my next job, or even this one if I stay on the payroll. Maybe other threads: Laid
off? What are You Doing w/ Your Newfound Freedom? may also be useful.
Be Free: Free Software Tuition
Bums on Seats.
If 50% of people working from home 50% of the time. (shouldn't be too hard in office land)
You've just reduced the traffic(and pollution) by 25%.
you get an extra 1hr in bed because you don't have to travel, so...
Your employees will be fresher when they are at work.
Working remotely from home is the next logical step in employees rights, calling an employee up at any time of the day or night because you know they can work remotely is the next step in corporate abuse.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
... you insensitive clod!
Anyone who writes articles for WSJ is clearly doing too much work to be fully qualified to give advice on slacking. They also don't seem to mention anything about slacking off while in the office. Here's what I recommend:
Don't you dare to forget the terrorists! There! THERE! The sky is falling!
Aaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
RTFM and then go to whatever your localized version of winxp calls the system settings and then change the kernel dump image to none or small. geez, did you really wait till your 1gig was written?
In the US unemployment is around 6% (thank Bush for making it worse than it was when he stole office).
That is a very low unemployment, in such an economy there are not enough people to cover for all jobs (due to inefficent allocation of jobs).
Enter illegal immigrants and underground work (that by serious accounts could ammount by up to 30% of the US economy).
Stop whining! In the US you have it quite easy.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
no it's much closer to a webex session... it tunnels throught port 80 and tries to disguse it's self so the netadmins dont have a clue that you are horribly violating company IT policies by using it.
It is actually neat but the absolute biggest security hole I have ever seen.
... to manipulate the screen on his office computer from a booth at a local diner. As he lingered for hours over burgers and fries, he could actually open windows and move documents around ...
This guy is probably XXL.
The "always willing to computerize things altho we don't fullt understand it" accounting dept where I work recently installed this thing where you 'clock in' and out in a computer app window. Since I had to put it on a terminal server for a remote building, and since I can access TS from home - I can punch the time clock from home now. Sweet.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Is be like George Castanza and look annoyed, then people will think your busy and not bother you.
try screen - you should try ctrl-a space - much less obvious and doesnt leave any extra windows icons i use it in xterm under cygwin - screen finally resizes correctly in cygwin xterms yay!
meridian at tha.net
stop that, or i'll tell daddy that you've been using his computer!
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
The article lists gotomypc.com for $19.95 a month. There is a new company that is kind of doing the same thing and giving out introductory accounts for free. www.myipnow.com
I use it and its works pretty well, it gives you your IP address from anywhere.
But Yakutia, Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk, Irkutsk, Qaraghandy -- They're SO HUGE! Can't keep the gridlines straight. The horror! The horror!
www.myipnow.com does the same thing and they are giving out free accounts!!!
well it gives you your IP....not as much of a security hole.
go into management.
no, I didn't read the article, and yes, i'm a troll.
"Use remote-control technology to open documents on your office computer screen."
In my cubby farm, if you leave your desk even 2 minutes without kicking in some sort of screen lock, you are gently reminded that you probably have a couple of windows opened with root access to extremely important machines, and that you could be liable for any email sent with your email id.
If you happened to be working via VPN, it is assumed that you set in the keyboard locking, but that you forgot to switch you screen off, so most people seeing windows moving on a screen with nobody in front of the pc, will switch that monitor off.
This article should have been printed 10 or 15 years ago, in most offices today you are judged by how much you produce, not by the amount of time you are (seem to be) in the office.
Example: A friend of mine had a job and he was a wiz. A guru. He could do anything they asked him to do. Yet he was down-sized. Why? Because he never gave the illusion that he was working hard at what he did. He did his work quickly. He finnished every task assigned to him, however he then went back to his desk and idled while waiting for the next assignment. The reality of the situation was that he worked hard and did as much, if not more than his collegues. But to his manager, all he saw of my friend was him sitting at his desk playing games on his computer. That's what his collegues saw too. When review time came around, naturally they all had bad impressions of him. He got a low rating. When it was time for lay-offs, his poor review made him one of the first on the list.
Another Example: A fried of mine, who worked with the friend in the first example, is not the sharpest pencil in the drawer. He's not very techincialy savy, but knows enough to get buy. He usually takes his time working on things and he is always bugging other people on how to do his assignments. He comes in late, around 10 am and is prone to take vacations during periods of mandatory overtime. So how come he gets a better review than my first friend? He milks his assignments, so he's always busy. He's alwasy bugging other people, so they think he has a ton of work. It takes him five times as long to do the same task as the first friend. This guy always has something to say at the meetings and always has something to tell his manager. End result is that his co-workers and manager all think he is really busy and working hard, when really, he takes his good old time doing things. I'm even skeptical about his hours, because he tells me that he gets in late and stays until the manager leaves, then he does to. Basically, his job is not to do work, but to make it look like his is doing work. He's pretty good at it too, cause he's been around for 10 years.
What should you learn from this? Perception is more important than reality. The facts do not matter. What does matter is how people interpret the facts, what point of view they have, and what conclusions they draw using the facts from their point of view. You want job security? Being an indespensible guru is nice, but if you can't be that then you have to put yourself in the position to be viewed as a valuable productive member of your organization from the view points of your collegues and managers. You can do this by communication. Make sure you talk to everyone on your team, weither it's about your assignment or theirs. Help others out with their stuff when you can. At the beginning of the day, have a question ready for your manager about your assignment and always have something to tell him that you are working. Always have a comment during status meetings, even if it is just a re-hash of stuff you have already said to others earlier in the week. The trick is, the more you talk about what you are doing, the more it looks like you are busy doing it from their point of view. Part of your job is making your peers believe you are doing a good job. This is not advice on how to slack, but how to keep your job weither you slack or not and someday it may save you from the unemployment line.
Instant Message programs, a more-immediate form of e-mail now used by millions of employees, can also be reconfigured. Typically, if you haven't touched your computer in a while, the people you chat with online see an "idle" message next to your name. Diehard slackers can crack into the program settings to make themselves appear perpetually available.
;P
a *crack* huh? are you sure its not a built-in OPTION?
However, it passes all your data through a third party, who if they wanted to could steal everything. GoToMyPc works because both systems call home to the GoToMyPc server. That server then relays all the info. This is the classic "man-in-the-middle" scenario that cryptographers worry about. It is this security hole that makes it a bad program.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
> The best office is the least visible one - the one from which you can sneak away without passing too many important people's offices.
:)
That's a very true statement. I wasn't too keen on my office until I realized it was very near the timeclock & about 10 yards away from the loading dock (smoking area & exit), and behind two usually-closed doors that few have keys to. Hmm, I like my new job
But the data is encrypted with your 128-bit key. If GoToMyPC wants to "steal everything" by logging all the data you send to its servers, they'll have to crack the encryption.
And before you say "it's closed source; I can't see under the hood," fire up a logger of your own to see what GoToMyPC is receiving.
For more information, click here.
"You know, you talk a lot without even thinking. Just because you can't see the obvious solutions doesn't mean there aren't any. You're a dangerous person who passes judgement without being informed. And if you're truly in charge of a network, I'm scared that you didn't know some of these answers, whether you implement them or not. It sounds to me like your network is absolutely unrestricted chaos."
This last paragraph is great! Your response was pretty good until you threw that in there.
You seem to have taken my response as a direct attack at you. Don't be some damn sensitive and egocentric. I was referring to the idea that a "good" admin blocks everything that they don't deem work related. Chill out and lay off the flames.
As for all of your warm and cuddly responses, perhaps you should have elaborated in your post instead of quick one sentence ivory tower remarks.
This has been fun but I have to go play around in my "unrestricted chaos" that I call a network.
We've tried nothin' and we're all out of ideas. - Ned's Mom
This really isn't the sort of thing they teach in school, and most parents are apparently happy to let the kids figure it out for themselves.
Besides, it takes a fair amount of self confidence to just _be_ somewhere when you want to find a member of the opposite sex.
Forget diamonds, copyright is forever.
In my case, it's not that I don't always work hard, it's that sometimes it's not feasible to do so. Big projects get delayed, and sometimes you can wade through the miriad of little subproject to find there's not really a lot to do. Now, it may just be a matter of waiting until situation X is resolved before your project is ready to resume (e.g. need a part, or a PO, or something that has to be supplied by another party) and I find myself hanging without a lot to do. Appearing to look busier than I am helps avoid the impression that I do nothing - especially since my work schedule keeps my past normal staff, which means they don't see the times when I'm at work for extra hours trying to fix a mangled server.
The worst is when you have a major problem that needs a-fixing, and it keeps you from doing other productive work. E.g. you need the internet to work, but the current office problem is a downed connection from the provider. Everybody else stops by your desk 5-10 times to bother you as to the connection will be restored... and sitting around waiting for the service call doesn't look overly productive when they stop in.
Dilbert may teach skills at work-avoidance, but the BOFH teaches not only work avoided... but how to deal with those that insist on interrupting your nap-time.
1) Browse one week old slashdot posts 2) Post dupe 3) PROFIT!!!
It is encrypted with your 128-bit key from your machine to the GoToMyPc server. It is also encrypted from their server to the target machine with a different 128-bit key. It is during the proxy at the GoToMyPc server that it is not encrypted. At least this is the way it worked when first introduced 2 years ago. I have not done a lot of investigation since, as I wrote them off as a security risk.
I suppose I did take it personally, but mostly because I was reacting to your post and this one. I apologize if I jumped directly on you, but as you can see, I *was* attacked in a pretty personal way before.
I agree with you, restrictions suck for a user, but sometimes it's the preferred method for a company. My company has weighed the benefits of each of the activities, and you dismiss them as though it's common sense. I don't believe it is. I feel all of my decisions are carefully approached. We don't need certain things, so I disallow them. It makes my job easier, makes security better, and best of all, is good for the company. Anyway, port 80 and 443 outbound are open, so it's not like people can't have any fun.
I think a good admin blocks anything that is not work related, has the potentional to cause issues, and is possibly a vulnerability. Case in point: as IM programs mature, we'll see the first IM virus. Not at my company - where we don't need external IM'ing. If one day, we do, I can allow it again.
Work is not the place for computer freedom. The network belongs to the company. It's my job to protect it. We may disagree on some points, but I think overall we're both trying to provide the best functonal IT for our respective companies.
Well, we use it pretty heavily where I work (folks scattered all over the country, you see), and I find it annoying that our customer doesn't use the same system. So having access to global, rather than simply local, `instant messaging' systems would be nice.
Indeedy, this is what I do most often. After all, to anyone else "code is code." They have no understanding of what I'm working on, so I can sometimes get some productive learning of my own during the "spare" time.
Currently, I'm trying to learn more about writing X11-applications, particularly using openGL. I've got Mesa3d, but no luck yet getting anything to work.
Know a good newbie resource for such things?
are still using Windows95 here. A few of the "newer" machines have ME on them. There are even a few machines that have 3.11 on them.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
Send it to me. flyairone1@aol.com
Is configure Mr. House (http://misterhouse.sourceforge.net/) and I won't even have to be at home for anything!!
Sanity is overrated...Being CRAZY is much more fun!!!
GotoMYpc.com is a "reverse" proxy that allows you to get to your system, remotely, through your corporate firewall. Sneaky little bastard is bad! bad! bad! It takes more to expose VNC to access remotely if your corporate firewalls think it is a bad idea (which they should). No wonder we blackhole the entire gotomypc.com domain...
...YOU ARE SO FIRED troll when ya need him? Hehehe...
i upgraded to w2k, but i never really thought about the fact that i never see the bsod anymore. now my computer just locks up.
- a.c.
If my company (assuming I just work there) allows me to run GoToMyPC and let it connect out, I think I would be able to get a port forwarded to my machine. So months down the line when this situation arises, I will download the free VNCViewer (which requires no installation and no logging into a site to even download it) and connect to the free VNC server on my computer.
In reality, I wouldn't connect from an insecure (as far as I know) client's computer to any of my computers.