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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."
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
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
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.
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
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)
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.
it seems like an awful lot of "work" to not actually do any work.
:)
It really is. But sometimes (and I speak form personal experience) there's just either really nothing to do, or you really want to avoid doing something for whatever reason, or you just want to buy some time... depends on the situation.
Once or twice I've deliberately created "network problems" (Very small office, doesn't effect the productivity of anyone else) - typically with the printers or something... then spend a good hour or so "fixing" it, since it happens to require standing next to the server and occasionally fiddling with the keyboard. (Which is out of sight from my boss, whom normally I sit right in front of all day long).
Sometimes you just need to escape, and since I don't smoke, cigarette breaks aren't an option
=Smidge=
Welcome to America, where appearances are much more important than anything else. Productivity my ass.
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
[sound of door hitting me]
Me: *groan*...oh, hi Bob, I was just picking up some paper clips!
Bob: Do you realize you have 3 of them stuck to your face?
I don't feel like watching it. It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
...by Jason Blair, formally of the NYT
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.