At my last company, we would walk around with our laptops. People would just assume we were looking for a meeting room or had something important to do.
I can’t quite remember what we did at our desks specifically. However, I do remember a guy I worked with used to browse Wikipedia and Tinder.
Co worker and I would book meeting rooms then close it up and play coop bloons
We used to play UNO. It started with 2-3 people and ended up with being 5-6 people playing and more watching. It was loads of fun
Find a job where you’re never without something to do.
jerking off. nobody bothers a man who is jerking off.
Main “trick” I can share is kind of dependent on the fact that I work in IT / software dev / cyber security and use Linux as my daily driver. I’ve either always been able to talk my boss into letting me use Linux OR I’ve been the one in charge of giving people computers and creating / enforcing whatever policies OR I had one boss who was like “You use Linux! Awesome! Smart people use Linux! I should Linux! Teach me oh master!” Even the one place I worked where they were like “We need you to use Windows” they were also like “Sure! Use linux for internal software dev / dev ops stuff, but if you’re doing project management work for customers or handling customer data, you need to do that on your Windows computer.” So I got a second computer and put Linux on it.
Any slacking off (Reddit / Lemmy / Minecraft / Netflix / etc) is on the Linux computer, on the second to last virtual desktop. A bunch of legitimate work is on the other desktops and (and if there’s a second computer, on that computer) at all times. If my boss came in to look at what I was doing, one mouse click or hot key and my whole screen is whatever I’m supposed to be working on.
The other trick is "Schedule stuff in your calendar, even if it’s just placeholders. I used to put “Engineer Time” in all the time, big blocks of it. Just make sure you’re closing enough tickets / pushing enough code / documenting enough progress. I also used to put placeholders for meetings with clients / vendors / whatever that were unconfirmed. Then instead of cancelling the meetings when I actually scheduled something, I would put a note like “Client rescheduled” in the meeting notes.
Have a look at online courses. w3school, udemy, coursera have IT related courses if that’s your thing, there are other sites that have online courses too. Free ebooks at gutenberg.org that you can download or read online. Do a search for “text only news”, find a site you like, catch up on the daily news; just looks like a page of text from a distance.
Microsoft has loads of free stuff that you can use to learn a variety of things that are useful for IT at least.
Leave. Go for a walk, or a coffee, or go home. Nobody knows you aren’t in a meeting room.
If your co-workers are into it, have a LAN party. I used to work at a place that had a daily management-approved kill session. It was good.
I take a 30 to 40 minute walk (2 miles) every day at work. Sometimes it’s to clear my head. Sometimes it’s to think about work. Sometimes it’s to think about not work. No one cares, and if they did, I’d argue it’s time well spent for the company. I can’t get anything done if my brain is overflowing with crap.
Man, a work LAN party would be pretty cool.
Find a boss who doesn’t care. So far I’ve never had a boss that insists that I look busy all the time. As long as I’m getting my work done they don’t care what I do. I spend a lot of time at my desk reading books on my phone. If your boss is being an ass about you using your downtime how you want when all of your work is done then that is not someone you want to work for.
It’s not that my boss cares per se, but I still think people form a subconscious image of your work ethic, and I think it’s always better to be seen as a “hard worker” when it comes to promotion time
I worked with a guy that if he slept in or ran late for work tossed his gym gear on instead of his work clothes and ran into the office apologising and went to the bathroom to get changed.
People thought that he was a fitness NUT and he always stayed back to make up the time so he was called dedicated. In truth I knew he trained after work and regularly stayed up mega late playing COD and slept through his alarm.
Finally, a question where i can shine. You don’t have to do anything specific. Just do things.
Use a headset with your phone or laptop: You are on a call. Most people don’t speak much at online meetings.
Take a little nap? Thinking.
Want some time alone? Go to a meeting room. Works even better if the room has glass walls since you can see them and they can see that you are “busy”, but no one sees your screen.
Have multiple monitors. There’s always something work-related on at least one screen.
Have fields of interest that blend in. If one of your hobbies is vaguely related to work you are golden. You can totally read something unrelated to work during working time if it seems most your attention goes towards work. (See multiple screens and some switching back and force.)
Shift your working hours slightly from the norm, i.e. come 5 min earlier than others.
Don’t hide windows with non-work stuff when someone sees them. Too late. Act as if you have nothing to hide.
Do a reasonable work-life blend. Work overtime occasionally at odd hours and make managers know that you solved an emergency in your free time. Gives you an excuse to leave early or slack off the next day and any other day.
React to emails with a resonable delay. Of course, you can help, but not right now. You are busy.
Block your calendar and decline invites.
Microsoft Viva Insights will really fuck you on this plan. There’s just no escaping it anymore.
I Remote Desktop from my personal computer into my work computer. All personal stuff happens on the personal computer, the work computer is work stuff only. There is no way for my work to know I am “goofing off” while working.
There is. Viva insights doesn’t even track keyboard and mouse activity as far as I know. It’s about teams usage, meetings, calls, chats, etc.
Oh I definitely still do plenty of that, I’m doing my job after all.
Viva la gone freedom
what does viva insights do exactly?
It’s a workplace monitoring tool dressed up as a workplace wellness tool.
You know that table that shows the risk of employees who might burn out, given their meeting frequency, teams interactions, email rate, work hours etc.? If you flip the sorting order, you can measure who isn’t doing enough (by whatever metrics the employer decides).
Id say the one thing I kind of disagree with here is the emails. If I’m at my computer and the email says “Are you able to handle this 15 minute job for me by EOD?” I respond immediately “Yeah, I can fit that in.” and then go back to whatever it was I was doing and handle it later.
If someone is asking me to do a big job I dont reply immediately and go do some prep work for the big job and email them an hour later. “Not a problem, Ill get on it ASAP.”
If you respond and get tasks done immediately sometimes it makes them think you must be in the middle of something when you dont. When someone gives you a big task that will take 4 hours and they check in on you 3 hours after you reply to the email and you’re almost finished, it puffs up your ability.
But in general I agree, responding to emails is a great tool for managing perceptions and expectations.
Don’t hide windows with non-work stuff when someone sees them. Too late. Act as if you have nothing to hide.
i’m sure someone will pop up here with these fake reddit things where it looks like you are browsing emails
I go from one place to another, greet people, talk, drink coffee, have a snack, go to the toilet, etc, etc. They are pushing working from the office more and more saying it’s better for connecting with colleagues, so I go to and do that.
Use the buddy system. Years ago I had a work-friend, we’d just book meetings with each other a couple of times a week, go to a meeting room and just hang out, I taught him to juggle, or we’d watch an episode from a series etc.
It was fun feeling like we got away with something, but realistically nobody questioned it because we both got our work done and it was a good company where that mattered more than time spent at a desk.
Play BitBurner, use Links browser.
I am now addicted to BitBurner and I blame you
You’re welcome.
Where are people finding these stereotypical office jobs that allow for so much downtime? In every office I’ve worked in, the calls and tickets would just keep coming in non-stop. I was always too busy to have time to look like I’m busy.
Well I found mine while looking for a moderately large company. I’ve learned, that big company’s and small family businesses don’t allow much downtime and freedom so I went looking for the middle.
There’s a lot of bureaucratic delays in large enterprises and public sector. If you’re doing a job right you’re likely waiting on other people 80% of the time.
I do all kinds of free training when I’ve got downtime. Psychology, the sales cycle, dealing with people, project planning etc. Can all help with almost any job
Terminal -> vim with syntax hilighting -> some source code. Passerbys won’t know what your code is for or what it’s supposed to do, but it’ll make you look busy and you can tinker with your own projects.
A friend of mine has a highly complex spreadsheet open at all times at work. He’s a D&D DM and uses that sheet to easily calculate price fluctuations in finished goods based on changes in resource price.
Bingo, that’s what I do
Gawd I’m so glad I work in a factory.
Y’all’s jobs sound fucking awful lol
It’s highly dependent on the job, the employer, and the employee.
Some love highly monotonous work and some hate it.
There is also a higher physical risk with factory work that should be considered.
True, I’ve lost consciousness due to the heat before so it’s not a safe work environment.
I guess I’d rather die than be bored.
That’s a weird choice but whatever works for you I guess.
When you’re bored every second feels like an hour.
When you’re dead time just flies by!
Fair enough.
You really have to find a job where you are not bored if you are able.
keep typing
