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How to Fake A Hard Day at the Office
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu May 15, 2003 05:33 PM
from the just-get-my-job dept.
from the just-get-my-job dept.
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." "
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How to Fake A Hard Day at the Office
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A beginner's guide to masturbation (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.cdbaby.com/)
Re:A beginner's guide to masturbation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A beginner's guide to masturbation (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.internetisshit.org/ | Last Journal: Sunday April 03 2005, @04:42PM)
And, gosh, am I tired of watching tail -f
Re:A beginner's guide to masturbation (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.internetisshit.org/ | Last Journal: Sunday April 03 2005, @04:42PM)
Nah, avoiding masturbation is way too easy. All it takes is Goatse Man [goatse.cx] and Tub Girl [tubgirl.com]. I guess they'd make a wonderful couple.
Re:A beginner's guide to masturbation (Score:5, Informative)
a[href*="goatse.cx/"]
{
text-decoration: line-through ! important;
color: brown ! important;
}
a[href*="tubgirl.com/"]
{
text-decoration: line-through ! important;
color: brown ! important;
}
Re:A beginner's guide to masturbation (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Uh, no. I opened that link with my hands on the key shortcut to close the window, got a quick glimpse and closed it. I didn't take the time to notice any of the subtleties!
Pictures like that are like watching the sun, you have to take a quick glance and then look away or it can leave permanent damage!
Re:A beginner's guide to masturbation (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.dpk.net/ | Last Journal: Friday February 11 2005, @12:22PM)
That's the strangest masturbation method I've ever heard. It's probably tiring from the lack of boobies to stimulate.
Mistitled article, mostly (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/~Greedo/journal | Last Journal: Thursday February 12 2004, @10:27AM)
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
Re:A beginner's guide to masturbation (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/~Greedo/journal | Last Journal: Thursday February 12 2004, @10:27AM)
easy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:easy (Score:5, Funny)
ghostzilla+slashdot (Score:3, Informative)
(http://mathaddicts.org/ | Last Journal: Friday December 27 2002, @04:50AM)
Then again, it might be easier to IM friends and browse
Faking? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.princeton.edu/~jathomps)
a dream (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Thursday September 27, @11:03AM)
Re:Imagine... (Score:4, Funny)
PROFIT!
Re:a dream (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.ferion.net/ | Last Journal: Monday May 06 2002, @02:16AM)
Windows 2000 and XP users find BSOD jokes stale. It's the Linux equivalent of jokes about over-reliance on the CLI. "Tee hee, if Linux were a car, you'd have to have to use the keyboard just to start it." "Hehe yeah! And if the car fails to start, it's probably because the caps lock is on! Snicker snicker, snort snort." If you rolled your eyes at that joke, then imagine how an informed Windows user responds to BSOD jokes. "That is soooo 1999."
Dilbert (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.jfedor.org/)
-jfedor
Re:GoToMyPC.com? Aaargh! (Score:5, Informative)
(http://weill.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday October 01 2005, @01:18PM)
For more information, CNet has a review [cnet.com]. Please read it.
Re:GoToMyPC.com? Aaargh! (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.livejournal.com/~pxtl)
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.
How to fake a hard day at the office (Score:3, Funny)
Full text since it's a pay site (Score:5, Informative)
(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
My wife introduced me to this (Score:5, Funny)
(http://nedwolf.com/ | Last Journal: Friday September 30 2005, @01:10PM)
Buy a vibrator.
Re:My wife introduced me to this (Score:5, Funny)
--
m, k.
Virtual Office? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://chipped.net/)
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?
Re:Virtual Office? (Score:5, Interesting)
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=
Why the concept is so hard to understand. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
cron, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, please take the wireless approach - I work for a company that makes wireless doodads
Re:cron, anyone? (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday March 27 2003, @09:01PM)
That's a lot of work (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:That's a lot of work (Score:4, Funny)
(Last Journal: Friday June 25 2004, @03:06PM)
And to me they act like it is some secret that you can turn the idle off in instant messengers. Oooo! Let's ::CRACK:: into AIM like a big time hacker!!! Oooo I'm soooo sneaky!
Come on, it's just a simple check box. If someone hasn't figured *that* out, then, well, I'll refrain from commenting...
Re:That's a lot of work (Score:5, Funny)
(http://csilo.com/)
Re:That's a lot of work (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.slashdot.org/~ralico/ | Last Journal: Friday August 15 2003, @08:58AM)
Between high school and college, I used to be a cook. I had one waitress who would bellyache for 15 minutes about doing something that would take 30 seconds. I came up with a song, lets see how much I can remember...
If you worked as hard as you bellyached,
you wouldn't have time to complain.
You wouldn't cuss and fuss,
or make a muss
causing trouble for the rest of us.
If you worked as hard as you bellyached
you wouldn't have time to complain.
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.
Become a consultant (Score:5, Funny)
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!)
Not All That Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not All That Funny (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.northatla...ucts/1583940537.html | Last Journal: Sunday April 27 2003, @08:23PM)
Or it might motivate bosses to use more sophisticated methods of employee surveillance, like actually walking around and seeing who is in the office!
Someone modded this as a troll? - Get a clue! (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/~Infonaut/journal | Last Journal: Tuesday July 31, @02:22PM)
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).
Re:Someone modded this as a troll? - Get a clue! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://kagazburj.wordpress.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday May 27 2006, @05:27AM)
Trust me. :-)
(Hint:- 9:10AM at workplace. I'm Indian. I'm browsing Slashdot.)
Re:Someone modded this as a troll? - Get a clue! (Score:4, Funny)
(http://iki.fi/wheany/ | Last Journal: Monday July 03 2006, @01:48PM)
Or they are slacking off for far less money than IT professionals in other places.
Who Do You Think Plays With These Toys? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
-------------------
Grrr (Score:5, Funny)
--
mcpsoaak
How I fool people into thinking I'm in the office. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.northatla...ucts/1583940537.html | Last Journal: Sunday April 27 2003, @08:23PM)
Secret to Delayed Email (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.bloodshed.org/)
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.
Yet another paid advertisement. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.hyperlogos.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 18, @08:19PM)
Like a flash of light (Score:3, Funny)
As long as you fake smart, who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:As long as you fake smart, who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Sunday June 05 2005, @11:42PM)
In return I do the following:
- Do the work expected of me to the best of my ability.
- Keep the boss informed as to what I'm doing and how it's going.
- Give him honest feedback on him and my work.
I've given this mini-spiel at every interview I've had with whomever would be my immediate supervisor and I can get a good feel for what kind of company I'm interviewing at by their reaction.Convincing people you do work (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Friday March 21 2003, @12:04AM)
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.
Late hours as opposed to early (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Wednesday March 02 2005, @11:08PM)
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.