Looking Busy

[bigbadwolf]

In the Herald Tribune:

A portfolio manager, 30, who works for a private equity firm in New Jersey, scatters papers on his desk. When he skips out for long lunches, he colludes with friends in other offices to call him - and deliberately leaves behind his cellphone, with the ringer's volume set to high. (Like many workers interviewed for this article, he requested that neither his name nor his company be mentioned, worried that his position would be at risk.)

A lawyer at the New York office of an international firm wanted to give the impression he was working late at night - but he was stymied by office lighting that would dim when he left the room. So he brought in an oscillating fan, which tricked the motion detectors into keeping the lights on long after he'd departed.

 

[Adam]

A quick idea for increasing page views on Quantnet: Format the site to look, at first glance, like an Excel spreadsheet. Those of us killing time at work can then peruse the site at our leisure, leaving our bosses and managers none the wiser.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

And now your wishes have become reality. You can check out your Facebook friends while pretend to be busy working on that Excel Spreadsheet.

A Yale undergrad has produced what has got to be the highest evolution of time-wasting yet: Hardlywork.in. This brilliant site, once it’s got your Facebook Connect credentials, converts your newsfeed into a productive-looking Excel spreadsheet. Gone are paranoia and stress– unless, of course, your company secretly tracks everything you do anyways. If that’s the case, you’re probably already screwed for checking this site instead of incessantly feeding your soul to the money machine.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...facebook-news-feed-into-a-spreadsheet/241044/

 

[enthusiast]

This is hilarious. FYI: I am checking this from home.

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

This is hilarious...and also pretty sad how much time was spent to create that for no real reason. At the end of the day, all that matters is that your deliverables come in on a timely basis.

 

[enthusiast]

Lets just hope he is still an undergrad n not working for your firm.

 

[euroazn]

Laughing... so... hard.

 

[DominiConnor]

It is of course trivial to program Outlook to send emails datestamped at impressively late times of night and at weekends.

 

[MRoss]

Awesome

 

[euroazn]

It is of course trivial to program Outlook to send emails datestamped at impressively late times of night and at weekends.

I did this before... of course for completely different reasons :p

That being said, most people can access Outlook out-of-office so it's not particularly useful for looking busy.

 

[Ken Abbott]

I've got bad news for some of you. We in management know who's working and who's slacking off. It's quite easy to tell.

 

[Tsotne]

There are other ways to mask a website while being on a work desk. FB account has been blocked in many works so other hundreds of sites allow you to walk away from the direct browser link checking and enter the site with no fuss and bother. So that's pretty correct, it is not hardly identifiable who is working and who not:

I've got bad news for some of you. We in management know who's working and who's slacking off. It's quite easy to tell.