As official president of National Association of Slackers in America (NASA), I have devised a few easy to follow guidelines for slacking off at work. Follow these simple rules, and you'll find you workday much more enjoyable as you end up working four hours, tops. 1) Drink lots of water. The more water you drink, the more times you can get up to go to the bathroom. As you're walking back from the bathroom, just stop by to chat with a co-worker for a few minutes. You'd be amazed at how much time those 10 minute bathroom breaks use up during the work day. If your boss starts hassling you, just say that you were in the bathroom...technically, you wouldn't be lying... 2) Use message boards when you surf the net. If you frequent message boards, you can post messages all day long, and the typing you are doing by listing your favorite AC/DC songs or sharing a recipe for blueberry angel food cake will sound like work to nosy, blabbing co-workers. Two straight hours of mouse clicking sounds very suspicious. 3) Suck up to the boss. What, you think that people kiss their boss's ass for a raise? Sorry, they do it to get out of doing unnecessary work. Find out what your boss's interests are and do some research on them. Even if you can't stand 15th Century impressonist paintings, chatting about it with your boss for an hour is better than those stupid TPS reports, right? 4) Take an early or late lunch. If the standard lunch hour is 12:00 in your office take your lunch at 11:00 or 1:00, if possible. That way, you get a free hour of goofing off when everybody else is out of the office. 5) Leave your desk cluttered. You know why the desks of executives are always clean?? It's because THEY NEVER DO ANY %&*# WORK! When you leave for the day, always make sure there are some papers and folders scattered around the desk, even if it is stuff that you finished with last year. A few sticky notes stuck around the cube with random names, phone numbers, and dates are also a good idea. If your boss walks by and sees a spotless desk, he'll start to get suspicious. Post your own ideas for slacking off at work, if you want to. With your help, we can ensure that the important things in life get accomplished, mainly forwarding cheesy e-mail jokes, downloading lez p*rn, and making giant rubber band balls.
Get your work done fast. I used to slack off openly in front of my boss because I was a really quick programmer. He never minded and would frequently slack off with me, since my fast work helped him get his work done just as fast. Strip clubs, shooting ranges, XBOX tournaments, we did it all.
I stopped reading right there. If I work more than 90 minutes in a workday, I'm totally overdoing it. My average is 30 minutes. Keep in mind I am here for 12 hours a day.
Yeah, at this part time law firm job I'm working, my supervisor gave us a quota of boxes to index a day...she said she didn't care how many we did after that as long as we get them done. It takes me about an hour to fulfill the quota. I've started going in a 6:45, reading a book until 8:30, reading cc.net until 11:45 while doing my work a liiitle bit at a time.
I play good ole text based interactive fiction games at work. Remember Zork from the early '80s? You can easily download it, and tons of other new and old i.f. games like it. It is hard to tell that you are playing a game because there are no graphics - just text. Plus their file sizes are tiny. They eat up time real well too. Also, if you know where to look, you can find alot of books in pdf format that are great for work.
Currently, I'm finding Spaced Penguin a good time-killer: http://www.bigideafun.com/penguins/arcade/spaced_penguin/default.htm
Project Gutenburg has most books in the public domain available for download (I think as text files). Where can we look for pdfs of more recent books?
Great, I followed all of A-Train's advice and now my boss has informed me that I will be fired this Friday. Thanks alot.
Bring food for everyone. People are willing to overlook almost anything if you're the one who keeps them supplied with delicious, non-nutritious food. Also, try substituting coffee as your beverage of choice. You get the same bathroom benefits as water AND you get to hang around the coffee machine -- waiting for it to finish brewing, adding cream and sugar, starting a new pot, etc... Plus, if you just stroll around the office with a mug in your hand, everyone assumes you're either on your way to or coming back from the coffee machine so they leave you alone.
That is so true. At the law firm I worked at for three years in Austin, everyone in our group knew that the hour after lunch was my reading time, if you catch my drift. No one cared, it was great! Of course, there was the time my sister flew in from California and surprised me for my graduation. I was getting paged for 30 minutes until someone remembered that the intercom didn't go into the bathroom. That was a little embarassing.
Here are some other tips: Always look frustrated. Look very annoyed. People think you have too much work or doing something analytical. Always have a pen in your hand like your about to write something down. Always suck up to the receptionist so she won't tell on you if youve gone to lunch for more than an hour. I agree, 11:00 is a good time for lunch because you can come back at 12:30 without looking suspicious.
