Find a job where you’re never without something to do.
keep typing
I think once I saw a web browser that made websites look like its code. So you were looking for bugs while browsing.
There was certainly a plug-in or something that made Reddit look like an Excel spreadsheet, so reading Reddit made you look like you were doing important calculations!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Compile arch
Make jokes about not being busy. Make them boldly in slightly non appropriate circles. Then lean with the same amount of conviction into compliments. Agree with full heart, be non apologetic with the same force used to joke about how little work you have.
This duality is powerful because on the one hand you clearly have nothing to hide, and on the other hand you’re painfully truthful. Works a charm. Then go have brunch on the clock.
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
I mostly wfh so not really a problem anynore. However, I had a trick from before covid. My companies av is trash, it scans any new files created with a single thread, there’s a exception for the directory we compile in (although it’s frequently failing and scanning anyway 🙄) but I keep a repo outside that directory for when I want make my compile take 6hours instead of 10minutes. I also have this as my screensaver
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.
jerking off. nobody bothers a man who is jerking off.
