35 Ingenious Things These People Do To Look Busy At Work, And You May Want To Take Notes

Former manager here (went back to consulting because it’s more fun.)

Just get your job done. I told my employees as much. Hell I spend 30-40% of my day on non work stuff but it helps me recharge and then I get more done in a half day than many of my peers do in a week.

Been 5 years since I worked in an office but these:

In a call centre I’d dial a number I knew would not connect (ie leave last digit off). The line registered as busy so my ‘busy on a call’ stats were always very high. Just had to remember to cover the phone light with something if I walked away to make a coffee or something.

Always leave something on the computer screen that is an excel document with lots of data etc. remember to scroll from time to time and don’t use a screen saver. Ideally your screen should be not seen by others walking past but this is for when you can’t control that.

Tell others how busy you are. Needs to be done carefully so you aren’t seen as a drama queen. Just time to time and slightly under your breath comments ‘well anyway got to get back to my desk, lots on’. Or in staff meetings or with your manager praise the team. ‘Thanks everyone for all the hard work getting done, this is a great team’

Always carry documents with you when walking around the office. A folder or just any papers. Great for going to a chat with a coworker. From afar.. if you are seen holding papers you look busy and it must be about work right.

Thinking on that last point. Walk with purpose. Walk slightly faster than normal from A to B.

Stay 5 mins later than others leaving office for the day. Come to work 5 mins before they do. Leave empty coffee mugs on your desk in the morning. Make a coffee. But have one with dregs as a spare prop. You’ve ‘been in for ages’ at a glance.

Ohhh I’m having a bit too much fun with this. Lol.

Find another job.

If I need to "look busy" rather than "be productive," I'm working for an idiot.

I’m a cleaner/janitor in a warehouse complex

I just grab a broom or a bucket

Can walk laps of the place for hours without doing anything if I want

I have no idea how you guys can do nothing with so much dedication and intensity.

I get twitchy if I don't have a problem to solve or something to focus on, so how the f**k can you manage to last 8 HOURS while doing nothing but staring at nothing on your screens?

I really don't get it. I think I was born broken.

If my Boss starts giving me the side eye tomorrow while I'm scowling at my computer screen, constantly running to the office scanner, and leaping from my desk and into the hallway with a folder and a pen, I'll know he follows this sub.

Just look frustrated with whatever you're doing.

Squint at your computer screen, shake your head, let out an occasional sigh, have a bunch of papers on your desk you can rifle through periodically.

You don't want to look so frustrated that you might need some help, but if you do this right everybody will think you're already too busy with something to be bothered.

I frequently write emails to myself. Could be my grocery list, to-dos for after work, ideas that I don’t want to forget, or planning the upcoming weekend. It’s a great way to make my free time more efficient and organized while killing time at work.

Find something to read that they can’t tell isn’t work if they don’t look close. Like did you know the script of the Truman show is online somewhere? That was a fun day.

If you work in a big enough building, you just put something important looking in one hand (papers, a clipboard works perfectly, etc) and scurry intensely from one random place to the next. Make friends in different areas, stop to chat briefly. Find the good clean remote restroom and use it. Grab a cup of coffee. Help somebody else with work that's more interesting than yours, etc. Rinse, repeat.

As long as you're holding something official looking (change it up) and *hurrying semi-urgently* from place to place you can go like this right up to your yearly review. Hopefully you managed to get some actual amazing s**t done here and there along the way.

Some of the work I do involves engineering maps.

Pull up a complicated-looking map, put on headphones with audiobook, let my eyes glaze over for an hour or 2 looking at the map.

People walk by and assume I'm trying to do some sort of complicated logistics/planning in my head. In reality I'm on book 12 of the Dresden Files.

- Downloaded PDF version of a book and open it up

- Split screen with an excel sheet

- Read

I powered through the Game of Thrones book series in 2-3 months at my last job. It's my go to way to kill time and look busy at work.

I have a steady flow of work these days, but when I first started, my position was brand new. So there was not a lot to do, and it's actually the reason I joined reddit. Figured I could stay current with all the free time I had.

But yeah those first few months were rough, so I started emailing myself really long articles and short stories. I'd then either just read them straight from email, or I'd past them into an Excel/Word/Publisher document.

A lot of the articles came from here: https://kk.org/cooltools/best-magazine-articles-ever/

I'm a social media manager, so I can just browse through instagram and pretend I'm looking for inspiration, influencers or the competition.

I've had the same spreadsheet open for 4 days, no one has said anything, and I still got paid so I guess it's working.

Open up various tools for system monitoring and look at them. If something went tits up we'd get an email so I don't really need to do that, but it looks busy and maybe I'll notice something important.

Otherwise I take some training courses or something. Most aren't very good but it's fuel for my self evaluation come mid year.

Sit at my desk for 15 minutes, walk to the file cabinet room, pull out a random file, make three copies, walk through the hall so everyone sees me with paperwork in my hand, slip out the side door, go to my truck, take a 30 minute nap, walk back through the hallway with my paperwork, shred it, go back to my desk. If anybody asks I just tell them I'm cleaning up paperwork before the end of the billing cycle. I can repeat this all day long if I need to.

Open an excel spreadsheet ...start filling it..my boss backs away lol

When I was in the culinary field, anytime I wanted a short break, I'd just grab a random container and walk around with it. No one bothers you if you do haha.

As for my current office gig, I recently started writing fan fiction with word or notepad during free time. Anyone who glances over at me sees me pounding away on the keyboard so they think I'm busy as f**k. In reality I'm writing away about people getting their a*s kicked or fighting monsters.

Photocopy blank paper. Not my trick, but I used to love watching one of my coworkers do this for hours on end.