Finally, a question where i can shine. You don’t have to do anything specific. Just do things.
Use a headset with your phone or laptop: You are on a call. Most people don’t speak much at online meetings.
Take a little nap? Thinking.
Want some time alone? Go to a meeting room. Works even better if the room has glass walls since you can see them and they can see that you are “busy”, but no one sees your screen.
Have multiple monitors. There’s always something work-related on at least one screen.
Have fields of interest that blend in. If one of your hobbies is vaguely related to work you are golden. You can totally read something unrelated to work during working time if it seems most your attention goes towards work. (See multiple screens and some switching back and force.)
Shift your working hours slightly from the norm, i.e. come 5 min earlier than others.
Don’t hide windows with non-work stuff when someone sees them. Too late. Act as if you have nothing to hide.
Do a reasonable work-life blend. Work overtime occasionally at odd hours and make managers know that you solved an emergency in your free time. Gives you an excuse to leave early or slack off the next day and any other day.
React to emails with a resonable delay. Of course, you can help, but not right now. You are busy.
Block your calendar and decline invites.
Id say the one thing I kind of disagree with here is the emails. If I’m at my computer and the email says “Are you able to handle this 15 minute job for me by EOD?” I respond immediately “Yeah, I can fit that in.” and then go back to whatever it was I was doing and handle it later.
If someone is asking me to do a big job I dont reply immediately and go do some prep work for the big job and email them an hour later. “Not a problem, Ill get on it ASAP.”
If you respond and get tasks done immediately sometimes it makes them think you must be in the middle of something when you dont. When someone gives you a big task that will take 4 hours and they check in on you 3 hours after you reply to the email and you’re almost finished, it puffs up your ability.
But in general I agree, responding to emails is a great tool for managing perceptions and expectations.
Microsoft Viva Insights will really fuck you on this plan. There’s just no escaping it anymore.
It’s a workplace monitoring tool dressed up as a workplace wellness tool.
You know that table that shows the risk of employees who might burn out, given their meeting frequency, teams interactions, email rate, work hours etc.? If you flip the sorting order, you can measure who isn’t doing enough (by whatever metrics the employer decides).
I Remote Desktop from my personal computer into my work computer. All personal stuff happens on the personal computer, the work computer is work stuff only. There is no way for my work to know I am “goofing off” while working.
There is. Viva insights doesn’t even track keyboard and mouse activity as far as I know. It’s about teams usage, meetings, calls, chats, etc.
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
Use the buddy system. Years ago I had a work-friend, we’d just book meetings with each other a couple of times a week, go to a meeting room and just hang out, I taught him to juggle, or we’d watch an episode from a series etc.
It was fun feeling like we got away with something, but realistically nobody questioned it because we both got our work done and it was a good company where that mattered more than time spent at a desk.
