Idlers often show the wonders of ingenuity, mimicking frenzied activities and evading control of their supervisor. Some remain undetected for years and successfully advance the career ladder, skillfully throwing dust in the eyes of the management.
How to identify and denounce such a slacker? One needs to know their tricks and ways to influence others.
-
Rapid gait, night letters, mindless action
Here’s what Bernard Y. (co-founder of Bombfell.com) observed: employees of one particular bank honed their talents of doing nothing for as much as several years! They literally run away from a time tracker: to look extremely busy, they rapidly walked around the office, bumping into corners and other obstacles in their way. This created a feeling that they have some very important goal, and have absolutely no time even for normal coordination of movements. To circumvent the employee monitoring, they also used Outlook service to send letters on their behalf at 4 am. And it has been informative messages, not just interesting links. Among their arsenal of being extremely loaded with work were sighs, inflated cheeks, glasses and pens behind the ear (because they have no time to leave it on a desktop). They were not too lazy to just pound on the keys so that nobody suspected them of mindlessly browsing the web.
-
Gadgets in hands
Russ Davis (medical worker) tells of a case in his practice: he had to work as a medic in the army in 70-ies and was transferred to another base. There he worked with another medic, who loved to imitate being very busy. To go along corridors and rooms, he always took a tablet with several sheets in it. For what? He explained that in this case (when you have something in your hands) you look occupied. And it really worked. If they had to observe the base together, it was Russ who usually received assignments, not his colleague with the tablet, who walked behind looking occupied.
-
Student’s assignments
Be especially careful while hiring students, and pay special attention to their results in your time tracker. Here is the story from an anonymous user. He successfully used the work time for writing courseworks. The magnitude of his secret activities is impressive, he spent only 10-20 hours per week to do his duties.To absolve himself of any suspicion of management, he kept any books unrelated to work away from the workplace and read them on the screen. He was even praised for such a diligent work.
-
Lunch at your computer
To further convince everyone of their engrossment, some idlers lunch at their desks, creating the feeling that they have no time to even go to the buffet. The lack of screen saver on their PC works just as fascinating: opened documents instead of screen saver gives the impression that the employee works hard. In the same way “professional” idlers, before answering a call make sure to tell one or two business phrases supposedly to their colleagues and only then will greet the interlocutor at the end of the wire. How can we do without a time tracker? Such a behavior is so convincing and misleading.
-
Keyboard pounding
Pounding the keys continuously and in a very concentrated way can fool others to think that an idler is extremely occupied, giving the idler an opportunity to write a novel. This is exactly what an anonymous user who submitted this case did. It is good to put a sheet of paper before you to make it more convincing. This is why a manager is advised to always combine usage of a time tracker with analysis of the results of employees’ activities.
-
Serious face
Experienced idlers know how to contain their emotions and control facial expressions. If they speak to someone in the office, they do not smile. The smile is a sign of a slacker, after all.
This article is most likely failed to collect all the ways to mimic the frenzied activity and and extreme busyness used by idlers. However such “methods” can only deceive another person, not the time tracker which collects the information about employee’s activities and presents it to a manager. Using such a software, idlers can be easily found and disciplined before it is too late, preventing real financial losses for a company.