Carrying the papers attached to a clipboard enhances the effect even more.
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Not everyone is in a position to drop their current job and go looking for a new one. Employers tend to have a lot of power over their employees, both in terms of real-world impact and in psychological terms.
Again, if youâre accomplishing your responsibilities for the company in the required time, and youâre not costing the company extra money, then youâre not being a cheat.
If youâre an hourly employee and are taking more than your allowed break time, thatâs different, of course. But how many hourly employees do tasks that regularly involve running automated processes on a computer that take lengthy periods to complete?
(well, Iâll admit, when I was younger and in an hourly position there was one database report I was responsible for that took over an hour to run, but I doubt thatâs common)
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In the 70s and 80s I worked at a place where our cubicles were in one building and our lab was in another building. A guy I worked with kept a coat always hanging in both his cubicle and the lab, so people always assumed he was in the other place (when in fact he was often in the bar across the street). He was a very good mech tech, but not a guy you wanted to crossâŚ
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Get off my lawn!
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All you say is valid and I do not dispute it. But those are also part of a much larger discussion. However, when it comes to using things like this software, that is what I am against. It is deceitful and dishonest. If I was an employer (I am retired now) I would fire anyone using such things. If I was an employee, how could I trust a colleague that uses such trickery?
Excel 97 apparently had a hidden flight simulator.
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If thereâs a contract, then the relationship is not one between an employer and an employee, but a contractor and a client. Contracts are very rarely written to include requirements such as âsit here where I can see you, and pretend to type all the time, whether thatâs the best use of your skills or not.â
As long as you come through with your deliverables it isnât anyoneâs business how long you stare at screensavers or play video games or stand outside smoking.
On the other hand, if an employerâs only metric for evaluating employee work product is âDoes this person look busy all the time?â then the employer is a fatuous incompetent who deserves to be taken advantage of.
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âIf I was an employee, how could I trust a colleague that uses such trickery?â
I suppose you could examine their actual output and evaluate that instead. Or would that be too much like work?
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You canât mess with the Costanza special: always look angry
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Just hope the IT guys donât check the install logs and see Corporate Avoidance
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A contract is an exchange of value between two or more parties. It can be verbal or written, implied or expressed.
But, in the end, my point throughout this is that this sort of thing is dishonest. To me, this is a matter of ethics.
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Smart employers donât have a problem with employees working in a mode which makes them more productive even if it means playing foosball, taking lots of coffee breaks, working odd hours or from home. Employers do have a problem with dishonesty. Using a program like this is dishonest and in addition to getting fired you might also be letting down your team members who think youâre actually working.
Honesty in this context simply means the two parties have agreed to play on the same field. E.g., pens and Post-Its are left in an unlocked supply closet with the understanding of âgo ahead and take one or two home, but donât go nuts.â Similarly, thereâs a common expectation that you might have to leave early or use an office phone line to arrange for a child to be picked up from soccer practice. Or that you might stay on the toilet for longer than strictly necessary, in order to collect your thoughts.
And if you think that the majority of these employers â whose balance sheetâs rounding errors you evince such concern for â would hesitate for a second to screw you out of overtime, dump a pile into your inbox at 16:50 on a Friday, or have security escort you to the door with no severance package at the drop of a hat, youâve had far more idyllic work environments than usual (By U.S. standards, which may not apply in other countries.)
This fake-compiling approach is a technological solution (make it look like the computer is doing stuff) to a social problem (my boss can only measure productivity in terms of minutes spent at my desk,) but maybe itâs not for the bossâ benefit: Maybe there are uptight clients prone to visit and wonder why someone is eating a danish in the break room instead of diligently working on our project goddamnit! If theyâre assuaged by a progress bar and sent happily on their way, I would consider that a canonical example of the little white lie.
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You seem to misunderstand my position on this. I have no issues with flexibility in breaks or how long it takes someone to have a dump or how they go about completing their tasks (so long as they arenât dangerous, illegal, etc).
There are bad bosses out there. But no matter how bad they are, there is no reason to be like them. Its a matter of personal ethics. And using âtricksâ like this software violates my own personal ethics.
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Fair enough, just try to understand that not everyone who doesnât hew precisely to your personal ethical code is necessarily a thief or a cheater or all-around scoundrel.
Taking the high road is all well and good, as long as youâre aware that doing so when competing with cheats and thieves is intentionally hobbling yourself, and those people arenât going to respect you for standing up for ideals which they do not share.
If you can look in a mirror without wanting to smash it, youâre ahead of the game⌠in some ways.
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Homer J(ay) Simpson, is that you? 
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It almost makes me want to cry reading this because you reinforce this with further comments that this is without irony or sarcasm.
Are there really people like you around?
I donât think I know many people who would choose the right path over expedience anymore, especially in management though labor is apathetic too after all of the abuse. Things seem broken anymore and the only social contract left is the one enforced by the sheriff and the courts.
[Emphasis mine]
I donât think this would be used by anyone whose employer actually trusts them.
Yes, there are people like me around, though we seem to be so few that we should be on the endangered species list.
I see a world that is fucked up. I decided a long time ago to do what I can to unfuck it. To me, that means holding myself to a code of ethics and conduct that seems to have been tossed aside. Be honest. Keep your word. Fight ignorance. Speak up. Do no harm. Donât back down.
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PC Arcade, a collection of text-mode DOS games, had a boss key that put up a fake bar graph - all done using the IBM extended ASCII character set.
