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Goof off at work! Read secretly

2010 April 1

Wally was right all along! The world of work is just set up to make you fail, or in the best case scenario piss your life away on meaningless paper-pushing. Usually the best bet is to keep your head down, look busy, and avoid getting anything substantial pinned on you. But how to do that?

This easy, three-step tip will keep you “working faithfully” while freeing you to have a good time. Well, if you’re literate anyway.

Steps to do at home:

  1. You need to find a lengthy text file you want to read. An e-book, a webpage, whatever. If you search “Public Domain Books” you’ll find a lot of classics online for free. Pick a book or article with few or preferably no illustrations.
  2. Get a spreadsheet work file. Your best bet is something long and complicated, that you could plausibly spend hours looking at. Any kinds of work “lists” are usually good
  3. Insert a blank column into the middle of the work document. Then you edit>paste special>paste as text, and dump your text from step 1 into the new column. Then, shrink the column so that it’s practically invisible. Save onto a USB key or floppy disk

Now at work, open the file from your USB key/floppy disk. Arrange your desk to have papers or other materials associated with the work file.

Using the arrow keys, move your cursor into the hidden, super-thin, almost invisible column where you pasted your reading material during step 3. In the part of the screen where you can edit cell contents, you will see one line of your book. Scroll up and down to read. If you hear or see someone coming, hit left or right arrow key and get out of the column. Now you’re safe. But maybe alt-tab to something else if you have time.

Next week: how to spot trendy sounding but vague jobs that look good on the resume while demanding minimal tangible work.

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One Response leave one →
  1. Frank79 permalink
    April 2, 2010

    Oh man, you had me wondering there until I noticed the date! Haha. Nice one.

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