Pretending To Work: How Many People Do It?
It might not be a traditionally “metal” subject, but working in an office is definitely brutal — at least in a “meta” kind of way. A staggering number of modern people waste away their lives in fluorescent offices laboring for jerks who just want to take their money. What do they get for their commitment? A middling salary, lifelong obesity, and a gold watch.
Rightfully, employees feel that they’re owed a bit more. Many transition gradually to positions with more responsibility or decision-making opportunities. A large portion, however, simply do as little as possible for as long as possible. In some cases, companies have paid workers for years for doing absolutely nothing. But how common is this?
Working or not working?
Who Pretends To Work?
I once had a job at a corporate office for a bank. I was being paid considerably more than I make now to do a semi-important, but not doctor/lawyer-territory job.
Every day, I would drink my coffee and start my quota around 10 am. Most days, I was done with everything I needed to do by around 1 PM. Eventually, I automated half of my tasks, and I usually spent at least six hours of an 8 or 9-hour day pretending to work or inventing productive things to do.
Over the year I was there, I constantly worried that would be found out as a faker, fired, and shunned from my industry. My coworkers were always diligently typing away or squinting at their screens as though doing difficult mental math. Why wasn’t I more like them?
It was only after I started to pay a little more attention that I began to pick up on a few subtleties. The girl across from me would minimize multiple windows whenever someone walked by. The guy on the other side of the room would bring up random news subjects out of the blue. The lady in charge of me kept complimenting me on my work ethic. In short, everyone around me was completely full of shit.
I quickly discovered that I wasn’t alone. According to numerous anonymous posters on Quora, faking it is totally normal. Some even swear that “the more you get paid, the less you do.”
But these are just anecdotal accounts. What about actual studies?
Of course, studying such an evasive phenomenon with real science is difficult, but plenty of researchers have tried. A 2016 survey in the UK found that, in an 8-10 hour day, the average employee’s productivity was only 2 hours and 53 minutes.
What Constitutes Pretending To Work?
There are a lot of ways to act like you’re doing something important without actually doing anything. What you can get away with depends on the nature of your position and the scrutiny you’re under.
Some of the most common ways of “faking it” include:
Shopping, browsing, or watching videos in a secret window
Taking excessively long bathroom or smoke breaks.
Drawing or sketching
Doing nothing at all
Socializing
Messing around on a smartphone
The most common digital means of goofing off are, in order:
Checking news websites
Checking social media
Shopping
Texting
What About Remote Jobs?
Since the beginning of 2020, remote jobs have become far more common than ever before. This, predictably, has opened up a new lane of BSing through the day. While some employers track activity or require a screen share, plenty of creative employees have found ways to bypass these precautions.
Interestingly, there’s good research to suggest that working from home is somehow more productive than working in an office, despite the increased range of options for goofing off. Perhaps being home is a light at the end of the tunnel for the 85% of people who hate their jobs. Maybe the increased comfort and decreased stress make daily tasks just a little easier to stomach for these unfortunate souls.
What Jobs Have the Most People Pretending To Work?
For obvious reasons, there isn’t a lot of data on which career fields do the least, but evidence from different parts of the web point to a few industries. Generally, these seem to be non-lifesaving occupations, such as finance, clerical work, basic security, and retail.
If we want to be a little more analytical, we can look at which industries take the longest to get anything done. The top five least productive ones include:
Mining and metals
Consumer goods
Biotech
Gas Utilities
Chemicals
The fine print in the study I’ve referenced says that this lack of productivity might only mean that these industries have tasks that take a long time to get done. Still, some may be disproportionately affected by people goofing off. I don’t know much about mining or chemicals, so who knows?
What Should You Do if You Find Yourself Wasting Time?
If you’ve found yourself watching your precious life slip away from the confines of your cubicle, you have several straightforward choices. You’ve likely already considered each of them, but you may still benefit from having them laid out:
The first and most obvious is to stay the course. This isn’t the best choice, but it’s the safest. If what you’ve been doing is your only way of keeping a roof over your children’s heads, maybe that’s what you need to do.
Another option is to reevaluate your life. You might never be productive all day long, but you can at least do something that has meaning. Ask yourself: what do you care about? Who do you want to help? Is your current situation enabling you to make the world a better place? If not, it might be time to go to school. Maybe the military is for you. Maybe you should take your savings and start your own company or charity.
The last thing you can do is get creative. If you don’t want to stick it to the man, figure out ways to make more doing what you already do. Automate your whole workflow. Get promoted and make other people do your job. Start a youtube channel of your farts (like Paul Flart). it’s your life, so do what you want.
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