How not to get caught Time Passing at Work

Rhys’s supervisor in work came over and saw him browsing the Internet. It wouldn’t have been terrible but one of the blogs he had open was called “Quit your Day Job”.
- A comment at The Fine Art of Time passing at Work.

Now that you’ve learnt the secret of the trade, I advice you to practice with caution and avoid some common mistakes that people do.

The Time Pass at work Series
An Introduction to Time Pass at Work and Why it is good
Definitive Guide for Geeks to Time Pass at Work
The Fine Art of Time passing at Work
How not to get caught Time Passing at Work!

So let’s get in business right away…

None can insult you without your permission

Don’t really bother about what others might think or tell to you. You are what you think you are. Develop a thick skin attitude for ‘bad mouthers’. It’s your life to live (for once) and you should do what you like. Only you know what you’re doing, in the long run the results will show and the person who said ‘things’ to you will not be with you. If you die today, you should not regret later in heaven/hell that you were scared by this piece of mofo.

More about work and working life at Lifehack.org: Postcards from over the edge. Psst: I got this sub heading from that post. Go read that article, excellent stuff. (But make sure you come back here!)

Avoid IMing
This is by far the biggest pass times in work for many. IMing may be a time pass for you.. but looks unprofessional. If your colleagues see this, then they’ll know what you’re up to. If you’re chatting and totally in to it (like you’re in a a conference or some cool chick with webcam streaming :twisted:) and when you want to wanted/work, then it’s a tricky situation where we all want to avoid. It’s better that you don’t IM. I Im only when I’m bored and have nothing to do or when I really want to IM. I never IM for time pass and it’s wise that even you don’t indulge in it.

Simply sit in office or do others work
Why you want to sit idle and advertise yourself that you’re time passing just like that. Believe me there are many other ways to time pass.

Some people who don’t have anything to do will take up and do other job. This is the worst thing that you can do. Why you want to load with uninteresting things when you can truly time pass like a pro!

Avoid listening to music
Some people have a bad habit to listening to music while working. Again you must be time passing, but your colleague who is actually working is disturbed.

This rule don’t apply to all the office and work. But generally speaking it’s better to avoid music while working…errr.. time passing.

“Dude, what are you doing?”
There are some people who themselves don’t have any work (or don’t want to do) but observe what others are doing? They’ll tell you’re time passing at that time or choose to quote whenever their need arises. These are the people who really don’t have work and time passing like you. People who really work, don’t care about what others are doing.

It’s better to ignore, smile and forget the issue. Even though you might not be working, at least you are doing something irrespective of whether it’s related to your 9-5 or not. If you take seriously (or deny) then you’ll in a sticky situation, you wouldn’t want to be in. It’s like marketing that you’re a time passer. Do what you want,time pass or work, but don’t really tell (or let know) others what you do. I’ve been guilty of this and I’m paying the price. Learn from others mistake.

Reader’s Comments and Suggestion

As said earlier, I would add reader’s suggestion with a linkback, so here’s it!

mereeja: mereeja says that Liking what you do is HAPPINESS and Doing what you like is FREEDOM. So very true.

Karlo Licudine: Karlo time passes at work by visiting forums and feel that maybe because of making use of the office bandwidth may be one of the reasons why their server were experiencing problems!

Riyaz Usman: Riyaz has subscribed to 150 feeds and 70% of his online time is spend on learning new things. He feels that they have a good team and meeting at the ultimate place of fun.

Tyler Ingram: Tyler is proud to be a geek and his company has UL quad T1 line and uses it to every drop. He’s actually trying to work up ideas on started a web design/development company so that I can work from home and not have to go to an office. He feels working at home is more productive. He’s done everything from playing Soldat, IRC (programmed my own IRC client too), played MUDs (www.anguish.org) and various other activities that would be counter productive to work. Above all, he gets his work done!

Madhur Kapoor: Madhur feels that the techniques mentioned at Time Pass guide for geeks can be applied in college also.

Rahul: Rahul says that walking is good and has a evil idea that we can walk towards reception, check whether lady look hot or not or any visiting chicks or not. He says that I’m ’showing gas station to monkeys’ and the series should have come with some warnings like “issued in public interest, conditions apply in standard , do on your own risk”!

* There were many such good comments, but I added comments that really gave ideas and suggestions.

Hope you liked this series, my first series attempt in this blog. Please do let me know what you thought about the articles.

I can also ‘work’ like really working (which many people do) but I won’t do it. Why? Let me explain why with a quote from the movie Little Miss Sunshine:

“Do what you love. Fuck everything else.”

Note:
I didn’t refer to any other resources, search for information or ask anyone during the course writing this series (but for asking your comments). All the ‘ideas’ here are tried and tested for 8 months.

Related Articles:

• Browse with more Privacy at Workplace
• An Introduction to Time Pass at Work and Why it is good
• Definitive Guide for Geeks to Time Pass at Work
• The Fine Art of Time passing at Work