How to appear busy while not doing anything?
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Not easy but I've had lots of practice :) . I spent 3 months waiting to quit my last job and not being given any work to do. I learned more about the bizzare history and colourful personalities of alternative enegy than any sensible person would want to know. I also wrote a vast and pointless class library, noted down dozens of really good idea for software projects I could be working on if I wasn't busily wasting time and listened to my colleague making disgusting noises by sucking his fingers :rolleyes: No, I don't envy you, I'd rather be genuinely busy.
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
I spent 3 months waiting to quit my last job and not being given any work to do.
That happens in every job I had, somehow management cant keep up with me :( (on the bright side, I guess it's better than being overworked).
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 3 out now -
Yes, it is a serious question. :)
My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"
Why do you want to pretend? What do you gain by such a deception?
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them. --Leonard Louis Levinson -
Yes, it is a serious question. :)
My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"
Introduce new bugs and try fixing them ;)
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Yes, it is a serious question. :)
My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"
Here are some really good pointers .... 1. When you're not in your desk, always move around with a a printout or a pen in your hand but make sure that it's something meaningful and not some funny drawing. 2. Never run when you're moving (you spend more time like that) not to mention that everybody would think that you're trying too much to appear working. 3. Have yellow sticker posts on your screen which you move around (left-right-top-bottom) and finally discard at the end of the day. It lets other people know that tasks ARE being appointed to you and you ARE finishing them. 4. Never, Ever let the windows desktop show. It's a good practice to have at least 5 windows open (not the same program though) and also have a 6th opened but not maximized (something like Notepad, my favorite) and write some stuff like a TODO list. 5. In the rarest case that someone gives you something to do, never get off your chair at that instance but first save the Notepad and switch to the next window (AutoCAD, Word, ... etc). That way you're providing a clue that whatever you were doing is critical and important. 6. In the not so seldom case where your boss/supervisor sneaks up behind you and you're surfing the net ..... DO NOT PANIC and DO NOT MINIMIZE OR HIDE THE BROWSER. This doesn't however mean that you can surf to unrelated to your job sites. It's always a good idea to have the GOOGLE page handy with some results on the latest news on whatever your job is about. I'm sure that depending on your job description you can find many more ......
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Yes, it is a serious question. :)
My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"
Get a government job...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
Yes, it is a serious question. :)
My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"
Massage your code. Refactor, rename, re-indent, un-indent, group methods, regroup methods, etc.
Semicolons: The number one seller of ostomy bags world wide. - dan neely
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you might want to keep a paper w/ diagrams in front of your keyboard and make some serious faces from time to time ;o)
Ooh yes, walking up and down to the printer is always a good one. :laugh:
Semicolons: The number one seller of ostomy bags world wide. - dan neely
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Introduce new bugs and try fixing them ;)
But that's what developers normaly do...
[My Blog]
"Visual studio desperately needs some performance improvements. It is sometimes almost as slow as eclipse." - Rüdiger Klaehn
"Real men use mspaint for writing code and notepad for designing graphics." - Anna-Jayne Metcalfe -
It's been my experience that all the best programmers take their idle time (all 500 ms of it) and use it to code something else that's cool and useful to the company, or at least a demo of it that they can pitch to their boss to see if the project has legs.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
or at least a demo of it that they can pitch to their boss to see if the project has legs.
I don't know how many times they have told me I couldn't do something because it was impossible to solve, so I did it anyway because I knew it could be. :) (on my own time of course)
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
or at least a demo of it that they can pitch to their boss to see if the project has legs.
I don't know how many times they have told me I couldn't do something because it was impossible to solve, so I did it anyway because I knew it could be. :) (on my own time of course)
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
Exactly. It's also a good technique for people who want more out of their career. Want to be on the cool project? Want to play with the fun toys? Show the company what's in it for them and create your own.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
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Get a government job...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001Looks like he works for an insurance company. It should be easy to look busy while not doing anything.
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Exactly. It's also a good technique for people who want more out of their career. Want to be on the cool project? Want to play with the fun toys? Show the company what's in it for them and create your own.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
and if they still don't go for it, but it is too big to do in your spare time, try bidding on your own for it. :-D
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
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Yes, it is a serious question. :)
My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"
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Yes, it is a serious question. :)
My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"
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Matthew Faithfull wrote:
I spent 3 months waiting to quit my last job and not being given any work to do.
That happens in every job I had, somehow management cant keep up with me :( (on the bright side, I guess it's better than being overworked).
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 3 out nowNethack? You're typing, attentive, and not surfing the net.. http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030912[^] http://directory.google.com/Top/Games/Video_Games/Roleplaying/Rogue-like/NetHack/Humor/User_Friendly/[^]
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Here are some really good pointers .... 1. When you're not in your desk, always move around with a a printout or a pen in your hand but make sure that it's something meaningful and not some funny drawing. 2. Never run when you're moving (you spend more time like that) not to mention that everybody would think that you're trying too much to appear working. 3. Have yellow sticker posts on your screen which you move around (left-right-top-bottom) and finally discard at the end of the day. It lets other people know that tasks ARE being appointed to you and you ARE finishing them. 4. Never, Ever let the windows desktop show. It's a good practice to have at least 5 windows open (not the same program though) and also have a 6th opened but not maximized (something like Notepad, my favorite) and write some stuff like a TODO list. 5. In the rarest case that someone gives you something to do, never get off your chair at that instance but first save the Notepad and switch to the next window (AutoCAD, Word, ... etc). That way you're providing a clue that whatever you were doing is critical and important. 6. In the not so seldom case where your boss/supervisor sneaks up behind you and you're surfing the net ..... DO NOT PANIC and DO NOT MINIMIZE OR HIDE THE BROWSER. This doesn't however mean that you can surf to unrelated to your job sites. It's always a good idea to have the GOOGLE page handy with some results on the latest news on whatever your job is about. I'm sure that depending on your job description you can find many more ......
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Code in VB.
:laugh: This jokes never, never, never get old.
Stupidity is an International Association - Enrique Jardiel Poncela Die deutsche Sprache sollte sanft und ehrfurchtsvoll zu den toten Sprachen abgelegt werden, denn nur die Toten haben die Zeit, diese Sprache zu lernen. - Mark Twain
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Why do you want to pretend? What do you gain by such a deception?
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them. --Leonard Louis LevinsonVasudevan Deepak Kumar wrote:
Why do you want to pretend? What do you gain by such a deception?
What makes you think that I want to pretend? Maybe I was assigned by the boss to find out who is not doing anything useful in the office. And you guys helped a lot. Haha ;P
My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"
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It's been my experience that all the best programmers take their idle time (all 500 ms of it) and use it to code something else that's cool and useful to the company, or at least a demo of it that they can pitch to their boss to see if the project has legs.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
It's been my experience that all the best programmers take their idle time (all 500 ms of it) and use it to code something else that's cool and useful to the company, or at least a demo of it that they can pitch to their boss to see if the project has legs.
While the rest of us shoot the breeze at CP ;)
I'm largely language agnostic
After a while they all bug me :doh:
