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  3. How to appear busy while not doing anything?

How to appear busy while not doing anything?

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  • C Christopher Duncan

    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

    E Offline
    E Offline
    El Corazon
    wrote on last edited by
    #19

    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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    • X Xiangyang Liu

      Yes, it is a serious question. :)

      My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"

      J Offline
      J Offline
      jjMan72
      wrote on last edited by
      #20

      Pick an open source project and contribute!

      Cheers!

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      • X Xiangyang Liu

        Yes, it is a serious question. :)

        My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"

        B Offline
        B Offline
        Bob1000
        wrote on last edited by
        #21

        Sorry to busy to answer that now...... :)

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        • L leppie

          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

          K Offline
          K Offline
          keslavi
          wrote on last edited by
          #22

          Nethack? 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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          • M micmanos

            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 ......

            A Offline
            A Offline
            Anthony Mushrow
            wrote on last edited by
            #23

            You seem like some kind of expert on not actually doing anything...

            My current favourite word is: I'm starting to run out of fav. words!

            -SK Genius

            Game Programming articles start -here[^]-

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            • A Anthony Mushrow

              You seem like some kind of expert on not actually doing anything...

              My current favourite word is: I'm starting to run out of fav. words!

              -SK Genius

              Game Programming articles start -here[^]-

              V Offline
              V Offline
              Vikram A Punathambekar
              wrote on last edited by
              #24

              Wally? ;P

              Cheers, Vikram.


              The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.

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              • H hairy_hats

                Code in VB.

                F Offline
                F Offline
                Fernando A Gomez F
                wrote on last edited by
                #25

                :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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                • V Vasudevan Deepak Kumar

                  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

                  X Offline
                  X Offline
                  Xiangyang Liu
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #26

                  Vasudevan 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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                  • C Christopher Duncan

                    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

                    M Offline
                    M Offline
                    MidwestLimey
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #27

                    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:


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                    • M micmanos

                      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 ......

                      X Offline
                      X Offline
                      Xiangyang Liu
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #28

                      micmanos wrote:

                      I'm sure that depending on your job description you can find many more ......

                      But getting it for free from someone else is priceless! :-D

                      My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"

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                      • C Christopher Duncan

                        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

                        X Offline
                        X Offline
                        Xiangyang Liu
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #29

                        Christopher Duncan wrote:

                        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.

                        I think I went way beyond that. After doing it so many times, I am kind of tired and frustrated. So I ask myself, why can't I be more like the other guy in the office, busy all the time but not getting anything useful done? It seems there are a lot of advantages of not doing anything useful. Such as

                        1. Nobody is going to question your design (of nothing).
                        2. Nobody is going to complain about your documentation (none needed).
                        3. No production bug/issue will be counted against you at your performance review.
                        4. Finally you can laugh while watching "Seinfeld" show and understand it too.

                        :)

                        My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"

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                        • B Bert delaVega

                          Looks like he works for an insurance company. It should be easy to look busy while not doing anything.

                          X Offline
                          X Offline
                          Xiangyang Liu
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #30

                          Bert delaVega wrote:

                          It should be easy to look busy while not doing anything.

                          Don't under-estimate the expertise/guts/skill of not doing anything, it may take years of dedication and practice. :)

                          My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"

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                          • X Xiangyang Liu

                            Yes, it is a serious question. :)

                            My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"

                            T Offline
                            T Offline
                            ToddHileHoffer
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #31

                            Well, I drink lots of water. That way I can at least get up from my desk about once an hour to use the bathroom...

                            I didn't get any requirements for the signature

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                            • realJSOPR realJSOP

                              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
                              -----
                              "...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001

                              G Offline
                              G Offline
                              Gary R Wheeler
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #32

                              The key word in this case is "appear". From what I've seen of CS jobs, a lot of them involve being very busy, but not doing anything of value.

                              Software Zen: delete this;
                              Fold With Us![^]

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                              • X Xiangyang Liu

                                Yes, it is a serious question. :)

                                My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"

                                B Offline
                                B Offline
                                bryce
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #33

                                Write in Java Bryce

                                MCP --- To paraphrase Fred Dagg - the views expressed in this post are bloody good ones. --
                                Publitor, making Pubmed easy. http://www.sohocode.com/publitor

                                Our kids books :The Snot Goblin, and Book 2 - the Snotgoblin and Fluff

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                                • X Xiangyang Liu

                                  Christopher Duncan wrote:

                                  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.

                                  I think I went way beyond that. After doing it so many times, I am kind of tired and frustrated. So I ask myself, why can't I be more like the other guy in the office, busy all the time but not getting anything useful done? It seems there are a lot of advantages of not doing anything useful. Such as

                                  1. Nobody is going to question your design (of nothing).
                                  2. Nobody is going to complain about your documentation (none needed).
                                  3. No production bug/issue will be counted against you at your performance review.
                                  4. Finally you can laugh while watching "Seinfeld" show and understand it too.

                                  :)

                                  My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"

                                  B Offline
                                  B Offline
                                  BonshatS
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #34

                                  Sounds like you need a vacation, or maybe even a change of job. I've had to work in environments like that before and it helped to have a fun personal project, even something frivolous.

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • X Xiangyang Liu

                                    Christopher Duncan wrote:

                                    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.

                                    I think I went way beyond that. After doing it so many times, I am kind of tired and frustrated. So I ask myself, why can't I be more like the other guy in the office, busy all the time but not getting anything useful done? It seems there are a lot of advantages of not doing anything useful. Such as

                                    1. Nobody is going to question your design (of nothing).
                                    2. Nobody is going to complain about your documentation (none needed).
                                    3. No production bug/issue will be counted against you at your performance review.
                                    4. Finally you can laugh while watching "Seinfeld" show and understand it too.

                                    :)

                                    My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"

                                    J Offline
                                    J Offline
                                    Jeremy Tierman
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #35

                                    I have been in many situations like that before, and all of them pretty much had the same thing in common...people are either jealous or frightened of your abiltities... For real. If they are jealous, then they can try to tear you down so that you don't make them look so bad by being that much more productive and intelligent. This can make some also frightened, because management make wake up and want more people like you. In one situation, I had the director tell the CIO that she wished she had 50 people like me...when this got out...you could guess the havoc. This same place took me 2.5 years to get them to install a VPN solution in (2001-2004 timeframe). I feel your pain. :^)

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                                    • A Anthony Mushrow

                                      You seem like some kind of expert on not actually doing anything...

                                      My current favourite word is: I'm starting to run out of fav. words!

                                      -SK Genius

                                      Game Programming articles start -here[^]-

                                      M Offline
                                      M Offline
                                      micmanos
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #36

                                      Not really. I'm doing a lot of things for my company but unfortunately, not having a clue of IT, they will never realize what i'm doing so in parallel with my actual work, i have to appear as doing something that they thing is of value .... ain't life strange ?? :laugh:

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                                      • D DavidNohejl

                                        But that's what developers normaly do...


                                        [My Blog]
                                        "Visual studio desperately needs some performance improvements. It is sometimes almost as slow as eclipse." - RĂ¼diger Klaehn
                                        "Real men use mspaint for writing code and notepad for designing graphics." - Anna-Jayne Metcalfe

                                        B Offline
                                        B Offline
                                        BadKarma
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #37

                                        You should come up with a new brilliant design. And then you must create a bug which can only be solved with your design. Then you even get some extra time to : - find the bug - design a solution - solve it. Works like a charm. :laugh:

                                        Learn from the mistakes of others, you may not live long enough to make them all yourself.

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                                        • X Xiangyang Liu

                                          Yes, it is a serious question. :)

                                          My .NET Business Application Framework My Home Page My Younger Son & His "PET"

                                          Z Offline
                                          Z Offline
                                          Zhat
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #38

                                          Being busy gives the appearance of being busy while doing something instead of nothing, if that helps... :)

                                          modified on Wednesday, May 28, 2008 9:26 AM

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