The Office Slacker
The Office Slacker. Every workplace has one. In fact, I work quite closely with ours. I don’t want to rat him out or anything, but his name rhymes with “deaf” - which is exactly what he is whenever you try to get his attention for work-related projects. If you’re offering free beer, though, his auditory issues dissipate. I believe that’s called ”selective hearing”, but I digress. 
Marie Claire recently published a list of ways to slack off at work without discovery and - consequently - repercussion. Re-printed below are three of my favourites:
- Get Some Air: If you just need to stretch your legs and get out of the office for a bit, offer to do a coffee run or drop off mail for your co-workers. This way, your extended break actually crowns you the office hero. Helpful hint: if you offer up a late coffee run around 4:30pm, you’re less likely to have to juggle 8 cups of Starbucks on your way back.
- Stay Messy: A messy desk screams “busy bee” to anyone in your workspace. Keep piles of paper, old newspapers, and errant office supplies lying around to maintain the idea that you’re important and always busy. People will see the mess and feel bad about giving you any extra work to do.
- Prepare Props: If you’re the kind of person who finds it impossible to arrive on time, try the coffee-and-muffin trick. Before you leave at night, keep your computer on and put a cup of coffee and a half-eaten muffin at your desk. You’ll beat even the earliest bird in.
Have you tried any of these? Do you have any other tips for slackers? Or perhaps you’re on to someone at work and would like to share the behaviour you have observed. Feel free to do so by clicking on the No Comments/Comments link below. Your Jack Nation bonus code today is SLACKER. Unlike your cubicle mate, it’s working hard until August 28th.
August 26th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I started working when I was 15 I learned several ways to multitask I excelled in establishing extraordinary time management skills in most situations. Although, the past year or so I have done more procrastinating than I thought I ever could. haha I see slackers doggin it all the time in the workplace I think some have just prided themselves in perfecting the art of dodging responsbilities. I really hate it when they disappear after you ask them do something or they expect the clients to do their jobs for them.
Carly’s Note: Ah yes, the old disappearing act. If they’re not careful, their jobs might just disappear.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:06 am
So now I know why my co-worker’s desk is always a mess! I like things neat and tidy and I always have to clean up the mess she’s left behind whenever I have to use her desk. Papers everywhere, one pen here, one pen there. A few weeks ago, I scrubbed the desk to get out the coffee stains but I didn’t get all of it. The stains keep re-appearing too.
Carly’s Note: I prefer a tidy desk as well. I don’t mind if papers are strewn around when someone is working on a big project, but coffee stains, crumbs, sticky mouse and keyboard? Yuck!
August 27th, 2008 at 4:56 am
Slackers can go out and smoke if permitted, this way you leave all the rest of us in the dust or should I say “smoke” to do the WORK.
By the time you walk out, light up, enjoy the polluted air and walk back,
we have done our work and YOURS,
ENJOY!
Carly’s Note: I have known some respectful smokers who don’t take a lunch hour, realizing that their numerous shorter smoke breaks amount to the same thing. However, there are also smokers who come back from a cigarette break and bump into someone else on his/her way out, so the first person turns right around and goes out to have another smoke. Not cool.
August 27th, 2008 at 5:16 am
Oh my goodness “that one” I’ve mentioned previously, is THE slacker. She goes for a smoke break, every hour, and if her babysitter, the office manager (who’s friend is this one’s mom) goes for a smoke 10 mins after she’s gone, she comes back down again even if she was just downstairs 10 mins before to use the loo.
We had a guy here, who wasn’t a clinical narcoleptic (sp?), but after lunch, he would fall asleep at his desk. Every day. Thing is? His desk faced the front door, and there he was a-snooze. Too funny, when my co-worker and I tweaked that he was sleeping, I would make a noise to wake him up. The devil in me wanted him to get caught, and he did.
Carly’s Note: He was probably too busy partying at night and work was interfering with his social life.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:08 am
Hi Carly,
I have a messy desk but it’s because i’m on the road a lot and when i’m in the office i try to maximize my time so my desk gets cluttered fast. That’s my line and i’m sticking to it!
Seriously though i’m into the office by 7am, do my stuff then go out on the road for my sales visits. Fortunately my numbers have been good for several years so nobody questions my hours. After so many years in marketing your bosses learn that it’s the results you produce not the hours you work that matter. Some people arrive early and stay late but never get anything done.
I keep thinking of a Seinfeld episode where George always looks frazzled whenever his boss enters his office and he leaves his car at work overnight so no matter how late or early someone walks by they would see his car there and assume he’s there working!
Have a great day Carly.
Carly’s Note: I love that episode! His downfall is when the car gets left there over the weekend and by Monday it’s covered in bird droppings and fast food flyers.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:12 am
Hey Carly - Why did you not make the bonus code Jeff Brown! lol
Carly’s Note: LOL! Too easy.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Oh Lordy,
You’ve hit a nerve. We have one of them as well.
Several of us in the department, calls coming in non stop, this person avoids every single one. Comes in late, (with coffee and muffin in hand, no less). Surf the web 80% of the day. First to leave daily… Arrgh…
Just make me wonder why people like that stay on the payroll when people like us give it our all.
Okay, done venting
Have a wonderful day Carly
Carly’s Note: Thanks, Kris! Yeah, I know, we see it so surely management notices as well, but no… Ostrich mentality on their part, I guess - just stick your head in the sand and maybe it will go away. Not bloody likely.
August 28th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
If only that were true, he was married + child, and is a very straight arrow. I don’t think he partied like a rock star, more like a librarian. Cue the robot dance…
Kris, I work with someone like that too. My cubicle mate/guinea pig. Only we’ve moved back downstairs, so now there’s a divider between us, and I can hear the grunting even more so now. She’s taken snow days, fair enough, she’s a nervous nelly. But when people are making it in from Orangeville? There’s a problem. She drives a Beamer and called in one day saying she had a flat tire. She didn’t make it in that day. So, what? BMW doesn’t have shuttle vehicles? She also called in one day because her car got stuck in the snow…so many excuses, so little time. She too like your co-worker, even when she’s late, somehow has time to stop at Tim Horton’s, funny that. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. But you see she has her cranium far up the office manager’s tush. Even has copied pictures of the O.M.’s grandson in her cubicle. I said to her one day, you’ve got a little something on your nose…she said oh what, I’m not sure I said, but it’s a little brown. Maybe I’m just too dedicated, but I wonder why, HOW she gets away with it. No claws out, just baffled is all.
Carly’s Note: Photos of the grandson - that’s bad! That’s almost stalker territory.