Despite being so normalized, the eight-hour workday still covers a lot of time. Some folks, if not constantly supervised, will find their own ways to get stuff done in this time span that are not at all related to work.
Employees shared the brashest, most clever, and most hilarious things they or someone they know did on the job and got away with, all while pretending to work. People gave examples ranging from overlooking a shoplifter all the way to full-blown visits to the gym. So if you are reading this at work, you are in good company, get comfortable, upvote your favorite examples, and comment your thoughts below.
#1
I used to work in Tesco and my manager was an absolute legend. End of shift he would tell us to help ourselves to anything that was out of or just about to go out of date. Anything that was left (which was a lot) he would take with him and hand it out to the homeless.
His attitude to the upper management was “f**k them, none of us get paid enough to give a f**k”.
RIP big John……
Image source: Dangerous-Chip3626, Julia M Cameron
#2
If I get sent to a shoplifting where the person is lifting one single sandwich or a pregnancy test or something like that I make it go away by helping the person “find” a couple quid in their pocket to pay for it and writing the call off as a misunderstanding.
Image source: CliffyGiro, U.S. Department of Agricul
#3
Everyone thinks I’m being helpful and cleaning up when I carry the pallets outside…nah, I’m fussing the cat that lives out there.
Image source: Duxsta, Ellie Burgin
#4
I’m sticking googly eyes on everything. Plant pots, monitors, the tea tin, the milk. Everything. I do it openly, I don’t hide it, and yet no one has noticed it’s me. Just constant “where are the googly eyes coming from?” when suddenly there’s one on the outside of someone’s lunch box in the fridge. I started an entire year ago and convinced the cleaner not to pick them off.
Image source: Previously-Tea, Geoff Greer
#5
On site plumber on a very large industrial site. I keep all the scrap organise it and weigh it in every 3 months. Make around £200-300 each time. No one’s knows been doing this for at least 5 years now. My way of sticking it to the man and also helping out the planet slightly.
Image source: NTK421, Barta IV
#6
Walking my dog.
On my at home days I take my dogs out up to 2 hours to the fields and the woods. I manage to get good signal, so I’ve replied to messages, and emails whilst sat on a log watching them eat mud.
Image source: Historical_Cobbler, Johann
#7
I constantly turn a blind eye to shoplifting because I can’t possibly justify humiliating or punishing someone for having little to no choice but to steal something they need ( band aids, tampons, etc) that they obviously can’t afford
Image source: hokkpin, cottonbro studio
#8
I join every zoom meeting a few minutes late to avoid the awkward small talk
Image source: Cfro199, LinkedIn Sales Solutions
#9
My wages have been wrong for the past 6 years I’m supposed to be on a lower wage band instead I’ve been getting £167 more every week for the past 6 years!! Woop woop
Image source: TheBigUn77, Andrea Piacquadio
#10
I leave an hour early every day – as does my manager. If they can’t be arsed, why should I?
Image source: AriasCryingFace, Sora Shimazaki
#11
Three times a week, on my WFH days, I go to the gym mid-day. I couple these sessions with lunch – because I’ve noticed lunch time varies for everyone in my company from 12:00 to 14:30ish, so it gets quiet. This gives me enough time to go to the gym, workout, get back home and then have a quick pre-made lunch.
Honestly because of this I am also much more productive – I come back relaxed, energized and I feel that dividing my day in two distinct parts is more manageable. Also my workouts have benefited, I go the gym at my peak and I’m no longer tired and cranky and this translates into my performance. There’s also less slacking off cause I know I’m on the clock. And with the workout out of the way, I can enjoy evenings more – without having to wake up at the crack of dawn and go to the gym then.
Image source: queen__crimson, Sabel Blanco
#12
I wrote a novel during my probation period at the most recent job.
Image source: partaylikearussian, Ketut Subiyanto
#13
I use my Monday morning to clean my house and do my laundry. On a Tuesday mid morning I go do my weekly shop. On a Friday I take a nice long lunch break. Then throughout the week I like to watch YouTube or TV shows while I’m working. I’ll also do home admin stuff during the week as well if needed. I’m meant to work hybrid but gradually reduced the days I went into the office, no one said anything so now I WFH full time.
The key to getting away with it is hitting deadlines, making sure you don’t miss meetings and being helpful if someone messages you. All the ‘being away’ goes very much unnoticed and no one really cares. Also use the, my internet dropped out excuse sparingly when you’re late to reply.
Image source: always-_-hungry, Andrea Piacquadio
#14
I’m in the office 3 days a week. Because home working is so widespread now, I’d say 75% of the time there’s nobody in who I have anything to do with. So I’ve realised nobody is aware what time I leave. I’ve started leaving at like 4:15. It’s great.
Image source: imminentmailing463, Andrea Piacquadio
#15
We went fully remote over covid. I get a solid 3 hours of work done a day. The rest of the time is side project, gaming, browsing the web, etc.
I stopped feeling guilty ages ago as I get FAR more done now than I ever did in the office and get a ton of praise for it so everyone wins.
Image source: PurpleEsskay, DocuSign
#16
I once had a temporary agency warehouse job. I reported to all the right people but wasnt on anyones list. I still got paid. I spent the next 6 months wandering around with an empty cardboard box doing bugger all & still getting paid!
Image source: Ssscrudddy, Tiger Lily
#17
Using cleaning chemicals to actually perform my job properly, despite being a water only job. Like f**k are you getting grease and grime off a floor with just hot water.
£5 bottle of 5L degreaser, makes a 1 hour job 20 mins.
Image source: DutchOfBurdock, Anton
#18
Very rare, but sometimes, I get my full breaks.
Cries in NHS.
Image source: CoatLast
#19
I wfh, I take my lunch break then after eat my lunch at my desk.
I still do work, but I have double the break.
Image source: worldworn, charlesdeluvio
#20
One job I had, I got annoyed at the smokers taking so many extra breaks on night shifts, so I just started tools downing whenever they went out, and sneaking off for a shower during one of their smoke breaks near the end of the shift.
Wasn’t any team leaders on nights, and while the group leader in the office definitely noticed the clean/slightly damp hair a couple of times, he knew he couldn’t say anything without me calling out his fellow smokers.
Image source: Steelhorse91
#21
I work outside, often away, or at home unsupervised. 8 hour days.
There have been days I’ve got up, made a couple of phone calls, then gone back to bed.
Other days, like today, I’ll be out on site for an hour, then I might head into town for a mooch around.
I was working with my boss a couple of weeks ago. We were done by 11am. We went on a bar crawl for the rest of the day. He’s just as bad. Runs his own fishing guide business on the side.
Image source: filthythedog, Helena Lopes
#22
Work in tech and so much stuff can be automated. You occasionally get one of those horrible repetitive jobs for an audit or some such. Oh, you want me to spend 3 days gathering all this data, sure! I spend an hour or two writing the automation script. Enjoy some downtime for a couple of days then run the script that spits out the results in less than 5 minutes. Boss thanks me profusely for my hard work on this laborious task whilst I sit there laughing!
Image source: UnusualPossession582
#23
My previous employer was lax as f**k with IT equipment, every year my team would put a requisition request in for new laptops and every year IT would send us each out a brand new, top spec Dell XPS.
Not once did they ask for the old machine back and the department manager was completely uninterested so we kept them.
I must have had upwards of £10k in laptops from that place in the handful of years I worked there.
Image source: All_within_my_hands, Skylar Kang
#24
I’m a home worker. I roll out of bed 5 minutes before my shift starts, pop on a presentable shirt in case I’m about to head into a meeting, and then boot the laptop up. After 30 minutes, when I know where I stand with the workday, I head off to brush my teeth, and get showered and dressed.
Not much of a difference, but it’s 20-30 minutes of my life saved every day. It has lead to some awkward situations when I come into an emergency at 9, and I’m still sitting in meetings by midday in my pyjama bottoms.
Image source: Fred_Blogs
#25
Farting.
I’m really, really good at silent farts and weirdly, no one ever suspects me. They blame it on Janice every time
Image source: No-Reservations_, Eli Duke
#26
I’ve been moving from a flat to a house over the past couple months. Pretty much all of my house hunting, bill redirects, notifying the bank of change of address etc etc gets done during work time. I basically never do “life admin” off the clock.
Image source: Extreme_Warthog_6636, Karolina Grabowska
#27
Built dozens of kayaks using company resources. I donated the local scout group ten and built myself a grp river shooter with a layer of Aramid.
Image source: TheGreatGrappaApe
#28
I was forced to sit through a particularly boring training session over Teams not too long back, on a system I wouldn’t be using. I spent most of it on mute with my camera off playing Zelda.
Image source: DoctorOctagonapus
#29
I had a friend my years ago who went on a skiing holiday, but still took calls and emails at the top of the mountain cause they didn’t have annual leave
Image source: Loquis, Al Elmes
#30
I have 4 screens in my home office. I only need 3 to do my job properly.
The 4th screen is spent watching YouTube, playing games and f*****g about on Reddit.
Image source: psycho-mouse
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