The Perfect Workday

By Joseph Stanford

What goes into the perfect work day? I, as well as countless others wonder this during my soulless morning routine and commute to work. Luckily over my career as a 9-5 employee i’ve discovered a few hacks that you, the unmotivated employee can implement today into your work life. Remember the goal is to spend as little effort at work as possible without making people think you’re a slacker. I like to call it working smarter, not harder. 

Workday hack #1: Don’t work full days

Working full days is for losers. The fewer hours you spend at work, the fewer hours you have to be miserable. Let’s start with when you arrive at work. The worst possible time to

arrive at work is at the same time as your boss or even after. If you and your boss get to work at the same time, your boss will expect you to leave at more or less the same time. They now know how many hours you’re there for. You’ll seem like a slacker if you leave work before they do! This is problematic if you don’t like working a full day. Remember we’re at work only to create the illusion of hard work.. Actually hard work is is for losers, like your boss. 

I advise getting to work 5-10 minutes before your boss. This is just enough time to boot up your computer and ignore any system updates your computer tries to push on you. Try to get there early enough so that you look busy when you’re boss arrives but not early enough that you waste any more time at work than you need to. Now when your boss does arrive, he/she can only assume that you’ve been there hard at work since the wee hours of the morning. You’re boss’s first thought upon arriving to work will be “Wow that Joe is a real hard worker. He must be coming in really early each morning since he’s here before me and already hard at work. Nothing makes a boss happier then walking into an work and seeing their star employee vigorously typing at their computer, pretending to be hard at work. 

Pro tip: Preschedule meaningless emails to be sent out the night before for 5am the next day and make sure to copy your boss. The timestamped 5am emails will make you seem like the overachiever you aren’t. If it seems like you’ve been working since 5am, no eyebrows will be raised when you start packing up to leave at 1pm.

Workday hack #2: Don’t be predictable

Work in multiple places throughout the office or campus. Take on different projects from different stakeholders. Take Bob for example. Bob is a hard worker but not a smart worker. Bob is a predictable creature of habit. If Bob isn’t at his desk, he is either at lunch or gone for an extended bathroom break shortly thereafter. Don’t be like Bob. Nobody needs to know the schedule of your food input and/or output. Bob only takes on one project at a time. He has no scapegoat projects to attribute his lack of progress on others. Instead be like Joe. Joe has multiple desks in different buildings and multiple projects he can be working on at any given time. If Joe isn’t at his desk people assume he’s at his other desk, or in the field. What a hard worker Joe is, he’s never at his desk and always running around elsewhere working on all his projects. 

Workday hack #3: Keep it simple

When explaining things to your coworkers, do not use complicated or technical analogies to describe them. Just because your coworkers use technical jargon doesn’t mean you should. For example - instead of saying “The temperature of the system dropped logarithmically over time”, say “The temperature fell like an Irish Hooker’s Panties.” The simpler the analogy the better, plus you have the added benefit of eliminating any chance of misinterpretation.

Workday hack #4: Make people feel more important than they are

Pretend the things your coworkers say are interesting. Nothing makes Bob happier then when Bob feels listened to. Life is easier when Bob is happy. During face to face meetings with Bob, make sure you maintain good eye contact while remembering to make subtle face gestures from time to time so that Bob thinks you actually care about what he’s saying. Remember, we’re not paid to solve problems, we’re paid to tolerate other people’s problems. An occasional puckering of the bottom lip while stroking your chin, or upward gaze while nodding from time to time will make Bob feel good. And you will feel good as well for earning your pay. 

In the era of face masks, subtle mouth expressions made fo for Bob’s benefit will go unseen. I suggest making up for this obstacle with over-exaggerated head movements or nodding. On that note, masks have the added benefit of allowing you to stick your tongue out at Bob as you nod your head in agreement.

Now, a question that I get all the time is “Joe, what if I genuinely don’t care what Bob is saying and start to fall asleep while he’s talking. Can I find a mask that covers my eyes too?” Unfortunately not. Try giving yourself physical pain to compliment the mental pain you’re feeling in that moment. A quick snap to your wrist with rubber band or sharp fingernail pinch to your thigh will do whenever Bob’s nasally self-centered drone starts adding weight to your eyelids.

Workday hack #5: The work nap

Most workers mitigate tiredness and fatigue with obscene amounts of office coffee, ruining their bowels and compromising that night’s sleep in the process. Remember we’re at work to look busy and collect a paycheck, not to put your bowels and circadian rhythm at risk. Instead of chugging cheap coffee I recommend the work nap. But where’s the best place to achieve the work nap? I’ll tell you. 

Find a quiet and low traffic bathroom at work. I suggest the all gender restroom if your company has one because people will be less likely to ask questions. Now sit down on the toilet and lean forward to rest your arms and forehead on your thighs. Catch some Z’s. You’ve been at it all day trying to look busy, you deserve some rest.

If a coworker ever calls you out on your extended restroom visits just tell them that you ate the cafeteria nachos and they aren’t agreeing with your system. This will crush all suspicion of sleeping on the job. There are a few drawbacks to this method of course. Maybe your coworker Bob actually did eat the cafeteria nachos for lunch and picked the stall next to you. This is why I recommend bringing earplugs and a face mask into the restroom. One to block sounds and the other to block odors.

Workday hack #6 Email

Let’s say you’ve finished all your meetings for the day, fully recharged your energy levels with a nap, and still have a few hours to kill before being able to make an inconspicuous departure back home. You could wonder around the office and distract some of the overachievers from actually doing work with pointless banter? That’s one option. Another option is to sit at your desk and go through email. 

For emails where you’re expected to actually do something, I recommend forwarding them to someone else who actually cares. I like forwarding emails to other people with statements like, “Steve, can you advise on Bob’s concern below?”. Never put yourself in a position where you are the only one that can answer certain questions or do certain things. This is a surefire way to actually have to do work at work. Some people call this strategy lazy, I call it being a team player. For the rare email where you don’t have anyone else to pawn the actual work off on, I recommend taking time to put emails in different folders, pretending you’ll read or respond to them at a later date. 

Also, abide by the two email rule. If someone really needs your help with something, they will send you a second email after you’ve ignored the first. This easily eliminates 75% of the work you’re expected to do. Not responding to emails also supports the illusion that your a busy person that doesn’t have the bandwidth to respond to the petty emails of the peasants around you.