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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. 

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#1

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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 End of shift he would tell us to help ourselves to anything that was out of or just about to go out of date.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……

Dangerous-Chip3626 , Julia M Cameron Report

Final score:
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Morgen Stern
Morgen Stern
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This should be standard practice. Food waste is wrong on so many levels. I wish there were more people like John.

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#2

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

CliffyGiro , U.S. Department of Agricul Report

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20th-century workers often had to deal with workloads even higher than ours. Ten and nine-hour days were standard in many factories. Workers and unions would often strike over it, demanding fewer hours, but it wasn’t until 1914 that major companies started to decrease the length of the workday. Henry Ford, the most unlikely ally to workers, was instrumental in this time span becoming standardized. 

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Two years later, the Adamson Act saw a Federally mandated workday length specifically for railway workers. Once this precedent had been set, it became more normal, all the way up to this day. We still use “a 9 to 5” as a quick way to refer to any given workday, despite the fact that remote workers have very mixed schedules and service workers tend to have other kinds of shifts. 
#3

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

Duxsta , Ellie Burgin Report

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#4

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

Previously-Tea , Geoff Greer Report

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WindySwede
WindySwede
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

if you go out in public, take on a saftey west and helmet, you can get away with even mote stuff that way....

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#5

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

NTK421 , Barta IV Report

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Modern managers, despite their best efforts, need to realize that just because a workday is eight hours, doesn’t mean an employee will actually spend every last second working. This is not to say that they aren’t productive, but some organizational research suggests that office workers might spend as little as half their time directly engaged in doing tasks. 
#6

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

Historical_Cobbler , Johann Report

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Kobe (she)
Kobe (she)
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So... that is still working though. Win - win. As long as the job get done, I see no problem.

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#7

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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

hokkpin , cottonbro studio Report

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David A Paterson
David A Paterson
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

People here don't steal something they need and can't afford. They steal expensive perfume, clothing, kids steal sweets, dads steal DIY ... piano stools.

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#8

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones I join every zoom meeting a few minutes late to avoid the awkward small talk

Cfro199 , LinkedIn Sales Solutions Report

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Dan
Dan
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We make awkward small talk because it's better than awkward silence while we wait for people to join the meeting. You're just making it worse for the rest of us.

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As much as it might annoy higher-ups, even a productive worker needs to take little breaks to wind down. Just checking one’s email or taking a five-minute walk can help the brain reset and actually make the employee more productive in the long run. Some in this list have mentioned going to the gym, which is time-consuming but could be a great stress reliever if done correctly. But it seems that most managers aren't ready to have that conversation yet. 
#9

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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

TheBigUn77 , Andrea Piacquadio Report

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GoldfishCrackers
GoldfishCrackers
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When I read this it makes me wonder if this person hasn’t gotten a raise in 6 years, and if so, why?

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#10

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones I leave an hour early every day - as does my manager. If they can’t be arsed, why should I?

AriasCryingFace , Sora Shimazaki Report

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Nick (He/Him)
Nick (He/Him)
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And get paid for it? I hope so, because if they haven't noticed you already they can probably afford it.

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#11

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

queen__crimson , Sabel Blanco Report

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Bell-icose
Bell-icose
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Premium 1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

More employers should actively encourage this sort of thing.

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And it’s important to remember that not all work is created equal. Many jobs burden people with unnecessary busy work, perhaps to create the appearance of productivity, even when all it does is tire people out without any benefits. Business analysts believe that in many companies, up to 40% of work is really just busy work that could be delegated or left until later. 
#12

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones I wrote a novel during my probation period at the most recent job.

partaylikearussian , Ketut Subiyanto Report

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Dar Mal
Dar Mal
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Watch it....one company I worked for decided that any creative projects worked on or completed during work hours on company computers were IP of the business.

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#13

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

always-_-hungry , Andrea Piacquadio Report

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StrangeOne
StrangeOne
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I used to work for a call centre. In the office going on the internet was forbidden. Once I worked from home I was able to use my own laptop, set up anywhere I want, and that was usually in my living room, in front of my TV. My laptop was not monitored (thankfully) and I got to browse the internet and found a way to listen to music and youtube videos with on earphone in and listen to the people on another earphone set. I was also job searching while working. Ha! There was even a day I had a glass of wine. 4/10 wouldn't recommend guzzling. Having to read scripts without sounding tipsy was... interesting hahaha. I had 0 f***s to give for that company. I've got a completely different job now.

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#14

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

imminentmailing463 , Andrea Piacquadio Report

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Monoxide
Monoxide
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I work in an IT adjacent section of my company. We were full work from home for covid, which was the best thing ever for my career; I got so much more work done without people stopping by every 5 seconds to ask questions that have literally no benefit to anything (kind of like technical small talk). Now that I have a new bosses boss, I have to come back in to the office. Thing is, roughly 80% of my work is with departments in other states/countries. There is LITERALLY no reason for me to be in the office except that the new boss "doesnt like using messenger". So 1920s Andy is the only reason I am in the office. My dogs are plotting their revenge.

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Of course, for every worker just doing their own thing while on the clock, there is a manager making time and effort to self-sabotage by overloading their best employees and just creating difficulties. If you want to hear more about one such case, Bored Panda has got you covered, check out our article on a woman who ended up maliciously complying with her manager's demand to “do more.” 
#15

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

PurpleEsskay , DocuSign Report

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Mary Hiers
Mary Hiers
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The amount of time spent just gossiping and playing around on "office days" at my last WFH job made it clear to me that working at home is far more productive. No, Becky, I don't care where you and your husband had dinner out last weekend or what you had or how much it cost.

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#16

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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!

Ssscrudddy , Tiger Lily Report

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Passerby
Passerby
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I would have gotten bored very quickly. I don't like being too busy, but I also hate having nothing to do.

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#17

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

DutchOfBurdock , Anton Report

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David A Paterson
David A Paterson
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Any manager who specifies water only for cleaning deserves to be fired - immediately. There are good cleaning chemicals now that don't smell. It's not like in the old days when ammonia and bleach used to stink. Actually, just rat the manager out to the correct health authorities and they will get fired.

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#18

Very rare, but sometimes, I get my full breaks.

Cries in NHS.

CoatLast Report

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David A Paterson
David A Paterson
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

NHS in Britain is a pain. The competent get overwhelmed and the incompetent get to stand around and chat with their friends for seven hours a day. Eventually the competent give up, become creatively incompetent, and a new batch of people gets overwhelmed.

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#19

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

worldworn , charlesdeluvio Report

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#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.

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#21

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

filthythedog , Helena Lopes Report

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StrangeOne
StrangeOne
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

He states he works in energy and some days he does put in 12-14 hours. So, doesn't sound like a totally slack job.

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#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!

UnusualPossession582 Report

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David A Paterson
David A Paterson
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I wish I was brilliant like you. I couldn't write an automation script to save my life. Sigh.

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#23

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

All_within_my_hands , Skylar Kang Report

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kath morgan
kath morgan
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It seems to happen at a lot of places, my husband’s office also has a stack of old laptops that could be reconditioned and sold or donated. Spoke recently to an organisation that takes them on donation, reconditions and sends to poor regions.

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#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.

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Dreaming Spirit
Dreaming Spirit
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I remember seeing a pandemic video of a Zoom or Teams call with two guys in suits. One of the guys had to stand up, I think to shoo his toddler who went into the room, only to reveal he was wearing shorts. The second guy complimented him on the shorts and he started to apologize, visibly embarrassed and horrified. Then, the second guy also stood up, and it turned out he was wearing shorts too! I work from home and I'd not change from my pajamas too, if I didn't have to walk kiddo to school - but shorts are a given in the summer :)

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#25

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones Farting.

I’m really, really good at silent farts and weirdly, no one ever suspects me. They blame it on Janice every time

No-Reservations_ , Eli Duke Report

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#26

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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.

Extreme_Warthog_6636 , Karolina Grabowska Report

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StrangeOne
StrangeOne
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Well, if you're working typical work time hours that's the only time you have to take care of any of that.

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#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.

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#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.

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Remington Greer
Remington Greer
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had a 4 hour rapid response call (emergency bs) and ended up banging out some accounting calculations and most of a paper I need to write for an MBA financial analysis class. Thank heavens for long and useless meetings.

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#29

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones 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

Loquis , Al Elmes Report

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#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.

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Remington Greer
Remington Greer
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm about to try for a second WFH position, I'll be getting another monitor to accommodate both jobs plus my personal computers

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#31

I'm literally sat here on my forklift waiting for 4 o' clock. Its not fun having nothing to do by the way.

AUTOMATA88 Report

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Zephyr343
Zephyr343
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Make your own excitement then. Did someone say forklift races????

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#32

I worked nights alone at a warehouse in the office and the first few hours were always busy and I would do everything but after about 11pm, nothing at all needed doing so I’d just do no work for 8 hours every day. The managers left at 10pm so they only ever saw me rushed off my feet and they didn’t suspect the nights were so slow they didn’t need anyone in the office. I made sure to use the computer facing the wall so they couldn’t see I was watching films and tv shows all night and scrolling Reddit. Best job I ever had.

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#33

Worked in mcdonalds when I was 18, at close, before we turned the grills off and cleaned them down, we'd cook a load of sausage patties and have breakfast at midnight.

Probably the worst thing I've ever done tbf

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#34

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones Personal admin. Bills, flights, car insurance claim, food shopping. All on the clock

melanie110 , Jopwell Report

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#35

My day is so boring- I hate it.

I work in an office with another person (second person is my director who is hardly in the office maybe visits me once a week for a few hours).

I have quite a good role, but my god is my day boring. I spend most of my day on reddit/google, sometimes reading an online book and work for around two a hours a day at split intervals lol.

You see, I know she watches the cameras so I literally spend all day on monitor searching stuff (so it looks like I am working lol). I also eat my lunch before lunch and then lock up the office and go on a half an hour walk lol.

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David A Paterson
David A Paterson
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"also eat my lunch before lunch and then lock up the office and go on a half an hour walk lol." Everybody should do that. It really helps.

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#36

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones About once a week me and a colleague take the opportunity to sneak away for a few mins to make out. We haven't been caught (yet).

nightjar_song , Katie Salerno Report

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Collette Moisan
Collette Moisan
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I hope you are both single, because Karma is a b***h when you get caught.

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#37

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones Working at fiveguys which is infamously expensive. The refill cups are £4.15 and I (9 times out of 10) don’t charge people for them, or if a family comes in I will normally just charge for 1 or 2 instead of 4. I give out so much free food, but cups are the main one

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StrangeOne
StrangeOne
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I understand times are tough. What I don't understand is when people think families or others perceived as "needy" should be given free or heavily discounted stuff out of sympathy. Like, a poor family isn't going to just wander into a 5 Guys for cheap food and drinks knowing they can't afford it. /js

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#38

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones I was running my own business, in a different field to the one I was employed in, from my work desk. Ordering stock, talking with clients, you name it I used my employers time whenever I could to get my business up, running and into the black.

Edited to add, as some are interested, the following

I was employed in a 'highly demanding technical position' that took at most an hour a day, when I was busy, which wasn't very often. I seriously had trouble making it look like I was doing anything at all most days so...

Why not use that spare time productivity, I asked myself, whilst playing tetris...

I was so busy at times with the hussle that I was genuinely stressed by it. After all, ***I was doing it all on my own! :)***

Did that for just over three years. Was a sad sad day when I had to quit the real job to concentrate on the business.

NGC6753 , LinkedIn Sales Solutions Report

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David A Paterson
David A Paterson
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You're in the right job when the boss can't tell the difference between your work and your own business.

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#39

In my previous job where I had f**k all to do to begin with, except a few things which mattered so little that nobody checked or cared if it was done: I downloaded Unity and an online course for it, and spent all day every day training in it, before eventually quitting to do game dev programming full time.

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#40

I've read the entire horus heresy series (50+ novels) on my kindle over the last couple of years while 'working'. Quiet quitting rules

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#41

Not strictly work, as I'm self employed, but for months I've been using my bank's car park. It's 20 seconds from my workplace, completely unmonitored, barely anyone uses it and the bank staff are all middle aged women who couldn't give a shite. I'm sure the day will come when they tighten up and crack down, but till then I'll push my luck.

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#42

Recently I worked a handyman sort of guy for a shopping centre, basically doing stuff like replacing lightbulbs, doing various generator tests and so on. I spent like 90% of the time in the basement of the place waiting for calls to come through because otherwise there wasn't really anything to do. Cause there were no cameras or anything I ended up just watching films in my office and eat sweets most of my shifts. No joke. The person who trained me even told me the skiving potential was through the roof and gave me tips

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#43

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones Haven't bought a battery in years.

aredditusername69 , John Cameron Report

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Brenda
Brenda
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Hubby worked in IT for 30+ years. He was constantly bringing home batteries as they were required to replace them for certain things. AA, AAA, & C cells

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#44

I'm not meeting the mandatory minimum amount of time we're supposed to spend in the office. Nobody checks and they made the mistake of admitting they're too short staffed to sack anybody for not going in if they're doing work at home.

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#45

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones I work from home

And my boss has no way to track if I’m online

Here I am, I started at 9am

I’m still in my bed

It’s 2.30

Whole-Item-8625 , Ketut Subiyanto Report

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StrangeOne
StrangeOne
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The biggest issue for me with WFH is I gained more weight and became less unfit than before. That was one factor that motivated me to find another job to get me out of my house. Plus, the line between my home and work was getting too blurred. It took me an hour to transition my mindset after logging off.

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#46

Im an HGV driver doing store deliveries on 10 hour shifts. If I’m near the end of my shift and I’m finished at a shop a little earlier than I expected, early enough where if I go back immediately I’ll be given something else to do that’ll take me over my time, I’ll park outside and go in for my weekly shop on the clock. Reason being, my tracker will show I’m still at the shop if anyone bothers to check.

Then I’ll take an absolute pisstake of a detour back. If I can’t take a detour, I’ll join the long queue at the fuel pumps. If they’re both empty, I’ll fill the ad blue, take my time dropping the trailer, drive round, fuel up again, then go through the truck wash. Then tidy up the cab. Then tidy my air lines. Then quadruple check my paper work. Then pop into the canteen for a coffee.

No one has said a thing about it and I’ve been doing it for weeks. But i think everyone does their own form of time wasting so it’s expected in a way

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#47

On my lunch break I go off and smoke weed when I'm on my walk on the days I'm in the office.

I edit my photographs when things are loading.
Spend time with my new born.

I practice yoga during meetings and work out.
I rarely have anything to say in meetings, but I like keeping in touch with what's happening.

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#48

Watching whole seasons of tv shows on my phone at my desk. I’m one of a handful of people who works in the office. It’s sleepy valley and no one cares.

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#49

I don’t have anyone looking for what I do.
My deliverables are through the work of my team.
I have a coffee break every hour.
When I’m bored, I go about and distract others.
I go through Reddit.
I see what jobs are going around and do some interviews to keep the skills sharpened.
I go for 2 hour lunches.
Sometimes, I attend site but get so bored that I come home (any time really) and smoke a join to chill.
Most of my calendar is full of meetings that I don’t attend but keeps me ‘busy’. I also block focus hours for myself and do some meditation.
No one can read what my meetings are so they just assume I’m always busy.

Pretty efficient!

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H Nunya
H Nunya
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Nobody says anything about you missing meetings?

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#50

I make a component for air con units. Make 300 a night on my own.
When there is someone else working with me, I get them to build half of it, and I do the rest.
Still only make 300 components, and nobody has noticed.
Done this for the last 4 years.

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#51

I work in a restaurant. If I'm on a long shift I eat 2 meals for free, unlimited free drinks etc. Sometimes bring my family in for free breakfasts. This is all 100% okay by management as they all do the same.

I also take home any over ripe bananas to make banana bread instead of binning them.

The thing I do that I am not supposed to do is steal cutlery/ plates/ glassware. Just the odd pint glass or a pack of teaspoons or a few ramekins. Recently got a few egg cups as well. Just the odd thing that I really need here and there.

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H Nunya
H Nunya
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If you get paid in server wages then absolutely go ahead and take what you need, because server wages blow and should be illegal.

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#52

Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones My (genuine) appointments at the doctor and dentist can take up to 2 hours. But you know how busy they are wink wink

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ConstantlyJon
ConstantlyJon
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

yeah see with either job I wouldn't really be doing myself any favors with taking off for appointments. In one, I'd have to use PTO. In the other, I'm hourly and just have to ask off for unpaid time off. Not a fan of either option really.

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#53

I have an hour for lunch, but I'm flexible on when I take it.. So it's more like an hour and fifteen in practice. An hour and a half depending on how busy we are and how many people I'm chatting with.

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#54

I used to arrive 5 mins before my old boss to open up the factory ready for the staff to arrive and book half an hour overtime every day for those 5 mins,
This went on for about 5 years until they had cameras installed.

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#55

I used to leave work early, go to the pub next door and come back to work an hour or so later to clock out. Loads of people did it, even supervisors and at least one of the managers and no one seemed to care.

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