ARTelevision

When we have a bunch of big projects I love to be hyper-productive.
When we don't. I seriously consider diversionary "work".
Looks like I'm not the only one...
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Shirk Ethic: How to Fake
A Hard Day at the Office

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


David Wiskus gives new meaning to the term "working lunch." The Denver tech-support worker installed a program on his Handspring Visor hand-held that allowed him to manipulate the screen on his office computer from a booth at a local diner.

As he lingered for hours over burgers and fries, he could actually open windows and move documents around on his screen via the hand-held -- creating the impression to anyone who walked by that the diligent Mr. Wiskus had just stepped away from his desk.

It has never been easier to be a white-collar slacker. While the uninitiated are still grousing about how mobile technology has created a 24/7 work culture and sabotaged their private time, a savvier crowd has moved on to a more rewarding pursuit: using technology to make it look like you're working when you're not.

The tactic isn't new, but the tools have gotten a lot more powerful. Executives have long discreetly asked their secretaries to flip on the office light to make Friday absences less glaring; leaving a jacket on the back of your desk chair is also an old trick.

But the latest generation of office accessories, from cellphones to the RIM BlackBerry, have brought a new level of sophistication -- and a host of new strategies for manipulating perceptions of your diligence.

The new options allow people to do far more than send e-mails from the beach. Services like GoToMyPC.com -- similar to one Mr. Wiskus used on his hand-held -- let you operate your office computer by remote control. You can even move the cursor on your screen, opening documents and printing them on the shared office printer.

Other strategies involve using existing technology in new ways. E-mail timers, a standard feature in Microsoft Outlook, let you send e-mails hours after you have gone to bed -- a painless way to suggest to the boss that you are burning the midnight oil. (In Outlook, open up a message, go to "options," and fill in the "do not deliver before" option.)

Instant Message programs, a more-immediate form of e-mail now used by millions of employees, can also be reconfigured. Typically, if you haven't touched your computer in a while, the people you chat with online see an "idle" message next to your name. Diehard slackers can crack into the program settings to make themselves appear perpetually available.

Psychologists call these games "impression management," a field whose rules have been transformed now that so many people communicate through technology rather than a handshake and a conversation. In some ways, the e-mail that arrives at 11 p.m. is the modern sign of a dedicated worker.

But others see all this as yet another legitimate technology that has been hijacked by people with skewed ethics. "If you're out playing golf, and you look like you've spent four hours in the office. ... If everybody does that, the company goes bankrupt," says Stuart Gilman, director of the Ethics Resource Center in Washington.

Even some lower-tech tools, such as call forwarding, have grown more sophisticated, making it a snap to answer your desk phone from your daughter's soccer game or the pedicure chair. Phone company SBC Communications Inc. currently offers five different call-forwarding services, including a new one that lets you transfer your phone to different phone numbers throughout the day.

E-mails Read by Jenni

Services like Yahoo By Phone also let you pick up your e-mail from afar, even without a hand-held gadget. For $4.95 a month, a computerized voice named Jenni will read your messages aloud over the phone.

Wireless e-mail gadgets like the Palm Tungsten W and the BlackBerry can also be tinkered with to help cover the tracks of an office absence. E-mails sent from a BlackBerry, for example, automatically sign off with the phrase "Sent from my BlackBerry Handheld," a dead giveaway that you are out.

"It's the classic sign of a complete BlackBerry neophyte," says Alex Levine, co-founder of the text-message company Upoc in New York. "The only reason to keep it on is to make people acutely aware that you're not at your desk."

Reconfiguring the Subject Line

Mr. Levine has configured his BlackBerry so that messages he sends from it have the exact same format as those sent from his desktop e-mail. (One key: Reply messages sent from a BlackBerry often have "Re:" with a lower-case "e" in the subject line, while e-mails sent from an office PC sometimes show "RE" in the subject line.)

Mr. Levine has used this approach to set up his "desk" in Central Park.

Some companies say these new tools are dangerous because they play into employees' increasing willingness to fudge the truth about their work life. The case of former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, who used e-mail and a cellphone to suggest he was writing from locations he didn't visit, is one example.

Lying to the Boss

A recent ethics survey by the society for Society for Human Resource Management found that 59% of human-resources professionals said they personally observed employees lying about the number of hours they worked; some 53% reported that they saw employees lying to a supervisor, a jump of eight percentage points in six years.

Still some employers not only tolerate the technology, but use it themselves.

"If you're a boss, and you send e-mails at all of hours of the night, the subtle message you're sending employees is, 'I'm working, why aren't you,' " says Anne Warfield, a career coach in Edina, Minn.

E-mails and Pina Coladas

Skip Coghill, who runs a trucking company, does a lot more than send e-mails in the middle of the night. When he recently took a cruise off the coast of Acapulco, many of his clients never knew he had left the office. Between casino visits and midnight-buffet runs, Mr. Coghill used the GoToMyPC.com software to operate his office computer by remote control.

He could even spy on his employees from the deck of the ship: He brought up Global Positioning System maps that showed him the precise location of each of his trucks, down to the intersection. If an employee was off-track, he could fire off a text message to the truck.

"I was drinking a pina colada, sitting in my swimsuit, having a total ball," says Mr. Coghill.

Of course, not all managers pay much attention to things like what time an e-mail is sent or where it is sent from.

Craig Prickett, a vice president at Charles Schwab in San Francisco, says he is more concerned about the work being completed than the time stamp on an e-mail. "I'm not thinking 'nothing's getting done here, but they sure work hard at 2 a.m.,' " says Mr. Prickett.

The Power of Suggestion

Die-hards see nothing wrong with any of this. "You don't have to actually lie," says Don Pavlish, host of DonsBossPage.com, a Web site for slackers. "You just let your e-mail program suggest you're working late."

But it's easy to get a little too comfortable with these new powers. Mr. Wiskus, the Denver tech worker who manipulated his computer from a nearby diner so he could take three-hour lunches, says he was eventually fired for habitual lateness.

FAKING IT

1. Printer: Dial in and print documents on the office printers so people will think you're in.

2. Calls: Forward them so they follow you from place to place throughout the day.

3. E-mail: Go to bed early, and use the timer feature in Microsoft Outlook to send e-mails to your boss at 4 a.m.

4. Computer Screen: Use remote-control technology to open documents on your office computer screen.
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Warning:
Don't be surprised when they ship your job to India.

Bring on the "labor saving devices" but remember - unemployment is only a 6-month free ride...

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