Hawk-eyed bosses and slacker employees are caught in an eternal tug-of-war. As soon as one party gets the upper hand, the other finds a way to fight back. In a new cycle in this everlasting play, technology is helping tip the scales in favour of slacker employees, letting them loaf about while giving the impression that they are hard at work. What are these tools? To help you avoid toil without getting caught, here are four ways (but try them at your own risk):
Cricket scores in Excel sheet
As the India-Australia Test series plays out, many are looking for ways to juggle work and play. Thankfully, a cricket website from Australia has come to the rescue. It has created a live scoreboard that masquerades as an Excel spreadsheet, auto updates and gives ball-by-ball commentary.
Pro tip: Keep two tabs open to switch quickly if someone is nearby.
Pretend to be programming
Many programmers know about Hacker Typer, a tool that is a godsend for slacking off during work or programming lectures. The website opens up a programming terminal, with black background, that looks awfully real and blurts out green-coloured programming code whenever random keyboard buttons are hit, giving the impression that a genius is at work.
Pro tip: Don’t type too fast. You want to look as efficient as a machine, not a cyborg on illegal substances.
Play games that look like bar charts
The appropriately named website CantyouseeIambusy offers games that look like real work processes. One of them is Cost Cutter, a game in the form of a bar chart embedded in an Excel sheet background. Cut the similar coloured rectangles to make them vanish and keep the data on the chart as low as possible, pretty much like Tetris.
Pro tip: Hitting spacebar pauses the game and hides all the game elements from the screen.
Facebook and Twitter in an Excel sheet
If hard-wired towards checking Facebook every few minutes, this tool is for you. HardlyWork brings you your Facebook feed in a visually unattractive Excel sheet. Give it access to the Facebook account and, voila, it will categorise the newsfeed in an Excel sheet with details like names, likes, comments and time of posting. You can link your Twitter feed to it too.
Pro tip: The sheet can be customised to merge with the theme of the computer it is running on.
Cricket scores in Excel sheet
As the India-Australia Test series plays out, many are looking for ways to juggle work and play. Thankfully, a cricket website from Australia has come to the rescue. It has created a live scoreboard that masquerades as an Excel spreadsheet, auto updates and gives ball-by-ball commentary.
Pro tip: Keep two tabs open to switch quickly if someone is nearby.
Pretend to be programming
Many programmers know about Hacker Typer, a tool that is a godsend for slacking off during work or programming lectures. The website opens up a programming terminal, with black background, that looks awfully real and blurts out green-coloured programming code whenever random keyboard buttons are hit, giving the impression that a genius is at work.
Pro tip: Don’t type too fast. You want to look as efficient as a machine, not a cyborg on illegal substances.
Play games that look like bar charts
The appropriately named website CantyouseeIambusy offers games that look like real work processes. One of them is Cost Cutter, a game in the form of a bar chart embedded in an Excel sheet background. Cut the similar coloured rectangles to make them vanish and keep the data on the chart as low as possible, pretty much like Tetris.
Pro tip: Hitting spacebar pauses the game and hides all the game elements from the screen.
Facebook and Twitter in an Excel sheet
If hard-wired towards checking Facebook every few minutes, this tool is for you. HardlyWork brings you your Facebook feed in a visually unattractive Excel sheet. Give it access to the Facebook account and, voila, it will categorise the newsfeed in an Excel sheet with details like names, likes, comments and time of posting. You can link your Twitter feed to it too.
Pro tip: The sheet can be customised to merge with the theme of the computer it is running on.
Limited-time offer: Big stories, small price. Keep independent media alive. Become a Scroll member today!
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!