'Looking' busy at Work

[carrie1626]

My supervisor can give me a printout of every website I have logged on to.
My particular position requires website searches occasionally and it is monitored.
The biggest infraction I make is checking the weather report when it's bad.
There have been employees who had to explain why they were shopping online during work hours

 

[Jennasis]

When there's downtime I take a nap, read a book, watch tv, surf the net...etc. But I work from home. I have taken on a small PT job and there is usually something I can find to do and if all else fails I can read a book.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Where I work we will read a newspaper, read a book, hang out and chat with each other, play on our phones. I bring my ipad so I can play on that when I have nothing to do.

Sounds pretty stressful

 

[TifffanyD]

I used to ask for extra work when I had time but too many instances of getting slammed with something unexpected and then having both to do broke me of that. Now I bide my time or ask my one coworker who I work closely with ONLY if I can help. We work on the same things so it makes more sense that way

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

"If you look annoyed all the time, people think that you're busy" - George Costanza

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd9ma2UVLHM

 

[charming23]

I work retail and there is always something to do. Especially the past couple of weeks as we had floor moves and new spring product in. They always joke that it is never good to look bored around me because since I am in charge of shipment and visuals, I will find something for you to do.

We do have some downtime on less busy days, and we usually chat or a few weeks ago during a bad snowstorm and dead day we played games.

 

[Sabeking]

"If you look annoyed all the time, people think that you're busy" - George Costanza

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd9ma2UVLHM

 

[Handbag Lady]

I read the trades online and then industry blogs. I tend to hit thehollywoodreporter.com and variety.com, then on to Nikki Finke.

 

[Aliceacc]

When I was 16 I became a busgirl at a neighborhood restaurant. It was family owned and hired a lot of local kids.

I learned very early that there's always SOMETHING to do. It wasn't about looking busy, it was about doing work during the hours I was paid to work.

Fast forward to today. It's year #27 as a high school math teacher. Let's just say that finding work to fill my hours is NOT a problem, whether I'm at school or at home.

 

[bettymae1121]

A lot of what I do is driven by call volumn, if the phones aren't ringing there often isn't much to do. You run out of "busy work" by lunch time on slow days like that. But slow periods like that are more rare in my job these days than they used to be, so I really enjoy the breaks when I get them. My boss doesn't care as long as the work is getting done.

 

[Bob NC]

'Looking' busy at Work

I'm in sales.

I don't look busy even when I am.

 

[clarkshel]

There are times when I'm not busy at work, but there seems to be always something to do. The problem is if I want to actually do it. When I'm busy, I seek to be really busy and there is not enough time in the day to finish everything. I have two office locations in my city. At each location I have two computers with 2 monitors per computer. When I'm busy I will be working on both of my pc's in whatever office I'm on at the time and if needed, remoting into my other pc's in my office. Sometimes I have 3 or 4 things on the go that I am trying to finish up at the same time.

When I do have a slow period of time, then I don't feel too guilty to take some time to browse the Internet. I don't usually do that on my office PC, mostly on my iPhone.

 

[njmom47]

My mornings are busy busy busy.....so my afternoons could consist of DISsing, Facebooking, reading news, and checking personal email or texting (usually my dkids).

I do try to get some work done, then I let myself take an online break.

Some people at my workplace seem to be on the Internet all day...it's a wonder they get anything done!

 

[TanyaS]

Slightly OT, but your title reminded me of the summer I worked retail, many, many years ago. This was before most people had computers; and they certainly weren't available on phones or iPads.

I was a "floater" who was assigned to different departments depending on which area needed someone. The manager always wanted someone in each department available to assist any customer who walked into that department. We were told that we should always be standing, and were never supposed to sit down on the job.

One day I was assigned to the little boys clothing department (just me, there was no other employee working in that department). No one was coming into the department needing to be helped, so I started refolding the clothes and making sure the hanging clothes were perfect. Still no one came into the department. I ended up refolding and rehanging every single item in the entire department that day - NOT A SINGLE customer every came into the department the entire day! I was so bored.

After that, I started taking a clipboard with me into work so if I ever had nothing to do, I could at least write letters to friends (again, this was before emails or texts - in fact, long distance phone calls used to be expensive - anyone remember that!) or make a to do list.

Good times.

 

[Cinerbelle]

I work from home and am very rarely not swampped... if I get a chance to throw a load of laundry in I'm excited!