1 Never walk down the hall without a document in your hands.
People with documents in their hands look like hardworking
employees heading for important meetings. People with nothing
in their hands look like they’re heading for the cafeteria.
People with the newspaper in their hands look like they’re
heading for the bathroom. Above all, make sure you carry
loads of stuff home with you at night, thus generating the
false impression that you work longer hours than you do.

2 Use computers to look busy. Any time you use a computer, it
looks like work to the casual observer. You can send and
receive personal e-mail, calculate your finances and generally
have a blast without doing anything remotely related to work.
These aren’t exactly the societal benefits that everybody from
the computer revolution expected but they’re not bad either.
When you get caught by your boss–and you will get caught–your
best defense is to claim you’re teaching yourself to use the
new software, thus saving valuable training dollars. You’re
not a loafer, you’re a self-starter. Offer to show your boss
what you learned. That will make your boss scurry away like a
frightened salamander.

3 Messy desk. Top management can get away with a clean desk. For
the rest of us, it looks like you’re not working hard enough.
Build huge piles of documents around your workspace. To the
observer, last year’s work looks the same as today’s work;
it’s volume that counts. Pile them high and wide. If you know
somebody is coming to your cubicle, bury the document you’ll
need halfway down in an existing stack and rummage for it when
he/she arrives.

4 Voice mail. Never answer your phone if you have voice mail.
People don’t call you just because they want to give you
something for nothing– they call because they want YOU to do
work for THEM. That’s the way to live. Screen all your calls
through voice mail. If somebody leaves a voice mail message for
you and it sounds like impending work, respond during lunch hour.
That way, you’re hardworking and conscientious even though you’re
being a devious weasel. If you diligently employ the method of
screening incoming calls and then returning calls when nobody is
there, this will greatly increase the odds that they will give
up or look for a solution that doesn’t involve you. The sweetest
voice mail message you can ever hear is “Ignore my last message.
I took care of it.” If your voice mailbox has a limit on the
number of messages it can hold, make sure you reach that limit
frequently. One way to do that is to never erase any incoming
messages. If that takes too long, send yourself a few messages.
Your callers will hear a recorded message that says, “Sorry,
this mailbox is full”–a sure sign that you are a hardworking
employee in high demand.