Fake work screen that fills in as you type

A fake spreadsheet

The spreadsheet adds up what the team’s meetings cost this month, with weeks 1 and 2 already in. Lines include the seated standup, the sync about the other syncs and the pre-meeting for the all hands. Each key you press types one digit into week 3 or week 4, and the total and the net move as the figures land. Every figure stays within 4% of plan, so nobody glancing over sees the standup come in free.

The one line of value is the decisions reached, worth nothing until week 4, so the net stays deep in the red. When the last cell fills, the sheet clears and starts again with new figures. The file is called “What our meetings cost (do not forward)”, and its third tab says “Do not edit”.

A fake ticket board

The board runs from Planning to Done, with an Expedite lane on top, and tickets like “Book a meeting to plan the planning meeting”. Every title you finish typing joins To do and shoves the oldest ticket in progress into Blocked, with a reason such as “Waiting on legal”. Blocked only grows, and Done stays empty.

60% of time at work goes on “work about work” instead of skilled work. This board skips the other 40%.

A fake team chat

Five colleagues get through a working day in one thread. The 2 pm meeting moves to 2:15 and back, focus time gets booked over, and the pizza comes at one slice each. Then there’s the collection for the boss’s present, and a “leaving already” at 5. Your keys type the replies: “Sounds good”, “Sorry, was on mute”. The other chats in the list open too, each with its own thread: pizza Friday, the desk booking bot, the birthday card nobody has signed.

A real chat is busier. The average worker gets 153 Teams messages a weekday, and 117 emails a day on top.

The boss key game flips to these same three screens when your manager walks in, and pays extra for cutting it close.

How many people pretend to work

Most of the tricks in how to look busy at work need no screen. The spreadsheet one does, and 15% of US workers keep one open over whatever else they’re doing.

The whole act has a name, productivity theater. Almost a third of workers admit to time spent on work whose only purpose is to look productive.

Older ways to fake a work screen

Before a tab like this one, the kit was a screenshot of your work apps set as the desktop wallpaper, with the game in a window on top. One shortcut hid the game and left a convincing desktop that did nothing at all. It held until someone asked you to click on something.

The screen colleagues read most is your calendar. From across the room, a week of solid blocks looks like a week of work, and nobody opens a block called “Planning” to see what’s inside.

Mouse jigglers and the Wells Fargo firings

Faking input is riskier than faking a screen. A screen fools the person walking past, and input fools the software. Wells Fargo fired more than a dozen staff in May 2024 over what their FINRA disclosures call “simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work”.

31% of US workers have nudged their mouse to keep a green dot in Teams or Slack. Microsoft’s own answer to how to keep Teams active needs no gadget. One setting in Teams on the web keeps you Available while you work in other apps.

The fake screen moves no mouse and presses no key for you, so activity software counts only the keys you press yourself.

Using the fake work screen on a phone

Safari lets a page go full screen on an iPad but not on an iPhone, so on an iPhone the screen covers the page instead and the address bar stays. Tap anywhere to type, and tap Exit in the corner to leave.