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 casual 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 no 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 the lunch hour. That
way, you're regarded as 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
olution 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.