The art of appearing busy at work
"Taskmasking" or whatever you want to call it.
Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday, or Friday morning arrives, grey as so often here, dragging me unwillingly into the sterile glare of office lights. Rejoice, the ritual begins anew! Purposeful stride, laptop clutched as if harboring nuclear codes, furrowed brow projecting manufactured urgency. Each keystroke an exaggerated dance, hammering the keyboard with mock significance—pure fucking gibberish disguised as critical tasks. Headphones, the modern armor of us, the corporate gladiators, to perpetually block the small talk, sending a clear signal to management: I am here for one thing only—ruthless productivity!
Welcome, everyone, to the daily theater. They call it “taskmasking” now.
My entire job, as I wrote before, is a meticulous facade: marketing products I don’t give a shit about, chasing KPIs and goals as meaningless as dust in the wind, and compiling reports nobody will read, except perhaps to justify their own bullshit existence. I do have work, of course, but not nearly enough to fill the day. So, probably, do you, fellow white-collar-bitch.
The endless circle of life. David Graeber, the one and only prophet, identified these modern plagues perfectly as "bullshit jobs"—empty tasks that serve no genuine purpose except to perpetuate the absurd spectacle of capitalist performance. It corrodes us slowly from within, turning bright-eyed workers into cynics who inevitably learn to master the dark yet beautiful art of professional illusion/delusion.
Strategies for faking productivity
So let's talk strategy. How, exactly, do you become a true virtuoso in the subtle art of appearing busy?
First: The Loud Typing Technique.
It is essential, my dear readers, that your keyboard sounds like it’s enduring the wrath of a vengeful deity. Buy the loudest keyboard you can find. Managers equate noise with productivity. They hear the aggressive tapping and think, “Ah, Antonio must be solving complex problems, surely he is invaluable!” In truth, I'm often writing notes to myself, drafting grocery lists, and sometimes—just for the poetry of it—writing essays like this one.
Second: The Intense Stare.
Pick a random spot on your screen—ideally meaningless Excel sheets or outdated metrics dashboards—and fixate as if decoding the secrets of the universe. Your colleagues will hesitate to disturb you, fearing they'll interrupt a mad genius at work. Furrow your brow occasionally. Mutter quietly. Sigh. Let them believe you’re on the brink of a corporate breakthrough while you ponder how absurd it is that society demands this performance. Occasionally, you will look like a psychopath—good! People will fear approaching you.
(Nicotine pouches can provide the energy needed.)
Third: The Fast Walk.
Gotta go fast! Walk briskly through the corridors, even if you're just headed for your fifth unnecessary coffee or Monster Energy Drink™️. Move like you're urgently late for something profoundly important. Nobody questions a person rushing purposefully. They nod respectfully, admiring your dedication. Sometimes I circle the office floor twice (“forgot something!”), merely to reinforce my fabricated importance. The step count helps justify this anyway. (God, I hate sitting all day.)
Fourth: Schedule Meetings!
With yourself! Your calendar’s gotta be a masterpiece of deception. “Strategic planning session,” "KPI analysis," "Client outreach review"—all blocked out in colorful boxes (make them red for increased urgency). These appointments ensure your invisibility to annoying micro-tasks that managers conjure in moments of insecurity. Protected by imaginary meetings, you’ll have precious moments to contemplate Kafka or just stare into space until you go entirely mad.
This strategy doesn’t work at my current small company but I tested it in a previous job at a large corporation.
Fifth: Perpetual Availability.
Respond quickly to emails, even meaningless ones, especially meaningless ones. Quick replies signal engagement without actual effort. A short acknowledgment—"Thanks, will review!" or "Interesting point!"—is often enough. Managers mostly measure responsiveness, not substance. (Above all, they measure the time you spend in office.) Don’t overdo it though or they’ll think you got nothing to do. A subtle middle ground, as so often in life.
Sixth: Document Everything (and Nothing).
Produce extensive, vague notes. Diagrams, mind maps, bullet points—pile them high, thick, and confusing. Print out Excel sheets for no reason. Use ChatGPT to produce bullshit reports and documentations. Print those too and lay them out on your desk. Managers fear complexity, and they never read reports. Faced with too many charts, they retreat, nodding appreciatively, pretending to understand.
Please leave a comment if you’ve got more strategies! We all might need them.
Okay, philosophically, why do we engage in this ridiculous shit?
Marx recognized the fundamental alienation of labor—under capitalism, work loses its inherent ancestral value. Work can be meaningful and beautiful—but not in this system. We are not lazy. Our strategies are symptomatic of profound alienation, a little, tiny rebellion against the emptiness forced upon us. Profit, all is profit. But even this profit does not benefit you. It benefits the CEOs, becoming richer and richer while the world dies. Our work, mostly, serves no purpose, no higher calling, no connection to a meaningful product. And as soon as you recognize this fact, it becomes very hard to motivate yourself day in, day out for this never-ending act of masking and pretending. So, don’t feel guilty.
Also, capitalism demands constant visibility, mistaking presence for productivity. Surveillance software, keystroke trackers, screen monitors—tools of paranoia that amplify our isolation and anxiety. Creativity dies in such conditions and all you’re left with is people doing the easy and obvious. So innovation, ironically, dies too.
Taskmasking isn’t evil. It’s survival, impotent rebellion, despair, and comedy intertwined. I hate my marketing job, but I am damn good at pretending otherwise. Beneath the act one dreams of more, of course—authenticity, creativity, connection, purpose—DENIED.
Now, of course, there will come out those crying of laziness, entitlement, etc. Usually these are the people praising and adoring sociopathic businessmen. Personally, I would love to work hard toward some higher goal. Something good, something noble, something exciting, something that benefits me and people I love, something, anything. Just give me a reason, man. Give me meaning or set me free. Work isn’t inherently bad, no one’s saying this, but without purpose it can be torture. In context with other capitalist features it literally kills people—depression, anxiety, burnout, suicide.
I could go into much, much more depth here—and I probably should—but I wrote about all those things very extensively before. Check out my earlier essays if you’ve got a slow day at work. I’m too busy right now, just got a meeting invitation with my manager and HR.
Anyway, have a perfect day!
Antonio Melonio
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Also, saving this post and filing for future reference. Folder name: "Professional Development"
For remote work — I'm always running a mouse jiggling script.