When the government shut down over the border wall, it was the public service workers that got hit hard. Essential workers were told they must continue to come to work while “non-essential” workers, were told to stay home on furlough or temporary unpaid leave. Being called a “non-essential” worker when you are an integral cog in the machine of society was a slap in the face to many, but for some workers, this term is more than accurate.
Image credits: istolethetv (not the actual photo)
Someone on Quora asked the question “Have you ever had a job where you did nothing for years and nobody found out?” and while many users responded but one answer stood out
And user Shayne Wyatt responded with this ludicrous but true story about his former co-worker Bob:
“I once worked at a steel company and there used to be this guy with a clipboard and pen,
who would continually be in the stock area checking labels, boxes, pallets, shipping packages. His name was Bob and everyone liked him, he was personable, was into sports, just an all round nice guy who got along with everyone staff, managers, bosses, everyone. Bob had been with the company all of 15 years by then, and you have to understand, this was a large steel mill with a couple thousand people working throughout the three mills on the same property. Anyway, at a managers meeting a decision was made to have an employee look after a certain area of finished nails, screws, nuts and bolts. They were scratching their head about who had the brains to handle it. One of the managers said, “Why not Bob?”
Everyone knew right away who he was referring to and they all agreed he would probably be the best man for the job
The next question out of the manager’s mouth was “Okay, which one of you guys does he work for?” And no one said a word, but looked around the table at the other managers. “C’mon, he’s gotta work for someone here.” The manager said, and still there was no answer. Someone piped up, “Maybe he works for one of the office managers.”
Long story short Bob worked at the plant for over 15 years, collecting a paycheck each and every week
For the first five years he worked in a department that became obsolete and so people were moved around to other areas of the mill, except for Bob. He got lost in the shuffle and found himself floating here and there without supervision or anyone ever paying attention to him. He waited to see if he would still get a paycheck and when that happened he thought at the time, “Well, I wonder how long I can get away with this before someone notices?” How about 10 years folks of weekly paychecks coming in without ever having had to work a day in his life.
When this came out it was the talk of the whole operations and even reached the president of the company
who could only laugh at the whole situation. Nonetheless Bob was let go, but HR told them they had to offer him a good severance package because he was an employee after all for the full 15 years he was there, and it was not his fault he had nothing to do. Management should have caught it in the beginning. I’m 75 now and this happened when I was still a young man, and had pretty much forgotten about it all until I read the question and I could not hold back a big silly grin about a wonderfully silly memory of Bob.
Thanks for the memory.”
Other people in the thread had different but equally bizarre stories
what is a lot more common is for a worker to work hard and well from the heart with zeal for ten years, AND NOT GET NOTICED.
The really funny thing about the story of Bob is that when they found a job for him to do... they let him go.
One of my old work places was closed for the summer so I had an option to work with the cleaning staff for a month to get paid for the full summer. It was a huge vocational school with many buildings. The cleaning staff gave me some cleaning rags, liquid soap and a bucket and I had to wash all the lockers at the locker looms that the students and the staff used. I found plenty of ways to make that work really fast so I really used 10 minutes to clean and 20 minutes to play Bejeweled with my phone at every locker room. Still the cleaning staff thought that I was doing my job very well. :D
I worked at a ski mountain in the pro shop. Everyone was on cocaine, having sex in the bathroom, stealing product, etc.., I went to the owner to tell him He didn't care? So I started just going to work to punch in then I'd go snowboarding all-day and go punch out. Everyday. I didn't follow my schedule or anything. Just got paid to snowboard. All winter long. The best part was walking into work in my gear and punching in and out in front of my coworkers everyday and them being too dumb to realize what I was doing. My boss had to sign off on the payroll every week. And his drugged out mind didn't notice a thing wrong.
Western European people can teach you that too.
Load More Replies...
At least 4 years at a global bank being paid very well to play games on my phone or read books on my Kindle. It got even better when I got to "work" from home full time. Then I was being paid to go the the gym and train for triathlons. When they finally eliminated the department by outsourcing it, I got a nice severance package. I feel no guilt. They're notorious for wasting money and dishonest practices.
My brother in law is a radar technician. He had a job maintaining a computer that coordinated air traffic control across Europe. Pretty essential stuff. If it ever went down he had to fix it in a matter of minutes or else all hell might break loose in the skies. Thing is it never once broke. He spent his entire time on that job playing Xbox games or sleeping on a camping bed he moved into the room next door.
I once worked in a big company and me and my colleague's job was to translate two large 500+ page technical manuals. So, we quickly figured out that as soon as we're done they would lay us off cause nobody needed those manuals. So, we had our time browsing Internet and playing and getting our monthly pay. Luckily we had no supervision at all until they in seven months decided to move to a new office building and starting counted heads... so, they determined they didn't need us any longer and let us finish our work (half of the scope in 2 weeks) which we did and discontinued our jobs. They even had us bring those manuals to the plant which needed those manuals. So, in a week I received a job offer from that plant and started a long and good career from there.
Although this is hilarious, it's loaded with consequences. When every product and service is measured in value per dollar, think about all of the Bobs yin your company as they start to downsize, outsource, or simply lose business to a competitor and shut the doors. Also, if you work with a Bob and he gets found out, it sends a shockwave of distrust though management - how many other Bobs work for me? Did everyone know about this and laugh behind my back? What else will I find if I change from a trust system to full CCTV surveillance? All it takes is one bad apple to ruin it for the rest!
I remember being a kid and a friend of the family worked for the council in parks maintenance, he used to get rostered on on the weekend and go in, punch in mow the lawn in an hour, go home and have a BBQ with the family and friends and then drive back in the evening and punch out, still got paid the full day. They also did pay in envelopes, Manager would send the info to whomever did the pays, the envelopes would come back and the two or three extras would be pocketed by the Manager. Before tax file numbers and the like, there were a lot of phantom employees in many council jobs.
I was IT admin at a goldmine and found that a geologist was spending most of his day on the internet day trading in shares.
I had a job managing a department that was so pointless I would literally take naps under my desk
My husband worked for a company that had 6 employees. He didn't do much during the day so he would spend most of the time playing video games or reading. At least once a week they'd have "company team building day" which usually involved everyone but the main boss going out to lunch followed by a round or two of laser tag at the local arcade.
Precisely why I work Maintenance. There are days of down time and most of the time its calls for light bulb changes, well was until we started using LED.
I’m sorry, but I have a hard time listening to people that have a “job” get paid, and do nothing. Yet no one let the people in charge know, and they just kept collecting a pay check, for Idly sitting around! People that work, and actually do work, spend their entire lives working just to get by. I call this behavior lazy,mooching and irresponsible. This behavior is nothing to be proud of. Ever. It’s also cheating! It is also the employers responsibility to keep track of their employees, so they didn’t do a very good job, either. This is what makes our society, wonder why people have a need to get what they want,without the work. You aren’t entitled to anything you don’t earn. Reading this, saddens me, and makes the rest of the true work force, angry. If they aren’t, they should be. If I were your parent, and found out about you, I’d be so dissapointed! Especially that a child of mine could be so lazy, and such a cheat. You would losemy respect for you as a person, and my trust.
i worked in IT, in a software position--testing & 'breaking' the programs. work actually done was maybe 2 hrs a day--the rest was playing on the internet for 6+ hrs. EVERYDAY. had my own cubicle in the back of the room & was set up so that i could see everyone coming toward me so i could minimize my goofing off & bring up pages that looked like i was doing actual work. this went on for at least 3 yrs. amazing how boring it can get when you can do what you want for hours at a time! i swear i reached the end of the internet a few times...
My story is opposite to this. I worked bloody hard in my previous job, staying very late a lot of the time and getting nothing for it. It was a two person role and my co-worker never ever stayed late, always leaving right on the dot. They made my job redundant but not my co-workers. I had been there for 6 years and she had been there for 1 year. The staff couldn’t believe it when I was made redundant. I heard later on after I left that some of the staff had said ‘they got rid of the wrong one’.
I had a job working for a Pharmaceutical Company in Research division. Six of my colleagues and I started a special projects group on Thursday's called "Applications in Problem Solving", in which we played Dungeons and Dragons for 2 hours after lunch.
He is lucky, I bet another company would have made him pay back all the money he "earned"
I've had a job with very little to do, but no way to quietly do other stuff like playing games or napping. It was the worst torture!
I remember the story about the parking attendant at the zoo when it came to light. Amazing ingenuity.
The one about the parking attendant at the zoo, we had that happen here in Bristol, don't know if they were referring to the same one but it all turned out to be b******t in the end.
I work for a newspaper (dying media as you know) spend most of my days online shopping. and whenever someone comes to me asking me for something, I make sure to look annoyed as if i'm busy and doing them a favor by doing my job
Of all the things that definitely never happened, this never happened most. It’s a s****y story based on the recent jokes about how you can get out of situations by carrying a clipboard.
the first thing I found really odd from the story is that weekly paycheck is a thing?
The story is referring to something from decades ago, when he was a young man. He's now 75.
Load More Replies...
Bob sounds on Asian descent by the sound of his work ethic and ability to lie and deceive
what is a lot more common is for a worker to work hard and well from the heart with zeal for ten years, AND NOT GET NOTICED.
The really funny thing about the story of Bob is that when they found a job for him to do... they let him go.
One of my old work places was closed for the summer so I had an option to work with the cleaning staff for a month to get paid for the full summer. It was a huge vocational school with many buildings. The cleaning staff gave me some cleaning rags, liquid soap and a bucket and I had to wash all the lockers at the locker looms that the students and the staff used. I found plenty of ways to make that work really fast so I really used 10 minutes to clean and 20 minutes to play Bejeweled with my phone at every locker room. Still the cleaning staff thought that I was doing my job very well. :D
I worked at a ski mountain in the pro shop. Everyone was on cocaine, having sex in the bathroom, stealing product, etc.., I went to the owner to tell him He didn't care? So I started just going to work to punch in then I'd go snowboarding all-day and go punch out. Everyday. I didn't follow my schedule or anything. Just got paid to snowboard. All winter long. The best part was walking into work in my gear and punching in and out in front of my coworkers everyday and them being too dumb to realize what I was doing. My boss had to sign off on the payroll every week. And his drugged out mind didn't notice a thing wrong.
Western European people can teach you that too.
Load More Replies... At least 4 years at a global bank being paid very well to play games on my phone or read books on my Kindle. It got even better when I got to "work" from home full time. Then I was being paid to go the the gym and train for triathlons. When they finally eliminated the department by outsourcing it, I got a nice severance package. I feel no guilt. They're notorious for wasting money and dishonest practices.
My brother in law is a radar technician. He had a job maintaining a computer that coordinated air traffic control across Europe. Pretty essential stuff. If it ever went down he had to fix it in a matter of minutes or else all hell might break loose in the skies. Thing is it never once broke. He spent his entire time on that job playing Xbox games or sleeping on a camping bed he moved into the room next door.
I once worked in a big company and me and my colleague's job was to translate two large 500+ page technical manuals. So, we quickly figured out that as soon as we're done they would lay us off cause nobody needed those manuals. So, we had our time browsing Internet and playing and getting our monthly pay. Luckily we had no supervision at all until they in seven months decided to move to a new office building and starting counted heads... so, they determined they didn't need us any longer and let us finish our work (half of the scope in 2 weeks) which we did and discontinued our jobs. They even had us bring those manuals to the plant which needed those manuals. So, in a week I received a job offer from that plant and started a long and good career from there.
Although this is hilarious, it's loaded with consequences. When every product and service is measured in value per dollar, think about all of the Bobs yin your company as they start to downsize, outsource, or simply lose business to a competitor and shut the doors. Also, if you work with a Bob and he gets found out, it sends a shockwave of distrust though management - how many other Bobs work for me? Did everyone know about this and laugh behind my back? What else will I find if I change from a trust system to full CCTV surveillance? All it takes is one bad apple to ruin it for the rest!
I remember being a kid and a friend of the family worked for the council in parks maintenance, he used to get rostered on on the weekend and go in, punch in mow the lawn in an hour, go home and have a BBQ with the family and friends and then drive back in the evening and punch out, still got paid the full day. They also did pay in envelopes, Manager would send the info to whomever did the pays, the envelopes would come back and the two or three extras would be pocketed by the Manager. Before tax file numbers and the like, there were a lot of phantom employees in many council jobs.
I was IT admin at a goldmine and found that a geologist was spending most of his day on the internet day trading in shares.
I had a job managing a department that was so pointless I would literally take naps under my desk
My husband worked for a company that had 6 employees. He didn't do much during the day so he would spend most of the time playing video games or reading. At least once a week they'd have "company team building day" which usually involved everyone but the main boss going out to lunch followed by a round or two of laser tag at the local arcade.
Precisely why I work Maintenance. There are days of down time and most of the time its calls for light bulb changes, well was until we started using LED.
I’m sorry, but I have a hard time listening to people that have a “job” get paid, and do nothing. Yet no one let the people in charge know, and they just kept collecting a pay check, for Idly sitting around! People that work, and actually do work, spend their entire lives working just to get by. I call this behavior lazy,mooching and irresponsible. This behavior is nothing to be proud of. Ever. It’s also cheating! It is also the employers responsibility to keep track of their employees, so they didn’t do a very good job, either. This is what makes our society, wonder why people have a need to get what they want,without the work. You aren’t entitled to anything you don’t earn. Reading this, saddens me, and makes the rest of the true work force, angry. If they aren’t, they should be. If I were your parent, and found out about you, I’d be so dissapointed! Especially that a child of mine could be so lazy, and such a cheat. You would losemy respect for you as a person, and my trust.
i worked in IT, in a software position--testing & 'breaking' the programs. work actually done was maybe 2 hrs a day--the rest was playing on the internet for 6+ hrs. EVERYDAY. had my own cubicle in the back of the room & was set up so that i could see everyone coming toward me so i could minimize my goofing off & bring up pages that looked like i was doing actual work. this went on for at least 3 yrs. amazing how boring it can get when you can do what you want for hours at a time! i swear i reached the end of the internet a few times...
My story is opposite to this. I worked bloody hard in my previous job, staying very late a lot of the time and getting nothing for it. It was a two person role and my co-worker never ever stayed late, always leaving right on the dot. They made my job redundant but not my co-workers. I had been there for 6 years and she had been there for 1 year. The staff couldn’t believe it when I was made redundant. I heard later on after I left that some of the staff had said ‘they got rid of the wrong one’.
I had a job working for a Pharmaceutical Company in Research division. Six of my colleagues and I started a special projects group on Thursday's called "Applications in Problem Solving", in which we played Dungeons and Dragons for 2 hours after lunch.
He is lucky, I bet another company would have made him pay back all the money he "earned"
I've had a job with very little to do, but no way to quietly do other stuff like playing games or napping. It was the worst torture!
I remember the story about the parking attendant at the zoo when it came to light. Amazing ingenuity.
The one about the parking attendant at the zoo, we had that happen here in Bristol, don't know if they were referring to the same one but it all turned out to be b******t in the end.
I work for a newspaper (dying media as you know) spend most of my days online shopping. and whenever someone comes to me asking me for something, I make sure to look annoyed as if i'm busy and doing them a favor by doing my job
Of all the things that definitely never happened, this never happened most. It’s a s****y story based on the recent jokes about how you can get out of situations by carrying a clipboard.
the first thing I found really odd from the story is that weekly paycheck is a thing?
The story is referring to something from decades ago, when he was a young man. He's now 75.
Load More Replies... Bob sounds on Asian descent by the sound of his work ethic and ability to lie and deceive
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