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“Work smarter, not harder” is a motto many people live by when doing their job. Reminding them to look for the most optimal solution instead of spending hours doing something unnecessary, it is definitely something worth keeping in mind.
But when looking for ways to be smart at work, some people might turn to rather unethical means. Though, they, too, often fall into the category of “working smarter, not harder.”
Members of the ‘Antiwork’ subreddit have recently discussed all sorts of unethical work hacks, after one netizen started a discussion about it. And let me tell you, they were quite ingenious! So, if you’re curious to browse what their hacks entailed, scroll just a little down to find them on the list below and marvel at people’s creative problem-solving.
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#1
When I was in the military, I always always walked around with a clipboard. I had a terrible expression on my face, and once in a while, I looked at the clipboard and frown and shake my head. People very weirdly ever bothered me.
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#2
“When you look annoyed all the time, people think you’re busy”
- George Costanza.
#3
Better: schedule emails for within the workday because you should never set the expectation of working outside of regular hours.
#4
Schedule emails to send just after EOD. Even if you're done early. Appear busy, not idle
#5
Reply with “Let me circle back Monday” on a Friday at 4:59 pm. Technically, you didn’t lie.
Tucker Cahooter 7 months ago
The only way you will find me at my desk at 4.59pm on a Friday is if I have died of a heart attack
#6
At my old job, if I needed to pass the time, I would pick up a notebook, folder and pen and just go for a walk around the building. As long as I held those items, moved at a reasonable pace, looked ahead, and walked in a big enough circle, it would look like I had someplace to be.
Laura Spring 7 months ago
I tried this all the time when I worked in a large medical billing company. Unfortunately people would grab me to fix their Excel spreadsheets, I went back to hiding at my desk.
#7
If you feel like a nap, go into the stationary room, scatter around a bunch of pens and fall asleep with your feet right next to the door (this only works if the door opens inwards).
If anyone opens the door it will slam into your feet, which will wake you up and you can pretend you're picking up the pens which accidentally spilled over the floor.
#8
Always appear “in a meeting.” Especially when you're not. Especially when you're cleaning your kitchen.
stephen hoxworth 7 months ago
Yep, people can see I’m “busy” on my Teams calendar but can’t see what I’ve actually scheduled. 10-12 each day. It says “everyone please shut up so I can get some actual work done “.
#9
Absolutely never create a teams meeting where you’re the only attendee two or three times a week and then sit on the call by yourself while sipping coffee or pooping.
#10
Send automated weekly reports even if the data hasn’t been updated in months. No one notices.
#11
Send yourself a Slack reminder every morning that says "Check insights." Play Wordle instead. Get praised for being "proactive with data."
#12
Block "brand narrative alignment" in your calendar. Use it to doomscroll through LinkedIn, dismantling the meaning of work.
#13
Chain ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude into a recursive feedback loop. Wait until one of them breaks.
#14
I have Excel sheets labeled do_not_touch and at least once a quarter I get asked by a coworker why it asks for a password and won't let them make any changes 🙃.
#15
Block recurring 4-hour "Cognitive Resonance Cycles" in your public calendar. Use the time to perfect your sourdough starter. Explain it's crucial for "cross-functional ideation alignment."
#16
Dismiss your own old strategy as “legacy thinking.” Disagree with it vehemently.
#17
Refer to low-performing pages as “ontologically hollow.” It’s not a bug, it’s a rupture in the symbolic order.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 7 months ago
OK I'm not even sure what that means but it sounds kind of "blood coming out of a place it shouldn't" gross.
#18
Submit your next report in hieroglyphics, not because you want to be edgy or mysterious or even original, but because you understand, deeply and intuitively, that true insight cannot be flattened into bullet points or trapped in bar charts, that "content" must be felt as much as it is read, that the symbols etched by ancient scribes carry more semantic weight than anything you could write in DM Sans 12, and when the client asks why they can’t understand any of this, you simply lean forward, fold your hands, and say, “The cake is a lie.”
#19
When asked about project risks, solemnly state, "The primary blocker remains the heat death of the universe, but we're tracking mitigation strategies." Log this in Jira under "Long-Term Impediments."
#20
B**g bosses wife, get her to divorce him, she‘ll win the company in the legal fight, marry her, be boss .
#21
Create slides with poetic opacity. Annotate graphs as “The Lacanian Funnel” and “Engagement as Simulacrum.” Conclude with: "The data speaks for itself."
#22
Forward the same email thread back to the client with a new subject line. Call it an "upgrade."
#24
Rename your Google Sheet tabs to “do_not_touch” and “client_facing.” They are identical.
Amused panda 7 months ago
Not sure what the point is of this, unless it is to make it look like you've done extra work.
#25
Create two Notion boards — one for show, one for go. The second is just a sticky note that says "vibes."
#26
Invent a fake competitor brand named "Larynx." Echo everything they do. Nobody will admit they’ve never heard of them.
#27
Pitch a “content moat” strategy based on a blog post from 2017. It has no traffic. It FEELS authoritative.
#28
End all comms with lyrics from obscure post-punk bands. Bonus points if you still get replies.
#29
Clone yourself in Midjourney. Use the image in Zoom calls. Mute yourself. Nod solemnly. If asked to speak, type you'd “rather not to.”
#30
Replace your analytics dashboard with an Absurdist painting and a caption that reads “Q5.” When questioned, say it’s a new form of data-driven storytelling. Say nothing else.
#31
Invent a perpetual stakeholder named “Mr. K” who has concerns about everything. He doesn’t approve. He doesn’t offer feedback. Mr. K offers parables.
#33
Reply to any request under $500 with, "Per the Q2 mandate, please submit this via the Asynchronous Value Request Portal for impact assessment." The portal is a hyperlink that leads back to the company's homepage.
#34
Configure your email signature to randomly append one of three phrases: "Sent from my Ouija board," "Dictated but not read, possibly by a badger," or "This message will self-detonate upon comprehension." Feign ignorace if questioned.
#35
Repurpose your oldest slide deck by changing the title slide font to Papyrus and adding "(Retro Remix)" to the name. Present it as "vintage foundational strategy" relevant to current challenges.
#36
Write your annual self-review entirely in haiku. Quantify achievements using phases of the moon. Give yourself a performance rating of "Existentially Aligned."
#37
Schedule bi-weekly 1-on-1s titled "Synergy Synchronization" with people you've never met from different departments. Spend the entire time asking them to explain what their department does. Take no notes. Declare each meeting a "resounding success" in the calendar invite afterwards.
#38
Create meeting agendas consisting solely of nested philosophical questions (e.g., "Item 1: If synergy occurs in a forest and no one is aligned, does it make an impact? Item 1a: What is impact?"). Refuse to discuss concrete tasks, insisting you must first "frame the metaphysical parameters."
#40
I set my teams to away all day every day, my notifications come on my phone so I answer important people, but means I can be doing whatever I want when WFH.
Tucker Cahooter 7 months ago
I set it to "Do Not Disturb" instead, and I don't have anyone listed as a priority contact
#41
Mine is less a hack than a chaos creation timebomb: never name google sheets. Everything is "Untitled Spreadsheet". Make a new spreadsheet for any temporary work you might do throughout every day. (Ensure you have a system for noting down the correct links of the sheets you may need to go to in a separate system).
#42
My friend and I went out for a longer lunch. Scheduled a "Steakholder alignment" meeting for us.
#43
>Dismiss your own old strategy as “legacy thinking.” Disagree with it vehemently.
I do this all the time and it's so much fun. Sometimes I am very open that I am basically arguing wuth myself from the past, sometimes I talk about "them", about "others who claim that such and so". While it's really just what I argued myself some time ago.
#44
During virtual presentations, randomly share your screen displaying only a highly pixelated image of a fax machine. Announce, "Just syncing the paradigm shifts," then immediately stop sharing. Offer no explanation.
#45
Answer any question about deadlines with, "We're operating on Kairos time, not Chronos, to fully harness emergent potential." Add the project status is "Percolating."
#46
Start a shared document titled "Cross-Pollination Ledger." Add only one entry: "Idea: synergy?" Tag ten people. Set permissions to "Comment Only." Turn off notifications for the document.
#47
Submit all purchase requests via messages tied to carrier pigeons dispatched from the roof (real or metaphorical). If questioned by finance, claim it's a pilot program for "analog data integrity and avian logistics."
#48
> End all comms with lyrics from obscure post-punk bands. Bonus points if you still get replies.
"Yeah, you're right, Boss. The summary of the last meeting was x, y, z, and the rest.. (sigh) well, in the end, it doesn't even matter".
#50
If you want to get your buddy the day off do not call in a bomb threat.
I know someone who did that. They have a record now.
#51
One strategy I’ve been dabbling with for “on camera” remote meetings…
1.multi colored strobe light in the background
2.sport a fluorescent safety vest
3.hardhat barely secured to head appendage
4.clipboard visibly in hand
5.smoke alarm slowly chirping
6.accidentally leave mic on
7.occasionally mumble the word “check”
8.slowly gaze upon the ceiling with a squint
9.offer a self assured “mmhmm” sound
10.safety check complete
12.record outcomes/update “No one injured since (date)”poster
13.injured while realizing you skipped step #11
Profit.
P.S. I tried getting it to skip 11 (it kept autocorrecting).
nottheactualphoto 7 months ago
You can avoid that autocorrect by not using Word. A dumb text editor will do what you said, not what it thinks you want.
#53
Do key bumps in the bar bathroom across the street from the office and wash it down with one beer and two shots of whiskey at 9:45 a.m. like Dennis Weaver in an After School Special about a middle aged suburban man who gets hooked on dope and catches AIDS from hookers.
#54
Steal.everything.you.can...this only works if your office has a pantry & a supply closet. I haven't bought k cups, disinfectant wipes or various snacks in months...
After all, they are stealing 40 hours of your life away every single week.
#55
Don’t be cabbage.
Michael Largey 7 months ago
Live up to your true potential and be kim chi instead. (Don't settle for a coleslaw kind of life.)
What do you think ?
Corvus 7 months ago
I'm so confused. Some of these sound serious, then many others are like weird jokes.
Ace 7 months ago
It's around ten years now since I quit the corporate world, but it seems from most of these that an entirely new vocabulary has developed in that time. In other words, I haven't a clue what most of these are talking about. . . Then again, maybe I never had a clue even when I was still working?
MayaAlli 7 months ago
I actually hate these. Thinking that my team just deceives me to spend time not working (not doing anything else productive, either) makes me want to quit everything.
Flauran Wilz 7 months ago
If you have been scammed by fake crypto investors or lost your crypto coin, reach out to (cryptospamhacker@gmail. com) for your funds recovery solution. They just helped me to reverse my stolen funds.
Corvus 7 months ago
I'm so confused. Some of these sound serious, then many others are like weird jokes.
Ace 7 months ago
It's around ten years now since I quit the corporate world, but it seems from most of these that an entirely new vocabulary has developed in that time. In other words, I haven't a clue what most of these are talking about. . . Then again, maybe I never had a clue even when I was still working?
MayaAlli 7 months ago
I actually hate these. Thinking that my team just deceives me to spend time not working (not doing anything else productive, either) makes me want to quit everything.
Flauran Wilz 7 months ago
If you have been scammed by fake crypto investors or lost your crypto coin, reach out to (cryptospamhacker@gmail. com) for your funds recovery solution. They just helped me to reverse my stolen funds.
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