Friday's Work Advice: Checkin Out Early

It's 4:30 and your boys are all meeting at the local wateringhole to drink Pacifico and talk down to the help. You know you can't miss this opportunity, but you left early for softball last week and the boss won't be too happy if you pull this stunt again. However, you can still make it happen without him knowing. First thing you need to know is that your boss is smarter than you. Maybe not smarter, but more experienced, and knows the exact time you come in and leave every morning. You just have to be one step ahead...

-The Screensaver -

Go into your computers options and set the screensaver to activate after 45 minutes of non-use. Then open up a program that's fairly unassuming, I'll usually start writing a work email, and leave it open. When someone comes to your desk it'll look like you stepped away for a minute mid-email, since no one leaves their monitors on when they leave. When you come back in the morning, move your mouse and the email should appear. If it doesnt, it means someone's on to you and IT probably planted a wire in your keyboard. If I were you I would pour green tea on my monitor and then drop kick my stapler. The Fed's can hide those things anywhere...

-The Jacket -

If you are a suit wearer like myself you have to schlep a suit jacket to work everyday, even in the dead of summer. This may not necessarily be a bad thing however. And for you non-suit wearers, this trick will only apply in the winter when you bring in a coat. It's actually pretty simple, just leave your jacket on the hanger at your cube/desk when you take off. The tell-tale sign if someone is still in the office is whether or not their jacket is still hanging. When your boss comes looking for you at 4:48pm and your jacket is still sitting there, it won't even cross his mind that you've left the office. Then the next day wear a different suit and take the jacket home.


-The Tandem -

This trick only works if you have a co-worker that you can trust, which can be difficult to find. You see, most employees are either extremely honest, incredibly stupid, or a combination of the two. And because of this fact, it's difficult to find that one guy or girl that will assist you in your schemes, but trust me, they're out there. Anyhow, here's a move your boss pulls that you may not be aware of; the email receipt. In Outlook you can set your options so the second someone reads an email you've sent, a message appears telling you that they've read it. What my boss does, and probably most of them do, is sends a mass email at 8:08am and 4:52pm to see who has showed up late or left early. If he doesnt receive an email from someone, he assumes that person is not in the office (which is completely unfair since I could be in a meeting, on a call, or just simply not checking my email).

What's tricky is that these are always unassuming emails such as "Don't forget, tomorrow is Thursday. Just a reminder folks" or "Good morning, the fax machine works today in case you were wondering." This trickster doesn't care if you know what day tomorrow is, plus who the hell uses a fax machine anymore. So what my co-worker (Stan) and I do is work together. If I'm leaving at 4:30 then Stan will walk over to my computer (which is obviously kept on as I explained before) around 4:57pm and clicks on any email from my boss, thus proving that I'm a diligent worker, sticking in the full eight hours. Works every time...

If you combine these three tactics there is no reason you can't leave early every day, which in all honesty is not bad thing, because no one in this world does actual work for the last 30 minutes they're in the office. And let's be honest, even if they do figure out you've left, it's not like they're going to call at 5:30 to yell at you. So you can live it up guilt free while yelling, "Hey sweetheart, that'll be another Pacifico. Don't forget the lime this time, your tips already down to 12%."