We don't need stupid bullshit buzz words for shit that people have been doing since the dawn of labor.
Looking busy is an ancient practice
this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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What a fuckin' joke. By the title blaming "Gen Z," the implication is that those newer to the work force - ie, entry level and junior positions - are most guilty of this, when later in the article it points out management and executives engage in "fauxductivity" at higher rates, and that it's far from a new phenomenon.
I'm not a zoomer, but this bullshit is often a pretty significant part of my day. I work in an industrial facility in a maintenance role, and all of our regular work is planned and scheduled in advance. We wrap up all our jobs for the day, and that's it - we can't just go out and start turning wrenches on live equipment. Might kill a bit of time tidying up the shop and trucks, follow up on some orders, but beyond that there's not much to do. Current supervision is pretty chill because they know how it is, but it still feels like a bad look to be spending the last couple hours of the day sitting with my feet up, staring at my phone. And at the last place I worked, we'd actually get in shit for not appearing busy no matter how empty the schedule was.
I know someone whose supervisor tells them to drive in circles are the warehouse, wasting money, for the cameras because higher up people also have nothing better to do than watch the cameras and pretend to be busy by complaining about the actual workers not pretending to be busy.
“Appearing busy” is the dumbest industrial age, capitialist bullshit
OEE must go better. Be good line, go up.
- Out with all that generational bullshit
- Has been done probably for as old as the humankind is
- Possible demotivation (low pay, bad working environment,...)
Hey! I happen to be more productive afterwards when I spend 6 hours perfecting my neovim config at work, thank you very much!
As the article points out, pretending to do work and look busy isn't new.
It happens for a lot of reasons, and I'm sure I'm leaving some out:
- I'm constantly overworked, and pretending to work will keep something new from being pushed into my lap.
- I hate this company and I'm collecting a paycheck until I can find something better. Who cares if I'm actually working.
- My supervisor has been told by the higher ups that if the workers don't look busy when they walk by, then we certainly don't need any more workers (despite the fact that the workload has natural fluctuations and we do need more people).
- I only get paid so much. If there aren't any tasks for me today, great. They're not going to get me to ask for more work, or work beyond my job description.
- I'm only doing just enough work to not get hassled or fired (a la Office Space).
"task masking" happens for only one reason : managers value appearance over honesty.
Gallant writes code and documentation quickly and efficiently, then pulls out a Gameboy while waiting for new issues to come in = must be a bad worker.
Goofus mutters all day and types furiously, but produces no usable code = obvious the backbone of the team.
What does it mean?
From the article:
Task masking, or “fauxductivity” as some call it, refers to when office employees find ways to make it look like they’re extremely busy working on something.
Fauxnalism- make up a shitty portmanteau, generalize about an enormous group of people based on their age without any hard data, assert you have special insight into something that doesn't exist to divide and distract from real issues and generate clicks and outrage and profit. 50% of "news" in 2025.
Ironically, this article is fauxductivity it adds nothing to anything, and could mostly be AI slop.
50% seems like a low estimate.
I was trying not to be sensational but felt it should be higher as my made up stat, but decided lower and inarguable would be best since the internet loves to split hairs.