Mouse Jigglers, Fake PowerPoints: Workers Foil Bosses' Surveillance --- Firms try to track people's productivity, but employees find workarounds

"In a time of hybrid work, employers are extra-focused on making sure their staffers are being productive.

Now come employees with work hacks to keep the bosses off their tails.

Lisa Crawford works in marketing from her home in Phoenix. She says she is wary of her computer falling asleep when she gets up to throw in a load of laundry or prep ingredients for dinner. She might miss the ping of an email from a supervisor and be slow to reply.

Her solution? Sloth TV, a live-cam of a Costa Rican wildlife rescue ranch, where volunteers feed cute baby sloths for the viewing audience.

Ms. Crawford pulls up the stream on a second monitor. Her computer stays awake to hear notifications that pop up so she can dart back to her desk.

As a bonus, she keeps up to speed on sloths. "Watch as they take naps, snack, snuggle in their blankets, go for an adventurous climb, and even get fed by our caretakers!" says the live-cam site.

Since the start of the pandemic, an estimated third of medium-to-large U.S. companies have adopted some kind of worker-surveillance system, bringing the overall share of employers using such systems to two out of three. Others tally badge swipes into the office or hire consultants to spot quiet quitters -- the buzzy term for employees who do what is in their job description and no more.

A September report by Microsoft Corp. described a "paranoia" in which 85% of business leaders said they questioned whether their hybrid workforces were being productive (even though, the report said, people generally are working more than ever).

That has led to "productivity theater," the report added, in which some employees try to show they're busy by doing things like joining meetings they don't need to be in.

Workers nationwide are sharing their ways to outsmart supervisors, guard their personal lives or just avoid looking like shirkers.

Career coaches such as Sho Dewan provide lessons on techniques. Early in his career, while between consulting projects, Mr. Dewan would wake at 8 a.m., open a PowerPoint slide on his laptop and click "present," he says.

He wasn't outlining strategy for a client. No one else was seeing the slides. Mr. Dewan had learned that his computer wouldn't go to sleep or mark him as "idle" during a presentation.

His computer being alert meant he didn't have to be, and he would catch more sleep.

Mr. Dewan dashed off a TikTok video on the strategy in October. His slide was all white, with black text reading "REALLY IMPORTANT WORK MEETING" centered on the screen. "Just hit 'slideshow,' and you're good," he says to the audience as he flashes a thumbs up. The tutorial got more than 10 million views.

When Mohamed Abbas's job went remote early in the pandemic, the management assistant liked the idea of being at his home in Barstow, Calif., collecting pay of $27 an hour.

Then friends in the IT department shared some bad news. Work computers would shut down if left inactive for more than 10 minutes. Bosses would know who was away from their desks.

That irked Mr. Abbas. His responsibilities included setting up training for new employees, coordinating calendar invites for meetings and handling travel vouchers. Sometimes there was none of that to do, he says, yet "they still wanted us logged on. It didn't make any sense."

Mr. Abbas wrapped the cord of his computer mouse around a rotating desk fan. Its motion kept the mouse moving and prevented his computer from shutting down. "I logged on, went to the gym," he says." [1]

1.   Mouse Jigglers, Fake PowerPoints: Workers Foil Bosses' Surveillance --- Firms try to track people's productivity, but employees find workarounds
Belkin, Douglas; Ellis, Lindsay.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 12 Jan 2023: A.1.