“Cutting corners” is a skill mastered by many.
Just think of George from Seinfeld or Jim from The Office . George would pretend to look annoyed at work so his boss gave him less work, while Jim wasted time pulling pranks on his co-workers.
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Real people pull hilariously clever scams, too. Here, 10+ very proud people share the stunts they’ve pulled at work!
The 30-page report.
Standup comedian Rohit got things started on Twitter by sharing the scam he performed at work.
Basically, when a client found the 30-page report too long, Rohit reduced the font size by two points to make it 22 pages. Bingo!
The revised document.
Um, we’re totally stealing this idea! It just goes to show that deadlines are flexible.
Let’s be honest: saying you’re going to get to something on a weekend basically means that you’ll get to it later that week.
The 2 a.m. wake-up call.
Now that’s one way to get a promotion!
Their boss will either lessen their workload since they’re obviously working too many hours or applaud them for going the extra mile. All in all, this man is #winning.
The revisions.
This is brilliant. Far too many bosses demand revisions without understanding the work involved in meeting those requests.
This Twitter user outsmarted her boss, who clearly didn’t know what he was looking for in the end.
The voice-activated printers.
This next scam is something Jim from The Office would do.
The Twitter user put up posters near printers that said they were voice-activated. Cue to co-workers shouting “print” and “scan” to the machines. LOL.
The competitor.
Since this Twitter user couldn’t get her employer to sign off on something important, she had to take matters into her own hands with a little white lie.
Oh, well. Maybe the competitor really did have the software?
The Zoom call.
Let’s be real: Zoom calls was the official workplace of 2020.
Since meetings are generally a huge waste of time (why can’t they just be an email?), people faking audio issues were the Get Out of Jail Free card.
The injury.
While you may be thinking “how is this a scam?”, the Twitter user shared that the injured guy later revealed that he kept the cast at home for the times he didn’t feel like working.
The word increase.
Didn’t everyone do this for essays in university? It saves you the headache of jumbling out random words just to meet the word count. Let’s just hope they don’t copy and paste this into another doc…
The handbag.
Genius! It’s pretty much a known fact that women are never too far away from their handbag.
There is a risk here, though. What if someone were to steal their unsupervised bag or the contents inside?
The lone meeting.
Another brilliant scam! If you work from home, you might want to steal this idea.
It ensures that you look hard at work when you’re really just chilling with yourself (and Netflix).
The “rewrite.”
This is a risky scam that paid off thanks in large part to one careless editor.
Without that factor, they would have needed another five to six hours to rewrite what should’ve already been rewritten.
The imposter.
This Twitter user pulled the scam of all scams by pretending to be someone else.
They wrote : “Had a boss call me Scott once, so I played it up and became “Scott.” He was going to retire in the next 3 months so there was no harm in the charade I did everything wrong and slow. He hated Scott. He warned the next guy about Scott. Next guy asks me who Scott is and I’m [shrugging].”
The monthly report.
“Nothing new to report” takes on a whole new meaning with this scam.
It’s odd that clients ask for data points despite never really taking the time to actually review it.
The “new” idea.
I mean, technically it’s new. She changed the layout, template, and images!
It just goes to show that people don’t really know what they want, so you have to get creative when showing them.
The repeated paragrah.
This sounds like every essay we wrote in university! You get really good at rewriting scholarly journal findings in your own words.
This proves that required word counts only cause people to get creative to avoid them.
The slides.
This is next-level genius! First, it ensures that no one can take credit for his work and second, it makes him look super smart! Those slides will probably exist long after he’s worked there.
The live music.
This must be a placebo effect or something!
People heard things differently when they thought this person turned down the volume. But how come it didn’t work when we told our parents we turned the music down?
The presentation.
This Twitter user sure got creative.
They wrote : “Our boss had a tendency to forget about the directions he’s given so we’d regularly just change the font and colours of presentation he’d blasted couple of days back and he’d be like this is exactly what I’ve wanted. Fun times.”
