Working on a project that requires overtime offers unique evidentiary challenges to us all. Proving that you are at work and not simply at home swanning about in your underwear is a vital office survival skill. It’s not that management don’t trust you, of course - it’s the others they have to worry about.
Way back in the late nineties, proving you were at work was as simple as sending a perfectly innocent late night email to your boss (or even better to all the staff). However, in these days of web-based email and telecommuting this will not prove that you are actually doing anything beyond spending a couple of thousand rupiah at a Balinese internet cafe. More creative measures must be employed.
Web cameras are cheap (and ultimately tax deductible) and can provide video evidence of your presence. Be sure to find a good excuse for filming yourself with a copy of the weekend paper or showing how dark it is outside.
For a more subtle (and perhaps cathartic) approach, ‘accidentally’ damaging work equipment will prove that someone was on the premises, and if you are stupid enough to take the blame no one will doubt you for a second.
If all else fails you can trigger the weekend alarm. This will ensure that not only has someone seen you in the office, they will have also scrutinised your photo ID, witnessed your signature and taken a statement.
Nice. I recall a few years ago one of my 'minions' sent an email stating he was working hard in the office and he would be in late. I spoke to him the next day and said, 'no, you weren't'.
ReplyDeleteHe said he was.
I said he wasn't.
After several hours of this he asked how I could be so certain.
I told him that at the time he 'sent' the email claiming to be in the office, I was in the office. Alone.
There's no coming back from that. He feigned dysentery and skulked away.