Employees Share The Boldest Things They Secretly Did At Work, Here Are The 30 Best Ones

20th-century workers often had to deal with workloads even higher than ours. Ten and nine-hour days were standard in many factories. Workers and unions would often strike over it, demanding fewer hours, but it wasn’t until 1914 that major companies started to decrease the length of the workday. Henry Ford, the most unlikely ally to workers, was instrumental in this time span becoming standardized. 

Two years later, the Adamson Act saw a Federally mandated workday length specifically for railway workers. Once this precedent had been set, it became more normal, all the way up to this day. We still use “a 9 to 5” as a quick way to refer to any given workday, despite the fact that remote workers have very mixed schedules and service workers tend to have other kinds of shifts. 

Modern managers, despite their best efforts, need to realize that just because a workday is eight hours, doesn’t mean an employee will actually spend every last second working. This is not to say that they aren’t productive, but some organizational research suggests that office workers might spend as little as half their time directly engaged in doing tasks. 

As much as it might annoy higher-ups, even a productive worker needs to take little breaks to wind down. Just checking one’s email or taking a five-minute walk can help the brain reset and actually make the employee more productive in the long run. Some in this list have mentioned going to the gym, which is time-consuming but could be a great stress reliever if done correctly. But it seems that most managers aren't ready to have that conversation yet. 

And it’s important to remember that not all work is created equal. Many jobs burden people with unnecessary busy work, perhaps to create the appearance of productivity, even when all it does is tire people out without any benefits. Business analysts believe that in many companies, up to 40% of work is really just busy work that could be delegated or left until later. 

Of course, for every worker just doing their own thing while on the clock, there is a manager making time and effort to self-sabotage by overloading their best employees and just creating difficulties. If you want to hear more about one such case, Bored Panda has got you covered, check out our article on a woman who ended up maliciously complying with her manager's demand to “do more.”