We all have that one coworker who never seems to work yet never gets in trouble for it… and some employees make a career out of doing that!
Who knows how they do it, but some folks really do wake up every day, give 10% effort at work, and still manage to fail upward over and over again. Some of these people have learned that it’s all about the appearance of working hard. If you sit at your desk for 8 hours per day, looking agitated and typing hard, perhaps the boss will think you’re good at your job. Sure you, might just be goofing around on social media for 7 of those hours, but it’s all about the way you’re perceived.
Some employees put a ton of energy into their laziness. For example, one call center worker quickly became the team lead after seemingly raking in tons of sales. He would spend all day on the phone completing these sales calls, so naturally, bosses didn’t question him. However, they noticed that a lot of customers weren’t paying up front, and instead, they’d be sent invoices. When they didn’t pay those invoices… well, that’s when the employees’ game plan was discovered. Instead of actually taking to the phones and garnering real sales, this employee was pretending to talk on the phone for his entire shift, then fudging the sales numbers. Yes, he was fired, and it’s a great example of putting far too much energy into pretending to be busy, when just calling real potential customers would’ve probably netted him nearly as many sales.