Ghostworking is pretending to be busy at work. According to this article, it’s on the rise with a number of people looking for other remote opportunities at other organizations. Some employees might be just wasting time at the office, though I suspect there is a minority that are actually working at another (second) job. Maybe they are growing a side hustle or maybe they’ve even accepted another job, and they’re spending part of there day on those tasks.
This might be part of the reason that many managers want to get people back into the office. I think that’s flawed as a) most managers aren’t great at their jobs and b) people still ghost work in the office. I’ve had numerous “clipboard carriers” alongside me in my career who spend an inordinate amount of time at the water cooler, coffee machine, or walking from place to place and are happy to engage in hallway chats. I’ve seen plenty of managers also not know how to hold people accountable for their work (or lack thereof). Especially technical people who find many reasons why problems are hard to solve.
I wonder sometimes if we’ve created a culture of looking busy. Many employees schedule lots of meetings, often with managers, to provide updates or create discussions about what to do or how to do it. Often the meetings seem reasonable. However, a lot of those meetings, updates, or decisions could be cut short, and more actual work could be finished. The number of people engaged in meetings all day is crazy. That happens to me when I come to Redgate offices, but I am there for meetings, and I try to have substantive discussions. I also know I can’t do have that many meetings every week because I do need to actually get something done that helps the company.
This quote in the article is disturbing: “The workforce is currently under immense pressure to appear productive, even when it’s counterintuitive to actual productivity…”. I wonder how many people feel this way in the modern world, and if this is a reaction to concerns about layoffs/AI replacement/something else or is it just slacking off?
My career has been successful in part because I’ve always worked hard. I might not be a good example for many of you, as I likely work too hard, but I can say that being efficient and effective, getting tasks done on time or sooner, and not just agreeing to more work to please others has helped me. I agree to timelines that I can meet, and I work hard to get things done on time. I would say that constantly learning, finding better ways (and quicker ones) to do your job, will help ensure you have a good career. Especially if you work on things that the organization finds important, rather than those you want to tackle.
Steve Jones
Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.
Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.
Voice of the DBA 
I don’t think “appearing busy” has ever not been the case for many people. The concept of working multiple jobs is also nothing new for what we now call content creators/influencers but have always existed since the first blog site was erected.
The problem is that some people do it for the benefit of their company/career, and others are doing it as a side hustle that is unrelated to business. It gets harder when you have flexible hours to know when a person is working or not. I am always more concerned in an office about appearing busing, while working at home I am more concerned that they are watching stats that don’t cover the full picture. It is easy for them to look at some stats and think “Worker doesn’t work enough” without the full picture of “during the day on a machine we can track, but he also works constantly”
In the end, you can fake working a lot easier than you can track what is really done, especially when you don’t care.
LikeLike
Very true. I hear people talk about the next generation, but I always point out I’ve worked with lots of people my age that carried clipboards around, appearing to be busy without getting things done. Or “experimenting” with code constantly and not delivering.
I think your point about tracking people is valid and it is hard. To me, I’d track outcomes. If someone complained they don’t know enough to solve the problem, I’d walk through things with them, but ultimately I might tell them if you can’t get this done in a timeli-er manner, you can’t have a job here.
I too worry I’m doing enough, probably why I work too much. The same reason Jerry Rice was still training hard in April, May, and June on his hill in his 30s, after already setting all the records for catches.
LikeLike
I see this as a management/executive issue and not a worker one. If I as an employer hire someone and agree to pay $X annually with a list of expectations and the employee is getting done that which is their job, their tasks, then why its is it a problem if they do it in less time than I expected it would require? Why is it so important that employees must always be doing something if they are already meeting expectations or even possibly exceeding them? If a company contracted a 3rd party to create something for $X by Y date and said 3rd party did it then the company doesn’t care if every work hour of every work day was used to create what they paid for only that they got what was agreed to by the desired date and yet if instead an employee is hired and does the same, any free time they have seems to need to be filled up with additional work else the employer feels their being ripped off. This looks very much like a control issue, where those in management feel they need to control the employees versus letting them do what is expected and as long as that’s done let them be. I get why an employer would want to maximize their resources but if the employee is doing what is expected and meeting any deadlines then there shouldn’t be this need whether perceived or real, for said employee to “look busy” just because. It’s like as if we still have yet to move past this idea that some in management have that a job is an agreement to exchange money for services and not a “favor”. When you hire me you aren’t doing me a favor, you are paying me to do something and as long as that get’s done I shouldn’t need to look busy if I have everything done sooner then is otherwise expected. This kind of non-sense is how companies loose great talent. There will always be a company willing to steal high quality talent from you so don’t treat your people like as if their children and your a teacher hovering over them M-F from 9-5. It’s time to move past these outdated executive mindsets of you must have a degree even if the job doesn’t warrant one and you must always be busy even if you are getting done that which is expected! I fear we will never be able to do that until the demand for labor exceeds supply as the norm. Right now standard unemployment % favor employers, allows them to always have people to pick from even if not always the best or brightest. Right after the covid lockdowns started to end and people were coming back to work and many industries were having a hard time finding workers I noticed how much more pro-employee the business world had become. They no longer had the extra supply of labor they normally do and so they couldn’t be so picky any more. They had to be reasonable both in the salary offered and flexibility like remote work. There are a lot of jobs that can be done remotely that are no longer being allowed to be done remotely b/c of these and outdated business practices. The successful business is the one that does things differently and not the same way all others do it.
LikeLike
I think where you’re oversimplifying is saying I pay you $x to do i, j, and k work. That’s not how most jobs work, in any industry and any level.
If you work in construction as a framing carpenter, I’ve hired you for $x/hr to do work. Frame things, cutting, measuring, moving, nailing, etc. If I ask you to move some electrical cable to move a process along, I’d expect that you’d help out. You’re being paid to work.
That’s hourly, for sure, but not all of your job is specified. If you wait tables or tend bar, you’re expected to fill time with other tasks if you don’t have anything to do and I ask you.
In tech, if you’re a DBA or developer, we don’t tightly define your tasks as do i, j, and k today and that’s it. You are expected to know things that are needed in that job. Check logs, tune queries, test indexes, etc. If you get a bunch done I’ve asked you to do, there are other things to be done. If you work 4 hours and you’ve done everything I ask, does that mean you can spend 4 hours working for another company doing DBA work? I don’t think that’s the case.
I do agree this is definitely partially a management issue, but it’s also an employee issue. Depending on supply/demand, you being picked up is a bit of a favor(ing of you). You were chosen over others to do a job because we think you can do it better than others. I’d say right now, there isn’t always another company. There is more supply (people needing jobs) than demand (companies hiring).
Being successful here is managing people well, but also picking the people who will do the work. That is hard and always has been. Being successful as an employee means being more of a self-started and self-driven when you (arguably) have less supervision in a remote situation.
LikeLike
If we are going to talk about all fields then yes but this is mainly a tech based site specifically the DB area and so i was speaking with regards to that so let me be more specific with my example. If I am hired to do tech support for a company and at some point in the day there are no outstanding calls for help that need to be addressed and that is the only thing I’ve been instructed to do I shouldn’t need to “look busy” until another support call comes in. In examples like this there is no fixed or pre-scheduled tasks as it is dynamic and so there will be times when you got a decent number of help desk calls/emails waiting to be addressed and there will be times when there are none to deal with./ When there are none to deal with and that is all I was hired to do I shouldn’t need to “look busy” simply so my employer doesn’t feel like their being cheated. There are jobs like this as I used to do this job myself. In my case i used the free time to learn new stuff just bn/c I wanted to but I shouldn’t need to look busy during the times when there were no calls or emails to deal with.
Is that a better example?
I never made the case that I should do work for another company when I’m not busy at my job; only that I shouldn’t have to “look busy” during that time.
Unless you hired me as an actual favor, maybe to help out a friend in need or just to do something nice for someone, than no, you are not doing me a favor by giving me a job I’m qualified for. I could argue I am doing you the employer a favor by offering my services, something you currently need. I didn’t argue that b/c that is an unhealthy mindset; to believe hiring or offering of services is doing someone a favor. If you see either side of this as being a favor then at some level you believe you are owed something beyond the agreement to exchange time/skills for money. When you are hired you are trading your time and skills for money; it is a form of commerce. If you have a store that sells widgets and I purchase a box of your widgets do you believe you have done me a favor by letting me give you some of money for your widgets?
LikeLike