You are a hardworking employee only if your calendar is fully booked…

Every workplace has that false notion that employees must busy themselves with countless meetings every single week. We go from meeting to meeting, talking about the same things and moving at a glacial pace, just because the corporate world has decided that’s what productivity looks like. In reality, however, the real work gets done when employees get a chance to quietly sit at their desks and simply do their jobs uninterrupted. They don’t need to have another meeting with the client, they need time to actually work on all the things they discussed in the last meeting, and the one before that…

We never thought we would reach the point where employees would lie their way into being allowed to work, but here we are. As it turns out, some employees have to get creative so they can be granted some quiet time to work. It’s no longer enough to put on your earphones and sit at your desk, nothing is stopping your coworkers from interrupting you. And if you try to find an empty room at the office to hide in, all your boss needs to do is look at your public calendar to know that you have “nothing” going on.

This led one clever employee to start scheduling fake meetings with fake clients so he could actually have uninterrupted work time. Anyone who looks at his calendar will see that he is booked and busy, when in reality, he is simply working on tasks he would have no time to complete otherwise.

When one of his coworkers discovered this scheme, they were impressed by this employee’s plan. However, when the boss started to ask about this mysterious client the employee kept meeting with, this genius arrangement was suddenly at risk of completely falling apart. The only question is, will the coworker cover for the clever employee, or will they expose his lie?