Cube Monkey Skills 101

We all know the feeling. Your body is sitting in work while your mind is envisioning you breaking down the cube walls and making a break for the exit. It's 4 PM and you know that one hour you have left is going to feel like 4. Or you read something hilarious online and have to choke down a laugh so you don't blow your cover. It's basic cube life stuff that if you don't treat with a certain level of skill, you're toast. This is why in my years of being a cube monkey I've developed a systematic way to handle these situations.

Fake Work

If you aren't actually doing anything, always maintain some sort of work open on your screen. Excel spreadsheets are perfect because they always look like boring work that no one will ever give a second thought.

Avoiding Coworkers

Headphones are your Holy Grail here. Nothing says, "Hey Pal, I don't give a shit what you did this weekend," quite like being plugged in and tapping away at your keyboard.

Pooping

Utilize the poop time as a good break time. Wanna get away? Go sit on the porcelain throne and crush candies for as long as you want.

Socializing 

Gchat, Gchat and more Gchat. Nothing passes time faster than shooting the shit with old college buddies. This can also save you from "The Loop."

The Loop - the constant cycle of updating a consistent line-up of webpages (i.e. Barstool, Twitter, FB, Google News) in hopes that time passes faster, when in fact it slows time down to a screeching halt.

STAY AWAY FROM THE LOOP!!

The Laugh/Cough

Critical skill to have if you're going to be on Gchat with your friends all day. If someone springs a joke on you or Friend posts a gif of Ditka on a wrecking ball, you have to have a cover up for the laugh you just let out. All you have to do is slowly transition from laugh to cough and hope no one notices. If they do notice, simply continue the cough. You're in too deep, gotta stick with the plan. Done and done.

The Fart/Cough

Never works, don't even try it. You're just going to cough, then fart.
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You're welcome and now you can toss Cube Monkey Skills 101 on that résumé of yours...