Recently we banged up a post giving some quick tips on how to waste time at work. We all know how important time wasting can be for keeping your sanity in a hot, dull office. Another, almost equally useful skill is the ability to appear awesome and efficient to your bosses. Because at the end of the day, like it or loathe it, you need those damn beer and rent vouchers and you don’t want to have to kill yourself getting them.

Now, no one likes a brown nose, so these pointers are designed to specifically make you look good without “going that extra mile” or schmoozing with the fat cats. Because that’s lame.

I’ve put together this short list with the help of some equally slovenly office chimps. I hope that some of these simple and easy to follow methods will help you to at least keep your job.

1) Wear A Tie

Nowadays many offices are dress-down or “business casual”, oooh how modern. Buck the trend my friend, wear a shirt and tie. Not a whole suit obviously, you don’t want to look like a pillock, and not a bow tie either you’ll come across like a buffoon with an Oedipus complex. A simple shirt and tie means you’re looking like you mean it.

Many bosses are pretty old school and whether they realise it or not, subliminally they think you’re more serious about your career. They don’t know you’ve just spent 20 minutes on the bog playing Angry Birds.

2) Carry A Pen And Paper

Make this a habit. With a pen and paper in your clammy hands it looks to the untrained eye like you are moving around the office with business on your mind. If you walk around empty-handed, whether you’re doing business or not, management will assume you’re having a meander peppered with idle chat.

Mixing tip 1 and 2 together is a failsafe.

3) Sit Near The Office Fool

Choosing where you sit is of vital importance. It goes without saying that the corners of an office are best, so that the overlords can’t see your screen. It’s best to be away from doors too, so you can’t be easily surprised by a senior’s entrance.

But also consider sitting next to the biggest idiot in the room. Without doing anything at all you will automatically look better than you are. Compared to the buffoon who’s eating Smarties off his desk without using his hands, you will come across like Donald Trump without the wig.

The office fool will also act as a cloaking device if you decide to catch some Z’s. All eyes will be on the div.

4) Employee Choice

Following on from number 3, if you are in some sort of Team Leader type role and you get the opportunity to choose your team members, pick carefully. Make sure you avoid the ones that look able and well presented; Pick the guy with the dreadlocks and the girl with the twitch. That way when your boss is riding you hard about your team’s turd performance simply sit back in your chair, make a sweeping hand gesture that ends at the guy with the dreadlocks and say “well… just look at them…” The heat is off you and straight onto HR’s hiring department.

5) Manage Expectations

If a boss asks you to do a report or a project or whatever, never do it as fast as you can. If you do it quickly the first time that’s what he will always expect. Use these equations:

A x 2 = B

A x 1.5 = C

A = the actual length of time it will take you to finish the work

B = the length of time you tell your boss it will take

C = the length of time before you actually hand it in.

To see these equations in action let’s consider this story:

Your boss asks you to complete a crushingly dull report, you know it will take 2 days to finish, you tell him it will take 4 days and you hand it in after 3. You’re happy because you got a day longer than you needed and your boss is happy because he got the report a day earlier than he expected. Win win.

6) Coffee

In the modern-day coffee is pretty much a currency in the office. If you have it, you have the power. It’s a legal black market.

Offer to go and get your boss coffee, this does seem like it’s a bit brown-nosie, but hear me out…

Your boss will see this as a willful act of subservience, which they absolutely love. And on the flip side you can wander off safe in the knowledge that your boss thinks you’re doing him a favour. You now have carte blanch to have a meander and a chat.

And if you’re feeling like you’re being way to nice to a man who has your balls in his hands then pop the occasional pube in there. He’ll never notice and you’ll feel like you won.

7) Reading Material

Bored of looking at a spreadsheet? Why not pick up a magazine? You’ll have to choose one of the dreary corporate rags like Call Centre Monthly or Accountants Daily or whatever sector you’re in. But even the dull grey titles of these snooze sheets will beat the crap out of actual work. And once again, your boss will like the fact that you look like you care. Bring up an article in a meeting and you are set for promotion in no time at all.

I truly hope some of these simple techniques help get you through your next one-to-one with your boss. Every little helps in the dog eat dog world of office drudgery.

Want to beat your boss? Check out how LEONARDO DICAPRIO and DAN BILZERIAN did it.