*As told to Kally anonymously
You can never published my name. I love my job too much to risk it. But, boy, do I have a juicy secret to share.
Everyday I am being paid to do absolutely nothing and I’m not talking about some measly amount. My salary amounts to a high range of thousands and I get health benefits, dental, mobile – the whole package.
I sit in a small cubicle corner, far end of the huge workplace that houses at least a thousand of people. Nobody knows what I do. They probably don’t remember my name too. I’m just the guy who turns up for work and nodded and smiled at others at the office corridors.
Let me divulge how I came about being the most useless worker in my company. I was hired 4 years ago to lead a special project. Among myself, there was another 3 more team members, each of us with a special technical skill set.
One year into the project, we hit a minor hiccup and the project was stalled for 3 months. It’s no big deal. Such thing happened all the time. The only problem was that project was the only justification for our existence. We totally had nothing to do for 3 months.
Due to the top secrecy of the project, none of us can be deployed to any other teams or departments. That including the rule that we aren’t allow to discuss anything or our work with anybody in the workplace and everyone has been briefed not to approach us as well.
The closest communication I get from the neighbour in the next cubicle is a smile and a nod in acknowledging my existence.
So 3 months turned into 6 months and becomes a year of doing absolutely nothing. By this time, all of the team members had left the company because they couldn’t stand getting paid doing nothing. The manager that I hired me, got a big fat promotion and relocated to some European country.
I was left at the hands of our common office manager who, for the sake’s of his ego, refuse to ask or learn about my job scope. He is the one who will approve my off days and expense claims.
Finally, with nobody left to care, I’m non-existent.
Every year around appraisal time, it is an unspoken rule between us that I will take a week break. This way he doesn’t need to appraise me and I can avoid the awkward one-to-one talk with him.
I don’t know why my role wasn’t audited. I suspect that I’m a mistake that nobody wants to admit, nobody wants to find out that the company has been doling out salary to me over the years when I contribute nothing.
So from Monday to Friday, I’ll clocked into work at 9am. Take a stroll to the pantry and help myself to the free croissants and coffee. Then I will watch YouTube or Netflix until lunchtime where I will treat myself to a two hour break.
All those staring at the computer screen, my eyes need a rest. I will then get myself lost in the office corridor (it’s like a mini maze) and find an empty meeting room to sneak in some shut-eye for a couple of hours before I stroll back to my cubicle and read some random blogs like yours until it’s time to knock off.
Once I even use three whole days to plan a week’s itinerary for my sister’s honeymoon. That was the hardest I ever worked in months.
Sometimes I’ll do some interesting online courses. I have completed a number of professional certification last year. Thinking of doing my online degree this year. Why not? It is not as if I have any deadline to meet or any work to stress over with.
Sometimes I’ll get myself a freelance gig, not that I need the money but it is to prevent me from going crazy in my boredom and create some kind of goals in the 8 hours I’m stuck with.
So where do I go from here? I don’t know. I have become too complacent to even consider trying to put myself out there to search for a new job.
Maybe one day, there will be a change in management and someone will finally question my position.
Maybe one day I’ll get sick of wasting my life achieving nothing and resign.
But meanwhile, let me put my feet up. It’s time for another cat video on YouTube. Heheh.
For more interesting Whisper stories, check these out: Whisper: Bad Debts Made Me Jobless Whisper: I haven’t been getting my salary for a year Whisper: I’m A Fraudster
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