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Antiwork

Have I hacked the system?

I'm EU-based and have 2 bachelors in unrelated subjects. Recently, I joined a company that hired me for a… weird role, I basically must do a lot of tasks on paper (purchasing, sales, administration AND management!) according to my contract, but in practice, I end up doing nothing most of the day, because I am not given deadlines, I am not given standards for my work (I can be given an Excel sheet and hand it in 5 days later half filled and I will be told that I did a good job), but most importantly, I can always have 3-4 project on my hands, and whenever someone comes to ask about the state of one, I just say something like, sorry, been doing the other 3, rinse and repeat with other colleagues, as long as I don't abuse this HARD I can literally stretch for weeks tasks that would…


I'm EU-based and have 2 bachelors in unrelated subjects. Recently, I joined a company that hired me for a… weird role, I basically must do a lot of tasks on paper (purchasing, sales, administration AND management!) according to my contract, but in practice, I end up doing nothing most of the day, because I am not given deadlines, I am not given standards for my work (I can be given an Excel sheet and hand it in 5 days later half filled and I will be told that I did a good job), but most importantly, I can always have 3-4 project on my hands, and whenever someone comes to ask about the state of one, I just say something like, sorry, been doing the other 3, rinse and repeat with other colleagues, as long as I don't abuse this HARD I can literally stretch for weeks tasks that would require a day at best.

I earn an above average salary for my country (not by a lot tho) to basically learn the sector and do very little. I study work-related stuff for max 3 hours a day, the rest I play on my phone (I have a corner desk so nobody can really check what I'm doing without coming to me).

Recently, I asked to be invited to a company event my colleagues were going to abroad (most of them are very senior and all like 40+). I will earn like €800 extra as business trip expenses from this endeavor alone, money paid to basically, be nice, smile now and again to customers, and dress well. This not to mention that I don't have to go to the office and stare at the computer screen 8 hours a day, which is actually the main reason I asked to go (I'm ok with pretending to work but staring at a PC while doing it is kinda irritating).

I think in the 4 months I have been at this company, only 1 colleague suspects that I've been doing nothing a large part of my time. The others just don't care. Sometimes, I pity my colleagues who have their PC in the middle of the open space and can't browse facebook most of the day like I do or reddit. Hell, they even have to do actual work (they are part of a bottleneck process of the company so, the more hours they put in, the higher company revenues) and in my country we don't have concepts like take a nap at the job, do a 4-day workweek, it's a very traditionalist country in this sense.

Have I hacked the system? More importantly, is this sustainable? I must admit, recently I started dreading going to work, knowing every day could be my last because they will find out I'm a fraud. I also worry that my company might go bankrupt from expenses the next year or so, there is no control AT ALL of expenditures etc. For example, taking a junior like me on business trip after 3 months of tenure should NEVER HAPPEN. Am I a bad guy for worrying about my company's severance package in case of bankruptcy as opposed to the other people there?

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