There are a lot of arguments to be made for companies to embrace work-from-home positions for their employees. Research indicates that remote workers are more productive, but then there's all of the money in overhead that businesses can save by having smaller centralized offices or ditching them altogether. WordPress, one of the world's largest content management systems, has a 100% remote workforce and is doing just fine.
Of course, there are some industries where working from home is impossible. Still, there are a lot of industries that would have a hard time arguing against making a significant portion of its employee-based remote workers.
And while there are definitely a lot of employees who get more work done while working from home, some try and "cheat" the system and take full advantage of not being in the immediate presence of a manager.
Elon Musk for example, announced that all Tesla employees needed to return to offices (unless they have a valid reason for remote work) or they can "pretend to work somewhere else," which embodies a lot of fears some businesses have in giving employees autonomy to work from home.
And it seems like a now-viral TikTok from user @gabrielle_judge embodies that fear.
Source: TikTok | @gabrielle_judge
Some companies keenly observe their employees, even when working from home, to ensure that they're actually "on" during their designated business hours. For example, apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams will denote when someone is actively on their computer, for instance.
Source: TikTok | @gabrielle_judge
Folks have come up with some pretty creative solutions as to ensure it looks like they're on the work computer when they're actually not and it's actually pretty simple: mouse jigglers. There are mouse jiggling applications and there are manual ones that attach to your devices that will move your mouse to make it look like you're active.
Maybe you want to get some chores done around the house while you're supposed to be at your desk. Or maybe you've got a boss who expects you to sit at your computer even though you're done with your work so you're left twiddling your thumbs when you could be working out or getting some errands done. Whatever the reason, this one employee Gabrielle is referring to decided to install a mouse jiggling application, and their boss found out.
Ok today I found a guy that's about to get fired for having a mouse jiggler on his laptop...OK if you don't know what a mouse jiggler is it's basically like software that you can install on your laptop that makes your mouse jiggle every set interval so that your laptop doesn't fall asleep. This is usually important if you use teams or Slack where it shows that you're available all the time um for work purposes but you're not at your laptop obviously."
Source: TikTok | @gabrielle_judge
She continued, "So this guy's saying he uses caffeine.exe that's the program that he uses to make sure that his mouse jiggles every once in a while um I guess someone from like IT emailed his boss or his boss inquired about it or whatever. He's basically saying that he's getting put on a PIT because of this he goes into like further detail of other things, he said that he's been like missing stand ups because of like 'power issues' and 'internet issues' and his boss is really done with it."
Source: TikTok | @gabrielle_judge
The TikToker went on to say, "The final straw was that he joined a meeting on his phone and his boss immediately asked him to talk afterward with his video on.
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Of course, there are some industries where working from home is impossible. Still, there are a lot of industries that would have a hard time arguing against making a significant portion of its employee-based remote workers.
And while there are definitely a lot of employees who get more work done while working from home, some try and "cheat" the system and take full advantage of not being in the immediate presence of a manager.
Elon Musk for example, announced that all Tesla employees needed to return to offices (unless they have a valid reason for remote work) or they can "pretend to work somewhere else," which embodies a lot of fears some businesses have in giving employees autonomy to work from home.
And it seems like a now-viral TikTok from user @gabrielle_judge embodies that fear.
Source: TikTok | @gabrielle_judge
Some companies keenly observe their employees, even when working from home, to ensure that they're actually "on" during their designated business hours. For example, apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams will denote when someone is actively on their computer, for instance.
Source: TikTok | @gabrielle_judge
Folks have come up with some pretty creative solutions as to ensure it looks like they're on the work computer when they're actually not and it's actually pretty simple: mouse jigglers. There are mouse jiggling applications and there are manual ones that attach to your devices that will move your mouse to make it look like you're active.
Maybe you want to get some chores done around the house while you're supposed to be at your desk. Or maybe you've got a boss who expects you to sit at your computer even though you're done with your work so you're left twiddling your thumbs when you could be working out or getting some errands done. Whatever the reason, this one employee Gabrielle is referring to decided to install a mouse jiggling application, and their boss found out.
Ok today I found a guy that's about to get fired for having a mouse jiggler on his laptop...OK if you don't know what a mouse jiggler is it's basically like software that you can install on your laptop that makes your mouse jiggle every set interval so that your laptop doesn't fall asleep. This is usually important if you use teams or Slack where it shows that you're available all the time um for work purposes but you're not at your laptop obviously."
Source: TikTok | @gabrielle_judge
She continued, "So this guy's saying he uses caffeine.exe that's the program that he uses to make sure that his mouse jiggles every once in a while um I guess someone from like IT emailed his boss or his boss inquired about it or whatever. He's basically saying that he's getting put on a PIT because of this he goes into like further detail of other things, he said that he's been like missing stand ups because of like 'power issues' and 'internet issues' and his boss is really done with it."
Source: TikTok | @gabrielle_judge
The TikToker went on to say, "The final straw was that he joined a meeting on his phone and his boss immediately asked him to talk afterward with his video on.
Manager Catches Remote Worker Pretending to Work with "Mouse Jiggler" App in Viral TikTok
"THIS IS WHY YOU NEED A MANUAL MOUSE JIGGLER"
