Some people think their employer should pay them to do nothing: don’t do any work or produce any value.

You came to the office, so that should be enough, right?

This coworker was not okay with this.

See how he used her computer to keep her on task.

Swapped icon command line

Years ago when I was a baby manager I had an employee that was years older than me.

She always did the bare minimum and it was disrupting the work environment.

I got complaints that she was playing solitaire on her computer but was never able to prove it.

We talked several times about productivity though and about her helping others out in the office.

She would get momentarily better and then slack off.

It didn’t look like things would change.

One day I came in the back door and caught her on her computer playing solitaire.

I was shocked and ticked off, but I didn’t say anything.

I just waited for her to go to lunch.

Keep in mind this was years ago and cybersecurity wasn’t what it is today (also our computers were wide open.

Users had full admin rights – mainly because no one really knew anything about computers – except me).

She went to lunch and left her computer unlocked. That’s when I struck.

But the solution was delightfully simple.

I went to her computer and changed the command line on her solitaire icon to point to our work software instead of solitaire.

Then I just waited.

She came back from lunch and I could see from my office she was clicking on start and games and solitaire.

Up comes work software.

She closes it.

Tries again.

Same result.

Tries a couple more times and then finally gives up and gets to work.

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No more solitaire and a slightly more productive employee.

Here is what folks are saying.

Wow. That’s pretty satisfied…

Funny, but it would bother others.

Diabolical idea. I like it.

Not sure I would admit this to anyone, bud.

I doubt she even tried to figure it out.

The hero we didn’t know we needed.

Not on his watch, lady.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.