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Tip #71: “Make Discreet Personal Phone Calls”
Personal calls are a fact of life, but it’s wise to keep them short or walk away from your desk for them. This is mostly to avoid others hearing what you say rather than stopping them from realizing what you are doing. You are assumed to be making a non-work call if seen on the phone away from your desk, but if it’s short or infrequent, no one minds.
Tip #72: “Work Email is For Work”
With personal email accessible via smartphones, there are few good excuses to use a work email account for personal business. Just don’t do it. Remember that they can and will read emails sent on their network. It’s their right. Don’t be seen extensively or frequently typing on the smartphone, though, as most will assume it isn’t work related.
Tip #73: “Beware Stingy Bosses”
Some managers really frown upon your need to sometimes have a doctor appointment or other personal commitment during work hours, even if you’re a parent. They may insist on you using vacation time for it rather than making it up on another day. This disrespect for work-life balance may be present in other ways, too, such as allowing you to work from home while being subtly disapproving of you for doing so. There’s little to do about these stingy managers except take the hint and play along. Most are more accommodating.
Tip #74: “Plan Work-From-Home Days”
If you want to do personal things while working from home (instead of working!), the smart approach is to work your butt off the day before, don’t show anyone all that you accomplished, and then pretend you did some of it while at home the next day. This way, if you are suddenly asked to produce work, you already have it. The attempt at catching you doing nothing fails. You may even feel justified in relaxing a bit at home after the flurry of activity the day before.
Tip #75: “Utilize Off-Site Meetings”
Being away from the office, especially if you are in your car, offers the chance to run an errand or two and pretend you were at a meeting longer than you were, or got stuck in traffic on the way back. Just don’t go overboard with it. An extra 20-30 minutes is quite different from several missing hours. As with anything, repeatedly doing it in short succession is more likely to be noticed, so use judiciously and not consistently.