'Easiest 175k I ever made': 20+ Employees who got paid to goof off all day

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Nov 12, 2025 3:00 PM EST

We all have that one coworker who never seems to work yet never gets in trouble for it… and some employees make a career out of doing that! 

Who knows how they do it, but some folks really do wake up every day, give 10% effort at work, and still manage to fail upward over and over again. Some of these people have learned that it's all about the appearance of working hard. If you sit at your desk for 8 hours per day, looking agitated and typing hard, perhaps the boss will think you're good at your job. Sure you, might just be goofing around on social media for 7 of those hours, but it's all about the way you're perceived. 

Some employees put a ton of energy into their laziness. For example, one call center worker quickly became the team lead after seemingly raking in tons of sales. He would spend all day on the phone completing these sales calls, so naturally, bosses didn't question him. However, they noticed that a lot of customers weren't paying up front, and instead, they'd be sent invoices. When they didn't pay those invoices… well, that's when the employees' game plan was discovered. Instead of actually taking to the phones and garnering real sales, this employee was pretending to talk on the phone for his entire shift, then fudging the sales numbers. Yes, he was fired, and it's a great example of putting far too much energy into pretending to be busy, when just calling real potential customers would've probably netted him nearly as many sales. 

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  • 01
    Man in jeans and brown hoodie wears thick silver sunglasses while laying on couch with one laptop on lap and another on a table next to him
    via Josué Sánchez For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 02
    TuvixHadltComing I worked at a call center where you could force your system to crash and it would just keep you in whatever status you were in at the time as far as the dialer was concerned. So you crash it when on a call, be it an answering machine, disconnected number recording, whatever and just
    via u/TuvixHadltComing
  • 03
    walk away for a while. The system just shows you're on a long call and doesn't serve you another one. We had a guy who would come in, knock out a sale, do this and go smoke or get a coffee or whatever. Come back, re-engage for a bit, maybe make another sale (the guy was a great salesman) then do it again.
    via u/TuvixHadltComing
  • 04
    He worked probably 2 honest hours of an eight hour shift. After a few weeks of this, his manager caught on. Talked to HR and the decision was made to terminate. Manager goes to tell him hey HR needs to talk to you and the guy says he's just on his way to an appointment over lunch and he'll come see the manager and HR as soon as he gets back.
    via u/TuvixHadltComing
  • 05
    Comes back from lunch with a doctor's note putting him. on leave.
    via u/TuvixHadltComing
  • 06
    Woman in gray shirt staring at laptop screen with phone to her ear and frustrated expression on her face
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 07
    canada11235813 I had a 3-month consulting gig back in the 90s... just helping get a pretty sophisticated project over the finish line. I was contracted, not an employee... but after the three months were up, they asked me if I could stick around "loosely" in case something came up. Sure, no problem. No official
    via u/canada11235813
  • 08
    contract, but they would just pay me a bit to keep me around "on call". A few little things came up, requiring a total of about two hours a month of my time for the first couple of months... and then things tailed off, but the cheques kept coming.
    via u/canada11235813
  • 09
    After a couple more months of free money and me doing. nothing for them, I called them up to let them know that perhaps this wasn't necessary to keep going. "No no, it's all good — we - know". Six months later, I called them up to let them know the exact same thing, and got a very similar answer.
    via u/canada11235813
  • 10
    Periodically, I would get in touch with them and hear the same thing. I ran into a couple of the guys from the company on the street more than once, and heard the same thing in person. Then, some 2 1/2 years later, the cheques simply stopped coming.
    via u/canada11235813
  • 11
    LupercaniusAB This isn't employee misconduct, but my friend ended up in almost the exact opposite position at Cisco, many years ago. He was hired, and his position showed him on the org chart as a dotted line off to the
    via u/LupercaniusAB
  • 12
    side. He had multiple people that he was supposed to manage, but none of them reported to him. He was somehow "like" a consultant, but a full time employee with deliverable goals, but no authority to make anyone achieve them.
    via u/LupercaniusAB
  • 13
    BigWhiteDog Ex Brother-in-law worked for a major utility company doing job site safety training and equipment ordering and was part of a hugw construction division. It was reorganized and the new bosses were in a different office in another part of the state and didn't really know much about his job so pretty much ignored him.
    via u/BigWhiteDog
  • 14
    Consequently no one knew or cared when he was actually working and where so he could take the day off or go on vacation and as long as he checked his emails and voice mail once a day, no one would know. He'd just claim to čbe in the field teaching". He also got them to pay for him to recertify as a paramedic, a very expensive class.
    via u/BigWhiteDog
  • 15
    Then he formed a safety training and supply company in his father's name and resold things he bought wholesale to himself and the company at above retail. In addition if there was a "tailgate" class to be taught in some remote location he didn't want to go to khe was a bit of a priss), he'd just tell the requesting person that he was booked that day and to contact the approved vendor (his own company)
    via u/BigWhiteDog
  • 16
    to send someone else out to do the class. It was quite the scam and once he was caught after a handful of years, they just basically told him to go away but didn't tell payroll that he had been stealing time so he got paid for several years of unpaid sick and vacation time! Fucking asshole always running the grift and never having to pay.
    via u/BigWhiteDog
  • 17
    This Assignment_... Coworker treated business trips like holidays and simultaneously claimed 8. hours overtime per day spent on a business trip. Not super creative but very bold.
    via u/This_Assignment_8067
  • 18
    Was found out eventually, but it seems their supervisor who should have noticed that kind of behavior didn't want to look bad for letting. this kind of thing slide, so the coworker in question never faced any consequences for their actions.
    via u/This_Assignment_8067
  • 19
    An... Educator who had access to the school's tax-free account number, due to the authority to make occasional purchases that were work- related and duly qualified as tax-free, who went off the rails with it and started using it to make larger and larger personal purchases up to and including some items. for a personal home
    via u/Another_Opinion_1
  • 20
    renovation. By the time they were caught they had shirked tax payments on over $25,000 worth of personal purchases that were not school-related. It ended up being a felony that got pled down to a much lesser offense but also resulted in a licensure revocation.
    via u/Another_Opinion_1
  • 21
    Admirable_Rice23 I knew a dude who managed to build himself a little "hut" in the back of the warehouse. He found a shelf of pallets of things which had not been moved in LITERALLY YEARS (it was all super-dusty etc so it was obvious), a bunch of like, obscure heavy parts for machinery at the other plants etc, which rarely were
    via u/Admirable_Rice23
  • 22
    necessary so they just sat forever. This guy found a little hole. about 6'x8' and brought himself a little folding table, a chair, a radio, etc, and would just go "into the back to get something" and vanish for hours, and then come back empty-handed but the bosses had enough peoploe to keep track of,
    via u/Admirable_Rice23
  • 23
    they never noticed that this one guy was never around, and since he wasn't someone they saw a lot, they never noticed he was gone, self-fulfilling prophecy! He managed to ghost himself out of like 80% of his job by simply ghosting and not doing his job in a way that people forgot he
    via u/Admirable_Rice23
  • 24
    was supposed to be tehre, doing a job. Really a quite impressive psychological move, but super risky if anyone ever did a roll-call.
    via u/Admirable_Rice23
  • 25
    AV1978 I was hired as a Citrix consultant to migrate a customer from on prem to nutanix cloud. After my half day of onboarding the manager I was supposed to report to had a medical thing and forgot about me for about 6 months. I was expected to report every day remotely at 6am, be on their on call paid each week and participate in
    via u/AV1978
  • 26
    meetings. I soon realized that no one called on me in those meetings so started to just use ai to summarize them and didnt attend beyond logging into the call and off. I literally did nothing for 6 months. Was never at my computer. Used a jiggler. Every week was overtime so about 55 hours a week mandatory for this huge client. Anyways this went on for 6 months. When they finally realized I was not
    via u/AV1978
  • 27
    being assigned a damn thing they ended my contract and fired the dude who was supposed to be managing the efforts and me. He was just auto approving my timesheets. I was thanked for my time and asked to send in my laptop. It was a really nice asus strix laptop. Pretty high end. They still haven't sent me a label for it a year and a half later. Easiest 175k I ever made
    via u/AV1978
  • 28
    Senior_Pension3112 Working remote full-time for three employers at same time
    via u/Senior_Pension3112
  • 29
    punkwalrus I was friends with a guy in the 1990s who was a federal worker, and I won't say which department, but he worked with a department you have heard of. He was part of a contract with a union, and within months of being hired for the equivalent of a director's position, they rearranged how direct reports worked, and he never got any
    via u/punkwalrus
  • 30
    employees. The previous guy who had his position had retired, so he didn't really know how to do his job, and with no underlings to help him, he was kind of stuck. BUT, his contract prevented him from being fired. So the union said, "just show up to each Foobarbaz meeting and do what they ask you to do and we'll figure it out. We're always looking for new people to help out."
    via u/punkwalrus
  • 31
    The Foobarbaz meeting was quarterly, and then after one year, they changed it to annually. They never asked him to do anything or help out, and he stopped asking after 3 years. Because of his contract, he had two things: one, annual pay raises. Two, a small and modest budget, the minimum any division has since he was division manager, even though his division was squeezed out,
    via u/punkwalrus
  • 32
    but not eliminated because it still had a manager (him). I don't remember his budget, but it would probably be the equivalent of $6k in 2025. And, of course, if he didn't spend it, it got flagged as surplus, which was a no-no. All government logic. So what do you buy when you have $6k you MUST spend in the early 90s to a techie before the internet? He set up a multiline BBS.
    via u/punkwalrus
  • 33
    And ran that thing for I don't know how long (possibly until 2000). He was only available during work hours to chat, and boy, he wanted to chat. He was so bored. Sometimes, he'd invite one of his users to lunch. I had lunch with him a few times at his work (they had a cafeteria in the basement of this building). I visited the BBS, which was a 386dx2 or something, a real
    via u/punkwalrus
  • 34
    powerhouse full tower monstrosity, with 4 modems and a "big" (for the time) 19" EGA monitor. He connected via null modem to a terminal on his desk. His biggest gripe was how BORED he was.
    via u/punkwalrus
  • 35
    LogPsychological5... I feigned incompetence at a bank when rates were raising after COVID. I ran their pricing, nothing got implemented, rates stayed low. You're welcome, consumers.
    via u/LogPsychological5625
  • 36
    Senorbuzzzzy I was a commission apparel sales person...things were ok, but I took a full time buying job to see if I could do both. The new job needed apparel made. I suggested my other company. I issued PO's to essentially myself at my commission job. It was super clean as I controlled the communication on both ends. It was like sign
    via u/Senorbuzzzzy
  • 37
    stealing in baseball. I built a strong product line, sourced it competitive, and made great margins. It's easy when you play both sides. Three years. I stopped after the Covid shutdown but I had double dipped enough for three years to pay off my mortgage early and retire. Very high risk high reward situation.
    via u/Senorbuzzzzy
  • 38
    I was salesman of the year in 2018-20.
    via u/Senorbuzzzzy
  • 39
    tre... I have a job title but am not formally in any particular "bucket" of roles, i.e. operations, engineering, sales, support, etc. Additionally, my title on Teams is different from my title in payroll. And for the longest time, I was listed as working in a whole different building (where I have never worked). I complained a couple times, but nobody
    via u/trextra
  • 40
    cared until I framed it as a safety issue. Everyone knows me, though, so I could never do the clipboard thing. But I wonder if it would help me escape a layoff, if one ever happens, because if they target by function, I won't show up on any list. Edit: this is not anyone's misconduct, just an error that I think is funny
    via u/trextra
  • 41
    boomermonty Me, again. In our school system, there was a fellow who became the "Specialist || for computer studies, half- time. This was 35+ years ago. He taught business subjects for the other half of his timetable. In addition, he taught two courses at night school and was "principal of night school as well. 4 jobs so far. Then my hairdresser,
    via u/boomermonty
  • 42
    who was working on her high school diploma at night school complained that he insisted that students enrol in math first, insisting that it was required. IT WAS NOT. But..he taught it and wanted to be sure of full enrolment. I was really annoyed because I knew that folks starting on the journey of finishing a diploma would have been better served by beginning with just about any other credit, since so many folks
    via u/boomermonty
  • 43
    have math phobia. Now, here comes the fun part. My daughter and her friends. signed up for Spanish because it was not offered at our small school. The parents took turns driving them to the city every Thursday night. When it was my turn to drive, I wandered around the school during the class. There was a lineup of 6 or 7 adults outside the main office. Curious, I struck up a conversation with one.
    via u/boomermonty
  • 44
    They were there for PRIVATE tutoring in math. You-know- who was in the Principal 's office, meeting each adult student for 25 minutes of help on the lesson. Paid for by them! Folks who worked hard for every penny and took the time and effort to better themselves. He would go to his class, get them started on the work, and then slip out to his. side job
    via u/boomermonty
  • 45
    Jammer125 I worked at The Hansen lab on the Stanford University campus back in the late 1980s. It was a very large, cavernous building that had a linear accelerator 3 stories below the surface; the accelerator powering a the free electron laser.
    via u/Jammer125
  • 46
    There were only a handful of employees who reported to the offices inside the building, as most of us were spread throughout the building. This building employed a janitor, who came in every morning, retrieved a push cart and mop bucket from a small locked room and slowly ambled his way to the other end of the building. I'd say he was at least 60 years old and had worked there for
    via u/Jammer125
  • 47
    several decades. He returned promptly at 4:30 every day to replace his cleaning supplies and head home, wishing everyone one he passed a good night. One morning there was a small oil spill in the shop and he was paged over the intercom, but he could not be found until the end of his shift when the came ambling back to lock up his push cart.
    via u/Jammer125
  • 48
    It turned out he had a secret spot at the deep end of the building where he would hide his push cart, get in his car and drive to his janitorial service company and then return 8 hours later. He likely would have been never caught had we ever actually needed his services. He was fired the next day; said he was glad to leave as his commute from San Jose was killing him.
    via u/Jammer125
  • 49
    Yesterday_Infinite During covid, had a colleague who just didn't give a crap. Had "tech issues" for 2 years, literally did nothing for 2 years because they "couldn't do anything", never bothered calling tech, his video chat didn't work, only way to call him was on his cellphone. Took them 2 years to sack him.
    via u/Yesterday_Infinite
  • 50
    coastintmp I had a corner of a store room which was loaded with cardboard boxes. Made myself a hollowed out area, just big enough to sit in. Spent probably two hours a shift playing Mario kart on my DS in there. I left in a hurry, very messy end to that job (lesson: don't date the owners daughter). I didn't have a chance to go
    via u/coastintmp
  • 51
    and undo my little cosy spot, by which point also includes a one cup brewer... I can't imagine it took my replacement long to find... I just hope the DS I kept there had enough battery to tempt them into carrying on this secret spot.
    via u/coastintmp
  • 52
    Jumpy_Mirror_5133 One of my old boyfriends worked for the CRA in a department that does property tax. Essentially his job was to visit locations and audit them, but like audit their property lines or what types of buildings were there or something like that to make sure they were paying the correct amount of property taxes - not audit their paperwork. Work from
    via u/Jumpy_Mirror_5133
  • 53
    home for the most part, only going into the office every now and then to make an appearance. He'd be assigned a property and then given a deadline. We were only seeing each other for a couple of months but he didn't work a single day the entire time. He'd figured out that if he had a certain news website running on his computer it looked like he was working
    via u/Jumpy_Mirror_5133
  • 54
    from his home office, and the assignments he had usually only took a couple of days to complete - one day to visit the site and another day to write up the report, but he'd be given months before his deadlines. Made absolute bank as well! Rich af and tonnes of time to enjoy it.
    via u/Jumpy_Mirror_5133
  • 55
    vernsyd I had been made redundant So I was attending interview's at employment in the same field but continued to see my friends from old job socially. I mentioned to one of my friends that I had noticed one of her team members at a other bank He seemed happy there. She
    via u/vernsyd
  • 56
    was stunned as he was on long term sick leave due to being too depressed and anxious at work and dealing with mental health issues. He ended up being terminated from both jobs.
    via u/vernsyd
  • 57
    plastret Ten years ago, I worked at a small call center startup selling services B2C. We had to hit 300 call minutes a day and got loads of leads from different online providers. After closing a sale, we were supposed to take the customer's credit card details and charge a small deposit. Sometimes, though, we offered a 30-day invoice instead, no upfront
    via u/plastret
  • 58
    payment needed. There was this guy on our team, a top performer. He had found a glitch in the system. He'd close huge deals every day, almost every call, and somehow, all his clients paid by invoice. He always had a convenient explanation for it.
    via u/plastret
  • 59
    A few months later, management noticed something strange. None of his clients had paid a single invoice, and none could be reached. When they checked his records, there weren't even any call recordings. They soon discovered he had made everything up, fake leads, fake emails, fake addresses.
    via u/plastret
  • 60
    He'd been sitting there pretending to talk to customers while logging. phony details and "closing" the deals himself. They were supposed to handle it descretely but his direct manager, feeling betrayed and wanted him to go down hard, decided to call him out during the monthly all-hands meeting with around a hundred people watching. Total
    via u/plastret
  • 61
    silence. The guy stood up, grabbed his bag, and walked out. The company never pressed charges but immediately disabled the 30-day invoice. option, locking it behind manager approval. I ran into him a few years later. Still job-hopping every few months. And that call center job? Nowhere on his resume lol.
    via u/plastret
  • 62
    Mba1956 I worked for a company a long time ago where production workers clocked in by a machine. There was a case where a guy found an unplugged machine at the back of a shed set at 7:29 am, at that time production started work at 7:30am. As there was a fixed lunchtime there was no need to clock in for the afternoon.
    via u/Mba1956
  • 63
    He would come in around 9:30am, clock himself in at 7:29 and then go home, his job meant that he walked around different production departments so his absence was never noticed. He did this for around 18 months whilst he was growing his own business at home. It was discovered when someone became suspicious that the time he
    via u/Mba1956
  • 64
    clocked in was ALWAYS 7:29. He got fired with no other consequences because it would be too embarrassing to admit in court that it took so long to find out he wasn't working. By this time his home based business was profitable so he wasn't affected by being fired.
    via u/Mba1956
  • 65
    Suf... I had a job like this once, it was a night shift janitor job, we had a whole team of janitor staff.....and eventually my assigned tasks just became nothing I would still help out here and there....but out of an 8 hour shift I did maybe 2 hours of work, if I wanted to I got away with 0 hours work, but id get bored
    via u/Sufficient_Tooth_949
  • 66
    Eventually I got tired of having nothing to do, I left after 8 years, mainly seeking better pay, but the boredom was a factor too Sometimes I still think maybe I was an idiot for abandoning it, it only paid 800-900 biweekly full time, now I make 1k a week, so I guess the move was worth it, but now I actually have to work and get stressed out daily
    via u/Sufficient_Tooth_949

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