Working on Personal Projects on the Job: Too Brazen?

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• September 27, 2012
• By Team Brazen
• 4 Comments

There’s brazen, and then there’s brazen.

In a recent guest post at Paid to Exist, Jennifer Blanchard of Inky Bites stirred up a flurry of controversy with her game plan for How to Play the Corporate Game and Launch a Business Simultaneously.

Why? Because what she suggests are stealthy ways to work on your side business while you’re at your day job, including:

Tip No. 1: Always have something work-related open on your desktop at all times.

This makes it easy to pull up your work documents when you have to appear to be working.

Tip No. 6: Play the game well in meetings.

When you’re in work meetings, be sure to offer up ideas and suggestions, and be engaged in what’s being discussed so it looks like you really care.

Part of succeeding at this game is to always be professional and always look like you really care about your job.

Tip No. 10: Get a small rear-view mirror and install it on your monitor.

If anyone asks, tell them you get startled easily so you like to see when someone is coming up behind you. You can find little sticky-back mirrors at any auto parts store.

Check out the full post (and the intense debate in the comments) here.

The ultimate question raised by Blanchard’s post is: What constitutes an ethical performance of your job?

If you’re salaried and not hourly, does it matter how you spend those hours as long as your work gets done? What if it’s a slow day and you run out of work at 3pm, but your job requires you sit at your desk until 5pm? Is this any worse than people who check Facebook and their fantasy teams on company time? And… does the rear-view mirror suggestion ultimately push Blanchard’s strategy over the edge?

We’re dying to hear your take on this! You don’t need to tell us whether you’ve ever tried any of these techniques, but we’d love to know:

Do you think doing personal work on the job is ethical? At what point does it cross the line?

Brazen powers real-time, online events for leading organizations around the world. Our lifestyle and career blog, Brazen Life, offers fun and edgy ideas for ambitious professionals navigating the changing world of work.