By ALICE SARMIENTO

The term petiks was derived from “pipitik-pitik”. Directly translated, this means to snap one’s fingers, but in the more familiar territory of slacking off, it can be better understood as the “thumb twiddle”, a.k.a. that thing you do when you sit back and wait for something to happen. Which is highly unlikely in the rank-and-file culture of the corporate world: that wonderful environment where you can actually convince yourself that the dude in the next cubicle is a likely bet–despite his being gayer than a handbag full of rainbows.

At an office, the art of thumb twiddling, or petiks has been raised to new heights with the advent of the information age. Petiks has found a friend in twitter, tumblr, friendster, and of course, facebook. This problem has been solved by your friendly neighborhood IT person, who has dutifully gone on to block all the addresses that have made petiks possible–except on their own networks which still give them free reign over their cabbage patches in Farmville.

My office had me confused about the difference between petiks and work. In my definition, work was anything I did sitting at my desk for 8 hours a day. Work didn’t have to be a pain in the ass; on average it took about an hour and a half to generate and sift through sales reports and merchandising calendars, which left me with copious amounts of time throughout the workweek to twiddle my thumbs. But really, where did all that time go?

1. EXCEL ART!

   Me, to my boss: How do you do that thing on excel where you select a whole area and then fill only certain cells with color?
   My boss: (blablabla some gibberish I can no longer recall)

   45 minutes later, and TADA!

   

   How much color can I throw at my eyeballs? Let Excel count the ways.

   Excel is useful for organizing data and designing really garish Welcome mats, among other things.

2. Chat up Cleverbot

   What do you do with all the random word vomit that accumulates from staring at sales reports and listening to small talk? You go on twitter and vent. Unfortunately your IT guy knows you’ve been going on twitter and venting, and your IT guy doesn’t want word getting out about how inhuman your conditions are. (Just kidding, they are not inhuman. You get free water, climate control, and carpeting; and to call this inhuman would diminish things that actually are inhuman. Like apartheid.)
   So you go to Cleverbot. Here comes Cleverbot, with the answers to all your most important questions.
   

   You too can feel clever for having found loopholes in the firewalls to indulge your need for interweb detritus and ironically cryptic oversharing. How could the IT people never have heard of Cleverbot?

3. Send Motivational Posters to your Disgruntled Office Friends

   The most important issues I have to face at work (especially at my old office) involved who deserved what brand of motivation. Guy in cubicle 4, Employee # 08058935748h9*** was feeling down, so I emailed him this and wished him well.

   

4. Make Slideshows About Random Objects

   The beauty of powerpoint is that no matter what your slideshow’s about, you look like you’re doing legitimate work. I mean, if it’s worth presenting it has to be IMPORTANT, right?
   And people assume you have a rilly rilly urgent presentation coming up, one that involves shareholders and big words to throw at your boss’s face, so no one bothers you.

   Even if what you’re working on is this.

   

Not that you’d want to make a powerpoint about folders, but as an example this DOES make a good point about this exercise in creatively wasting your time…and charging it to the company.) I made a Powerpoint about myself on my last day at my last office and sent it to my whole team. That was an awesome way to bid them farewell.

5. Make Playlists Based on Random Themes

   You may not have access to sites like youtube and vimeo; but most firewalls wouldn’t block yousendit and mediafire because there are times when you need those things, as a professional and productive member of the workforce.
   So make a mixtape. I made one that’s all waltzes, because waltzing the away makes the day go by faster. You can download that HERE.

   1. The Avalanches – “Two Hearts in 3/4 Time”
   2. Avi Buffalo – “Coaxed”
   3. The Magnetic Fields – “With Whom to Dance”
   4. Au Revoir Simone – “Don’t See the Sorrow”
   5. Laura Marling – “My Manic and I”
   6. Blue Roses – “Doubtful Comforts”
   7. Seabear – “Owl Waltz”
   8. Beach House – “All the Years”
   9. Andrew Bird – “Sovay”
   10. Explosions in the Sky – “Your Hand in Mine”

   Download “Waltzing Away”

Note that New Slang does not condone this kind of work ethic. We can’t blame you if you hate your job. A lot of us go through jobs we need at the expense of what’s really in our hearts. Just because you don’t like what you’re paid to do doesn’t mean you should be an asshole about it. There are however ways to be creative with your assholery so that it all somehow cancels out, just ask Tyler Durden.

Tyler Durden does not fuck around, and neither should you.

Unfortunately, she no longer has time for making petiks, as most of her waking hours are devoted to planning lessons, editing this website, and trying not to pull her hair out. This article is a perfect example of ironically productive time wastage.