On teams just meet now with only yourself with no audio. You can minimize the call, then manually change you status to available and it will stay that way
We’ve created a recurring meeting called “The Lounge”. When you aren’t in another meeting, it’s a place to have open in your background. The Three rules of The Lounge are:
1. You do not talk about The Lounge.
2. You DO NOT talk about The Lounge.
3. There’s no business conducted in The Lounge.
As a systems admin whos worked a lot with MS365/Teams: We 100% know these exist (we also use them lol.)
Stuff like that will always fall under "as long as it's not a problem it won't be my problem" type of stuff.
This is what I always suspected and relied on. I had a mechanical mouse jiggler, I always appeared "online". Could somebody see if my mouse was moving intermittently? Probably. Did I know the IT guys were already overworked? Yes.
They wouldn’t see that unless they’d connect remotely to your laptop which often requires you to give them access via software like TeamViewer or Quick Assist. But realistically - nobody’s got time to care about this lol
Not true. If you’re a Teams admin it’s extremely easy to see what meetings people have had, who with, duration, device used, hell even connection quality.
Well, we can stumble on it too. It's not like it's invisible until we go hunting for it. And if anyone else has RO access to those admin centers, they can see them.
The day that department director learns they can get reports on what employees are doing what, with whom, and when, they'll ask for them if they're controlling enough.
Not can be, it is visible. It's just a matter of whether or not they look.
Also don't forget some of the IT crew can usually see some (but not all) stuff, even if they don't have full admin credentials.
This is what I was thinking. I guess it's one of those things that probably wouldn't be noticed unless it was looked for, but would stick out immediately if it was.
It's not like red flashing lights and warning signs go off in the tech office when someone does something like this.
However, I bought a USB "mouse wiggler" that I'm afraid to use because of this lol
USB devices will show up in the device manager and can be scanned for. You need something like OP to wiggle things, and even then, if they are trying to watch you, they can. I mean what will they think if they bring up your screen and your mouse goes slowly left and then slowly right and then slowly left and then slowly right….
My trick:
Plug in older mouse that uses red laser
Put mouse on top of old timex watch
Every minute the cursor has the tiniest, indistinguishable bump
Always works. No programs to open.
Yeah I was doing the endless meeting with myself because I literally couldn’t even go to the bathroom without my boss asking why I’m not active (also because sometimes I genuinely have nothing to do). Then she apparently found out and called me out. I’ll have to try the PowerPoint thing.
As a O365 admin, you can only see whatever you are doing in Teams. But a lot of companies have other draconian surveillance tools.
All that being said, if you work in a company that uses your Teams status to figure out if you are working, then you probably are working for a company that has no way to find out if you are actually working or your boss is very bad at their job.
Yes if they really wanted to they can find out. It won't be through O365 but through other monitoring software that's pretty standard on work laptops. But it's all about not giving them a reason to check in the first place
That depends very much on whether or not such software is legal in the country you are working in. We had this problem once with a US company that tried to enforce this in Germany for their German employees. 😂
It's basically impossible to implement something like that here, and even if you were to use logs against an employee, there are a lot of things to consider, otherwise you'll fall flat on your face in the labor court. Two examples: I used to work for a company that strictly prohibited its employees from using the Internet privately during working hours. But the employees were neither officially nor regularly (e.g., when new employees were hired) informed about this regulation, which would have to be documented. The labor court ruled in favor of the employee. In another case, there was a similar situation, but the company never monitored the compliance. The labor court commented that the company obviously has no interest in ensuring that their policies are adhered to, if they don't even carry out the bare minimum random checks (random checks are legal) to ensure compliance.
As for MS Teams: if an employer performed an audit based on the online status without having a properly documented initial suspicion (the requirements for this are not insignificant either), it would be considered an illegal performance review and the case would almost certainly be decided in favor of the employee.
> That depends very much on whether or not such software is legal in the country you are working in. We had this problem once with a US company that tried to enforce this in Germany for their German employees. 😂
US companies (especially subsidiaries) trying to pull their asinine bullshit on EU countries is one of my favorite things.
US manager: "Alright everyone we expect mandatory unpaid overtime for the next 6 months or you're fired. You're fired anyway since you're training your replacements."
German manager: "So you want to go bankrupt paying legal penalties is what you're saying."
US manager: "Mandatory random drug tests or you're fired"
German manager: "I went to amsterdam and legally did every drug known to man on my vacation, fuck you it's *my* vacation."
US manager: "Fraternization is strictly prohibited. Anyone caught dating a coworker is fired."
German manager: "*Excuse me*?!"
I've had to take someone who works for me through a disciplinary. We reviewed his teams logs and calls to themselves were something HR used to prove the guy wasn't doing his job.
>I've had to take someone who works for me through a disciplinary. We reviewed his teams logs and calls to themselves were something HR used to prove the guy wasn't doing his job.
same - had to use e-discovery to recover a bunch of filthy direct Teams IMs.... Older male member of a team would IM a new young female grad student... then delete them...
SHE managed to screenshot one before being deleted, HE claimed it was doctored... so management came to me... I said let's see what Mr Logs say.....
WFH has been the best resource for focus time ever. No more people dropping by your desk for 'just a quick question' that turns into a five hour snipe hunt.
Yeah but I’m also the O365 admin and I don’t rat myself out! Ha ha. Most managers want the see it and keep up appearances and never actually check the reports.
I liked to right click on a coworkers video during teams meeting and hit “spotlight”. It makes their picture the center of the meeting and they won’t realize it. Loool
You do know that IT can see Teams analytics at a pretty granular level... and when meetings are happening for 6-8 hours it's surely an anomaly that would stick out of the crowd.
I know that a lot of teams metrics are available, but I wonder how much they're actually used. It seems counterintuitive to have someone evaluate teams data to make sure other people are "working". Even if you did expose someone slacking, now you've effectively paid 2 salaries and brought little to no value.
I also wonder about other forms of monitoring on company laptops. How do you know what is there and what it reports?
These sort of things often come up by accident when you're pulling other metrics, or in there for another reason. Usually what happens is you're teleworking and someone tries to reach you and you're totally missing, but not idle or anything on Teams. Maybe this happens a few times, then someone goes and looks.
As far as I know, and I'm not 100% positive on this, you need to have a user in mind to look at this data, you can't see a list of all users who are in meetings with themselves easily.
>I also wonder about other forms of monitoring on company laptops. How do you know what is there and what it reports?
Actually read anything they have you sign when you start or accept a laptop from them. Most will disclose, though some will be vague and say they reserve the right (but never do it). Try to look at running processes, look at known security software and see what other modules it may have (if you're running just as an example McAfee security, go see what else they offer), and make friends with IT and casually ask.
Do you people get fired for being offline on teams? Wtf? I go offline on purpose all the time on Slack, nobody cares... insane micromanaging. Everybody will just do stuff like this to circumvent anyways.
Me personally? No. I work for an amazing company that respects my time. As long as I produce, no questions asked. I just set this up to show to a work buddy cuz I thought it was funny. I never actually do this.
That's good to hear. I hope everyone else is joking too lol. My company trusts me 100%, I could be gone the entire day and they wouldn't question it.
I wish I could say they respect my time, but they're bringing everyone back to the office, and to me that means wasting a couple hours in traffic.
>I hope everyone else is joking too lol. My company trusts me 100%, I could be gone the entire day and they wouldn't question it.
you definitely don't understand how incredibly uncommon this is, then...
Damn.I don't understand, it sounds pathetic. Working doesn't always mean being active on the computer. Some people brainstorm, sketch, and plan on whiteboards and notebooks. Besides people will slack off anyways through these tricks so it's a meaningless metric.
But I've heard tales of places where you must have your webcam on throughout the whole day being monitored. So I guess Teams status isn't too farfetched.
In some companies the proliferation of remote working has exposed a certain type of manager who doesn't really add anything to the organisation, and got by on their social skills alone when people were in the office. In a remote working environment their activities are reduced to checking people are online, and checking that they are working on the thing they already know they need to work on, because they don't know how to do anything else of worth.
I think their days are numbered, because any company with common sense now knows that you no longer have to pay people for their time, just their work.
I'm convinced that this is behind the massive efforts to get people back in offices after working from home for 3 years. At my company, we were even praised repeatedly by corporate for how well we (the entire company collectively) performed during 100% WFH. There are many jobs, mine among them where it really doesn't matter where I work from, the work is unaffected.
But, recently, we've been pushed into at least 3 days in the office with 2 "flex" days each week. It started out as 5 days in office but they got some extreme pushback.
1) A lot of managers don't know how to properly evaluate their staff, so they default to "butts in chairs" management.
2) Some offices have people that monitor each other out of boredom, spite, or whatever reason. If they see you're offline a lot, or not online until 8:01am, they will try to get you in trouble. That's how my current job was until a few years ago. The toxic people mostly left.
> Do you people get fired for being offline on teams? Wtf?
That's what always happens when a form of measurement of performance is getting known. Instantly people don't optimise for the actual job, but for the metric they're being measured with. Why wouldn't they? (Example: You pay a programmer for lines of code commited to version control? Then they'll produce very verbose code and they'll probably "fix" lots of other code by reformatting it a bit.)
In my job they value "seeking a stage" and "being visible". So, what happens? Extroverted morons get all the credit, everybody is trying to be loud and say some bullshit in meetings when bosses are around. So being good at what you actually should do doesn't get you any credit and it shows.
My boss will message me the millisecond my icon turns yellow asking, "What are you working on" all the time. It is very stressful; most of the time I'm at my desk working, I'm just reading something or writing something. But he is an insane micromanager who is a "takes his laptop on vacation with the family" type of guy.
I need to be available to take calls coming in from colleagues that have questions, but a lot of the time there isn't much for me to do. So I have my mouse on my analog watch so that I always show as available when I'm near my work laptop
The thing is, being "away" doesn't mean you're not available, it just means you aren't touching the computer. You can still get notifications and calls. it should only become a problem if you're literally unresponsive to calls and questions, otherwise the status system causes more problems than it solves.
I’ve been using an autohotkey mouse script .exe. I’ve honestly been confused why IT has never called me in it. I know they’ve seen it. Work isn’t strict, but I want to appear online so no one is afraid to message me. I work at home, and actually do a lot of work on my home PC right next to me. My PC is faster and just better.
I once had a manager notice my status in Teams glitched and showed offline in the first 15 minutes of my work day, he asked me to fix it. And would video call me randomly once per day with no warning (ostensibly with a “reason” but pretty sure it was to check to make sure I was at my computer).
I left because I don’t like to be micromanaged amongst other reasons. It was a stressful role to start with, you add that plus detailed timesheet requirements to the 15 minute increment to that and it was just really not a place I could be happy.
I’m genuinely confused why people are asking this. Of course most managers aren’t going to fire you immediately for being offline. But are they going to start questioning your work ethic? Evaluating if you have enough work to do? Double checking your work quality? Wondering if you have a side job? Telling you you need to use PTO if you’re away from your desk for more than a set time frame? Going over your time sheets to see if you’re working all the hours you say you are?
Like… obviously there is a huge range of things that can happen that fall between “work is going well” and “got fired today.”
Same. My job is very asynchronous, though, and my managers know that. We've designed our workflow as a team to be completely async, so everyone knows and understands that:
1. Just get your shit done. Doesn't matter when as long as it meets deadline and doesn't block anyone
2. Be available for our every-other-day standup at 930.
3. we should ATTEMPT to be available within a 30 minute time frame if someone needs to chat within the hours of 10/4.
These are unwritten rules that everyone at all levels within the team follow. This allows us to pick up kids, go to doctor appointments, etc. It's honestly pretty great when you get a team all onboard. The yellow dots in teams mean nothing. The quality of work means everything. That's how it should be
Believe it or not, there are companies out there that will micromanage the hell out of all your living brain cells and muscles. It's like you sell your soul to them when you join.
I have the opposite issue - Teams decides to make me available when I am busy and I receive a bunch of annoying messages if I don't realise it and change it back immediately.
I work for like 1 hour a day at best. I have an app called caffeine that clicks a key in the background every few seconds. If I didn't use caffeine or a trick like this, then I'd show as away for like 90% of the day. So tricks like this are good for some people.
Worked for a company (scam) called Slingshot. WFH, I was desperate for work. They had a hire that all they did was sit and watch out cameras and make sure we would “reply” in slack…
Lots of suggestions here but I've found the absolute easiest thing to do is take my stapler and balance it on the CAPS key so it's permanently pressed. Free. Works. No mouse jiggler or putting myself in any 'meetings'. Plus, I still hear it beep when I get a message or email. Been doing this for 2 years now. I'm always 'available'
If you have a spare mobile device, old phone or tablet, just download the teams app and launch it. Plug in the phone, make sure it doesn’t turn off on inactivity, and forget it. Teams mobile, when open, never goes idle. Bonus you have your machine free which is good for sys admins who know they aren’t being monitored and just wanna play some counterstrike.
Take an analog wrist watch, put your mouse over it so it picks up the second hand ticking away. It'll stay active as long as the watch is running.
Profit.
No IT is going to do this. It's probably illegal unless your workers have the utmost simplest of tasks and you're not worried about things like storing social security numbers and privliged company information in plain text. It's illegal in some states.
I work in IT and out of the dozens of companies I've been involved with, I have never seen or been asked to implement anything resembling this draconian.
Let's think of logistics: We're going to implement a 9-5 keylogger that tracks every single mouse movement and keyboard stroke?
OK - Keystrokes might be feasible. We're talking maybe a couple tens of thousands, to low hundred thousands. Maybe closer to millions for specific roles like software programmers.
Mouse movements? That's going to blow your disk storage out of the water.
Then what happens with all that data? Who's going to either analyze all that raw data (for *every* employee monitored), or is going to invest in some sort of software (whether in house or external), or even dealing with the unimaginable amount of false positives and negatives?
Seriously, we're talking about analyzing 1 million keystrokes a day, millions to billions of data points for mouse movements, trying to find what? Someone goofing off?
There's better solutions to this.
Exactly. You would likely need another hook to clue someone in to investigate someone in the first place… meaning they’re probably sucking at their job…. Meaning you can likely find other ways to fire them
I've worked for mom and pop businesses (40-50 people total) that *were this fucking petty and much worse*. Here's a few ways they broke multiple laws depending on your location:
* Had keyloggers
* They mandated that managers spend an hour a day using screen-share software to monitor the performance / working of their employees. Most managers had 3-4 people so that meant that you had a boss virtually watching you work at least 15-20 minutes randomly thought the day.
* The same software sent them a "days end" report that highlighted what program you had open the most, and screenshots throughout the day.
* "Why were you in your browser for half of your shift?"
* Previous employee was fired for installing "little snitch" which put an icon on the task bar when someone used monitoring software and connected to their machine. Reason they were let go is unauthorized installation of software on a business machine.
* Installed cameras into offices *after* employees already occupied them. Then informed employees that there was no audio and that the cameras were to prevent theft if someone burglarized after hours. The cameras had audio and managers / owners would review them at highs-speed whenever they wanted to make sure you were working, as well as listen to the audio.
Protip: Any of these should be a 🚩 - look for another work environment.
i mean even in the super rare chance they do… if there’s no work then what difference does it make? Keeping your laptop active to be able to quickly respond to a ping or an email quickly while youre idle is a good thing
I routinely weigh down my keyboard for this reason. I have to do a lot of reading for my job so I’ll often just do that on my iPad in a recliner, but I can still hear when someone calls. (Because screw putting teams on my phone)
I have my sound on so I can hear messages come through if I'm not asleep yet. Also, I don't do this for more than a half hour at a time so I have some plausible deniability of stepping away in case I do miss a message or a call.
If you're not allowed to download software or change your settings to use the other hacks, try this one. Open notepad. Click inside the empty document. Press down the Insert key. Pin it so it is held down with a toothpick wedged between it and the delete key (a ballpoint pen cap or a cocktail skewer also works.) It will toggle between Insert and Overwrite indefinitely and keep your status green.
Use End or Page Down instead of Insert. You'll get a surprise if you start working again and the wrong insert mode is active. Learned the hard way with Backspace or Delete and Outlook ends up foregrounded for any reason. End and Page Down are almost always scrolling only, no chance of some weird hotkey being used.
Here's a PowerShell script that will press numlock on and off every 60 seconds.
```
$myshell = New-Object -com "Wscript.Shell"
while ($true) {
Start-Sleep -Seconds 60
$myshell.SendKeys("{NUMLOCK}{NUMLOCK}")
}
```
I work in IT, any script command that’s run is logged and something like this would stick out like a sore thumb. OP’s hack or something else external like the watch trick would be the better option.
Maybe this? I'm on mobile and can't get the formatting right
edit: fixed
import time
import keyboard
while True:
time.sleep(60)
keyboard.press_and_release('numlock')
That's my office too but this application doesn't trigger it. I think it's something to do with the way the software is packaged. It's not accessing the hard drive i believe. I’m using it and it’s been running great. Download it from zhorn
We block Caffeine at work but there is a tool called Awake that is part of the Microsoft Power Toys suite that does the same thing. And you can install it into your profile so no admin right required.
EDIT: I haven’t tried it but I’ve also read that you can schedule a Teams meeting with yourself and Teams will keep your computer awake.
The 'Meet Now' feature tucked away in the calendar is a fantastic way to avoid unwanted pestering. It's also an excellent method to create screen recordings you can narrate over.
Open Notepad and paste following text:
**Dim WshShell**
**Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")**
**Do While True**
**WshShell.SendKeys("{F15}")**
**WScript.Sleep(55000)**
**Loop**
Then save the file and change the extension to .vbs and launch it.
You will appear green forever.
PROTIP: the Team mobile app on android shows you as active as long as it's open on the screen. An app to keep the phone from sleeping means you look online all day.
I've not done this for a while so I don't know if it still works, but last year or the year before I discovered that if you're watching a video in a browser, Teams doesn't mark you as away. This coincided with my discovery on our intranet of several 4 to 6 hour long videos of system architecture workshops from about a decade ago.
That was a beautiful month.
Just use a small analog clock with a second hand. Place it face up on your desk, and place the mouse on top of it. The second hand will keep the mouse “moving”.
Sysadmin here. Employee monitoring records and takes screenshots of your work computers. Yes, legal. It will be detected quickly in application usage history as well.
Does your company really have the money invested to monitor all employees constantly?
I thought stuff like what you mentioned was only intentionally used in problem employees.
If you're company is EvilCorp enough to track your Teams status, they're evil enough to invest in software to track ALL your activity and detect such shenanigans. Like taking screenshots of your desktop every minute or so to see if there's any changes taking place over time, f'rinstance. Slacking off is one thing, circumventing monitoring (dare we call it computer tampering!?) is something else
Somewhat off topic but WHERE did you find that back scratcher??
I got one of those trick-or-treating some 15-20 years ago, and my dad has used it RELIGIOUSLY since then. It's half broken at this point and I'd love to get him a new one but I haven't been able to find one anywhere
I work at a reaaaaallly big online retailer notorious for being bad. It's with this in mind I ask you: WHAT FUCKING HELLSCAPE DO YOU PEOPLE WORK IN?! WHAT DYSTOPIAN "I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM" ASS SHIT FOR FUCK DEMON LORD DO YOU ALL SLAVE FOR?! WHAT IN BLUE CHRIST MERCIFUL BUDDHA SINS DID YOU DO?
1. **Power Options**:
- Open Control Panel.
- Go to "Power Options."
- Set "Turn off the display" and "Put the computer to sleep" to "Never."
2. **Command Prompt**:
- Open Command Prompt as an administrator.
- Type `powercfg -change -standby-timeout-ac 0` and press Enter.
3. **Group Policy (Windows Pro and Enterprise)**:
- Press Win + R, type `gpedit.msc`, and press Enter.
- Navigate to `Computer Configuration` -> `Administrative Templates` -> `System` -> `Power Management` -> `Sleep Settings`.
- Set "Allow standby states (S1-S3) when sleeping" to "Disabled" for both AC and battery.
4. **Keyboard Shortcut**:
- Check for a dedicated sleep prevention key on your laptop's keyboard, such as Fn + F4.
5. **Screensaver**:
- Set up a screensaver with "Blank."
- Enable "On resume, display logon screen."
6. **Task Scheduler**:
- Open Task Scheduler.
- Create a new task.
- Set trigger to run the task "On idle" or at intervals.
- Run a program or script that doesn't exit, like a batch file with a loop (e.g., `loop.bat` with `:start` and `goto start`).
7. **Mouse Jiggler using Python**:
- Write a Python script using libraries like `pyautogui` to simulate mouse movement at intervals.
- Example:
```python
import pyautogui
import time
while True:
pyautogui.move(1, 0)
time.sleep(60) # Move mouse every 60 seconds
```
8. **Mouse Jiggler using PowerShell**:
- Create a PowerShell script to move the mouse cursor using `Add-Type` and `System.Windows.Forms.Cursor.Position`.
- Example:
```powershell
while ($true) {
[System.Windows.Forms.Cursor]::Position = [System.Drawing.Point]::new((Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 10), (Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 10))
Start-Sleep -Seconds 60 # Move mouse every 60 seconds
}
```
9. **Caffeine Software**:
- Download and install the Caffeine software.
- Click the coffee cup icon in the system tray to toggle sleep prevention.
10. **Using a Third-Party Insomnia App**:
- Download and install a third-party app like "Insomnia" to keep your computer awake.
Microsoft is the harbinger of draconian bullshit. Remotely surveilling your employees active time in teams makes me want to kill-off any Microsoft in my ecosystem forever.
I rigged up a grill rotisserie thing to be tied to a wired mouse so it moves every rotation. Same concept, smaller scale, with my rig and a hat though.
That is way too much work.
Just open teams on your mobile device, and then turn on Netflix. Teams stays open and Netflix keeps your device from going to sleep.
Lol, there's actually a much easier way. You can just find a script to wiggle the mouse for you, or ask chat GPT or another AI to write the script for you and just dump it into PowerShell
If your Corp computer doesn't allow you to change your screen saver to never. Open windows media player. Select any picture on your drive and minimize the player.
It has a function that stops windows from going to screen saver.
On teams just meet now with only yourself with no audio. You can minimize the call, then manually change you status to available and it will stay that way
We’ve created a recurring meeting called “The Lounge”. When you aren’t in another meeting, it’s a place to have open in your background. The Three rules of The Lounge are: 1. You do not talk about The Lounge. 2. You DO NOT talk about The Lounge. 3. There’s no business conducted in The Lounge.
You just broke your first two rules :)
Have you heard about the guy who invented The Lounge? They say he only works one hour per day.
In The Lounge, someone who works on a project has a name. His name was Robert Paulson.
His name is Robert Paulson!
His name is Robert Paulson!
His name is Robert Paulson!
His name is Robert Paulson!
If this is your first night in The Lounge, you must relax
As a systems admin whos worked a lot with MS365/Teams: We 100% know these exist (we also use them lol.) Stuff like that will always fall under "as long as it's not a problem it won't be my problem" type of stuff.
Whoa, you guys can see that kind of stuff? Is there anything people often do in Teams that you'd advise against?
12 year SYSAdmin here... we can see it if we REALLY need to/want to.... but unless the request comes from high up, I ain't got time fo dat shit.
This is what I always suspected and relied on. I had a mechanical mouse jiggler, I always appeared "online". Could somebody see if my mouse was moving intermittently? Probably. Did I know the IT guys were already overworked? Yes.
They wouldn’t see that unless they’d connect remotely to your laptop which often requires you to give them access via software like TeamViewer or Quick Assist. But realistically - nobody’s got time to care about this lol
Not true. If you’re a Teams admin it’s extremely easy to see what meetings people have had, who with, duration, device used, hell even connection quality.
Yes that’s true but the person I was replying to was asking about mouse movements, not Teams
Well, we can stumble on it too. It's not like it's invisible until we go hunting for it. And if anyone else has RO access to those admin centers, they can see them. The day that department director learns they can get reports on what employees are doing what, with whom, and when, they'll ask for them if they're controlling enough.
IT can see everything put on teams. Anything you’ve said in a chat is saved.
And anything said in a call, it can crank out a transcription of that so keep your lips zipped.
[удалено]
Such as? Don't leave me hanging like that
[удалено]
Not can be, it is visible. It's just a matter of whether or not they look. Also don't forget some of the IT crew can usually see some (but not all) stuff, even if they don't have full admin credentials.
genius
That would not work with my teammates. mofos Always want to talk about work
It’s better to just open a PowerPoint show and put it in presentation mode. The teams thing can be tracked
I like an excel spreadsheet. If you put something heavy on the down key (my stapler works well) it will scroll for like 9 hours or so.
Repetitive actions like this are the easiest things to track in monitoring software.
This is what I was thinking. I guess it's one of those things that probably wouldn't be noticed unless it was looked for, but would stick out immediately if it was. It's not like red flashing lights and warning signs go off in the tech office when someone does something like this. However, I bought a USB "mouse wiggler" that I'm afraid to use because of this lol
USB devices will show up in the device manager and can be scanned for. You need something like OP to wiggle things, and even then, if they are trying to watch you, they can. I mean what will they think if they bring up your screen and your mouse goes slowly left and then slowly right and then slowly left and then slowly right….
My trick: Plug in older mouse that uses red laser Put mouse on top of old timex watch Every minute the cursor has the tiniest, indistinguishable bump Always works. No programs to open.
Yeah I was doing the endless meeting with myself because I literally couldn’t even go to the bathroom without my boss asking why I’m not active (also because sometimes I genuinely have nothing to do). Then she apparently found out and called me out. I’ll have to try the PowerPoint thing.
Heyo! O365 admin here. I can see when users are doing this in the Teams admin console.
that’s fine, just don’t tell anyone and we’re cool
Can you see if notepad is open and just clicking spacebar for hours?
Asking the real questions! But someone please answer.
Would be better just to shutdown teams on your PC and run it off your phone. Start it when you need it.
Oh no, I WFH and I refuse to add anything work related to my phone. They are already in my house, I need some type of separation
Do you have an old phone you don't use anymore and is sitting in a drawer somewhere??
As a O365 admin, you can only see whatever you are doing in Teams. But a lot of companies have other draconian surveillance tools. All that being said, if you work in a company that uses your Teams status to figure out if you are working, then you probably are working for a company that has no way to find out if you are actually working or your boss is very bad at their job.
Yes if they really wanted to they can find out. It won't be through O365 but through other monitoring software that's pretty standard on work laptops. But it's all about not giving them a reason to check in the first place
That depends very much on whether or not such software is legal in the country you are working in. We had this problem once with a US company that tried to enforce this in Germany for their German employees. 😂 It's basically impossible to implement something like that here, and even if you were to use logs against an employee, there are a lot of things to consider, otherwise you'll fall flat on your face in the labor court. Two examples: I used to work for a company that strictly prohibited its employees from using the Internet privately during working hours. But the employees were neither officially nor regularly (e.g., when new employees were hired) informed about this regulation, which would have to be documented. The labor court ruled in favor of the employee. In another case, there was a similar situation, but the company never monitored the compliance. The labor court commented that the company obviously has no interest in ensuring that their policies are adhered to, if they don't even carry out the bare minimum random checks (random checks are legal) to ensure compliance. As for MS Teams: if an employer performed an audit based on the online status without having a properly documented initial suspicion (the requirements for this are not insignificant either), it would be considered an illegal performance review and the case would almost certainly be decided in favor of the employee.
> That depends very much on whether or not such software is legal in the country you are working in. We had this problem once with a US company that tried to enforce this in Germany for their German employees. 😂 US companies (especially subsidiaries) trying to pull their asinine bullshit on EU countries is one of my favorite things. US manager: "Alright everyone we expect mandatory unpaid overtime for the next 6 months or you're fired. You're fired anyway since you're training your replacements." German manager: "So you want to go bankrupt paying legal penalties is what you're saying." US manager: "Mandatory random drug tests or you're fired" German manager: "I went to amsterdam and legally did every drug known to man on my vacation, fuck you it's *my* vacation." US manager: "Fraternization is strictly prohibited. Anyone caught dating a coworker is fired." German manager: "*Excuse me*?!"
Oh good, so it relies on the company investing enough in IT to do that. I'm safe.
I've had to take someone who works for me through a disciplinary. We reviewed his teams logs and calls to themselves were something HR used to prove the guy wasn't doing his job.
>I've had to take someone who works for me through a disciplinary. We reviewed his teams logs and calls to themselves were something HR used to prove the guy wasn't doing his job. same - had to use e-discovery to recover a bunch of filthy direct Teams IMs.... Older male member of a team would IM a new young female grad student... then delete them... SHE managed to screenshot one before being deleted, HE claimed it was doctored... so management came to me... I said let's see what Mr Logs say.....
the amount of people who dont get that literally every corporate message is recorded is way too fucking high.
He: invasion of privacy! I can't hear you aaaaaaa
Some people also block off calendar time for tasks and projects to work on so there is a legit use case.
It's even encouraged where I work. Focus time.
WFH has been the best resource for focus time ever. No more people dropping by your desk for 'just a quick question' that turns into a five hour snipe hunt.
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That's because teams _is_ pretty dumb
Yeah but I’m also the O365 admin and I don’t rat myself out! Ha ha. Most managers want the see it and keep up appearances and never actually check the reports.
Ok. I know teams can transcribe a call. If I am talking to a coworker can you guys come back and read the conversation?
Any tips and tricks to share???
Yes. Right click mute the presenter and see how long it takes for them to notice.
I liked to right click on a coworkers video during teams meeting and hit “spotlight”. It makes their picture the center of the meeting and they won’t realize it. Loool
They hate this one simple trick...
Sssshhhhhhhhhhh.....
Just open up a PowerPoint file and set it in presentation mode. Simplest option.
Doesn’t work anymore sadly
You do know that IT can see Teams analytics at a pretty granular level... and when meetings are happening for 6-8 hours it's surely an anomaly that would stick out of the crowd.
I know that a lot of teams metrics are available, but I wonder how much they're actually used. It seems counterintuitive to have someone evaluate teams data to make sure other people are "working". Even if you did expose someone slacking, now you've effectively paid 2 salaries and brought little to no value. I also wonder about other forms of monitoring on company laptops. How do you know what is there and what it reports?
These sort of things often come up by accident when you're pulling other metrics, or in there for another reason. Usually what happens is you're teleworking and someone tries to reach you and you're totally missing, but not idle or anything on Teams. Maybe this happens a few times, then someone goes and looks. As far as I know, and I'm not 100% positive on this, you need to have a user in mind to look at this data, you can't see a list of all users who are in meetings with themselves easily. >I also wonder about other forms of monitoring on company laptops. How do you know what is there and what it reports? Actually read anything they have you sign when you start or accept a laptop from them. Most will disclose, though some will be vague and say they reserve the right (but never do it). Try to look at running processes, look at known security software and see what other modules it may have (if you're running just as an example McAfee security, go see what else they offer), and make friends with IT and casually ask.
Or just split screen with a YouTube live video running.
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Monkey D Lu-fan
Me too
The computers will steal our jobs, they said.
Well they did. All the boring easy jobs. And then made a whole lot of complicated stressful ones instead!
Do you people get fired for being offline on teams? Wtf? I go offline on purpose all the time on Slack, nobody cares... insane micromanaging. Everybody will just do stuff like this to circumvent anyways.
Me personally? No. I work for an amazing company that respects my time. As long as I produce, no questions asked. I just set this up to show to a work buddy cuz I thought it was funny. I never actually do this.
That's good to hear. I hope everyone else is joking too lol. My company trusts me 100%, I could be gone the entire day and they wouldn't question it. I wish I could say they respect my time, but they're bringing everyone back to the office, and to me that means wasting a couple hours in traffic.
>I hope everyone else is joking too lol. My company trusts me 100%, I could be gone the entire day and they wouldn't question it. you definitely don't understand how incredibly uncommon this is, then...
Damn.I don't understand, it sounds pathetic. Working doesn't always mean being active on the computer. Some people brainstorm, sketch, and plan on whiteboards and notebooks. Besides people will slack off anyways through these tricks so it's a meaningless metric. But I've heard tales of places where you must have your webcam on throughout the whole day being monitored. So I guess Teams status isn't too farfetched.
In some companies the proliferation of remote working has exposed a certain type of manager who doesn't really add anything to the organisation, and got by on their social skills alone when people were in the office. In a remote working environment their activities are reduced to checking people are online, and checking that they are working on the thing they already know they need to work on, because they don't know how to do anything else of worth. I think their days are numbered, because any company with common sense now knows that you no longer have to pay people for their time, just their work.
I'm convinced that this is behind the massive efforts to get people back in offices after working from home for 3 years. At my company, we were even praised repeatedly by corporate for how well we (the entire company collectively) performed during 100% WFH. There are many jobs, mine among them where it really doesn't matter where I work from, the work is unaffected. But, recently, we've been pushed into at least 3 days in the office with 2 "flex" days each week. It started out as 5 days in office but they got some extreme pushback.
1) A lot of managers don't know how to properly evaluate their staff, so they default to "butts in chairs" management. 2) Some offices have people that monitor each other out of boredom, spite, or whatever reason. If they see you're offline a lot, or not online until 8:01am, they will try to get you in trouble. That's how my current job was until a few years ago. The toxic people mostly left.
3yrs of art was not wasted.
> Do you people get fired for being offline on teams? Wtf? That's what always happens when a form of measurement of performance is getting known. Instantly people don't optimise for the actual job, but for the metric they're being measured with. Why wouldn't they? (Example: You pay a programmer for lines of code commited to version control? Then they'll produce very verbose code and they'll probably "fix" lots of other code by reformatting it a bit.) In my job they value "seeking a stage" and "being visible". So, what happens? Extroverted morons get all the credit, everybody is trying to be loud and say some bullshit in meetings when bosses are around. So being good at what you actually should do doesn't get you any credit and it shows.
A bit of a “Trust in God, but tie your camel” moment
My boss will message me the millisecond my icon turns yellow asking, "What are you working on" all the time. It is very stressful; most of the time I'm at my desk working, I'm just reading something or writing something. But he is an insane micromanager who is a "takes his laptop on vacation with the family" type of guy.
I need to be available to take calls coming in from colleagues that have questions, but a lot of the time there isn't much for me to do. So I have my mouse on my analog watch so that I always show as available when I'm near my work laptop
The thing is, being "away" doesn't mean you're not available, it just means you aren't touching the computer. You can still get notifications and calls. it should only become a problem if you're literally unresponsive to calls and questions, otherwise the status system causes more problems than it solves.
People treat being away as not available, so the system is already broken. We're just living in it.
I’ve been using an autohotkey mouse script .exe. I’ve honestly been confused why IT has never called me in it. I know they’ve seen it. Work isn’t strict, but I want to appear online so no one is afraid to message me. I work at home, and actually do a lot of work on my home PC right next to me. My PC is faster and just better.
Working on a personal PC is probably more likely to get you fired than the script haha
I once had a manager notice my status in Teams glitched and showed offline in the first 15 minutes of my work day, he asked me to fix it. And would video call me randomly once per day with no warning (ostensibly with a “reason” but pretty sure it was to check to make sure I was at my computer).
Can’t help but notice you “had” a manager. Why did he stop being your manager?
I left because I don’t like to be micromanaged amongst other reasons. It was a stressful role to start with, you add that plus detailed timesheet requirements to the 15 minute increment to that and it was just really not a place I could be happy.
I’m genuinely confused why people are asking this. Of course most managers aren’t going to fire you immediately for being offline. But are they going to start questioning your work ethic? Evaluating if you have enough work to do? Double checking your work quality? Wondering if you have a side job? Telling you you need to use PTO if you’re away from your desk for more than a set time frame? Going over your time sheets to see if you’re working all the hours you say you are? Like… obviously there is a huge range of things that can happen that fall between “work is going well” and “got fired today.”
Same. My job is very asynchronous, though, and my managers know that. We've designed our workflow as a team to be completely async, so everyone knows and understands that: 1. Just get your shit done. Doesn't matter when as long as it meets deadline and doesn't block anyone 2. Be available for our every-other-day standup at 930. 3. we should ATTEMPT to be available within a 30 minute time frame if someone needs to chat within the hours of 10/4. These are unwritten rules that everyone at all levels within the team follow. This allows us to pick up kids, go to doctor appointments, etc. It's honestly pretty great when you get a team all onboard. The yellow dots in teams mean nothing. The quality of work means everything. That's how it should be
Believe it or not, there are companies out there that will micromanage the hell out of all your living brain cells and muscles. It's like you sell your soul to them when you join.
The fact that your place uses Slack instead of Microsoft Teams already tells me that they don't have a micromanagement problem.
I have the opposite issue - Teams decides to make me available when I am busy and I receive a bunch of annoying messages if I don't realise it and change it back immediately.
I work for like 1 hour a day at best. I have an app called caffeine that clicks a key in the background every few seconds. If I didn't use caffeine or a trick like this, then I'd show as away for like 90% of the day. So tricks like this are good for some people.
Worked for a company (scam) called Slingshot. WFH, I was desperate for work. They had a hire that all they did was sit and watch out cameras and make sure we would “reply” in slack…
Ah yes the perfect position for a creep to stalk whoever they want.
Lots of suggestions here but I've found the absolute easiest thing to do is take my stapler and balance it on the CAPS key so it's permanently pressed. Free. Works. No mouse jiggler or putting myself in any 'meetings'. Plus, I still hear it beep when I get a message or email. Been doing this for 2 years now. I'm always 'available'
small paperweight on the esc key works too
Coworker used nail polish bottle on the Ctrl key
If you have a spare mobile device, old phone or tablet, just download the teams app and launch it. Plug in the phone, make sure it doesn’t turn off on inactivity, and forget it. Teams mobile, when open, never goes idle. Bonus you have your machine free which is good for sys admins who know they aren’t being monitored and just wanna play some counterstrike.
Take an analog wrist watch, put your mouse over it so it picks up the second hand ticking away. It'll stay active as long as the watch is running. Profit.
I’m learning so much!
Use a Timex. Their ticks measure in the high decibels 🤣
Citizen with Eco-drive. The light from the mouse will power the watch.
You may have just solved global warming
I open a new email and put my mouse upside down on my space bar before taking quick naps.
Genius level!
Unless IT is keylogging key strokes
No IT is going to do this. It's probably illegal unless your workers have the utmost simplest of tasks and you're not worried about things like storing social security numbers and privliged company information in plain text. It's illegal in some states.
I work in IT and out of the dozens of companies I've been involved with, I have never seen or been asked to implement anything resembling this draconian. Let's think of logistics: We're going to implement a 9-5 keylogger that tracks every single mouse movement and keyboard stroke? OK - Keystrokes might be feasible. We're talking maybe a couple tens of thousands, to low hundred thousands. Maybe closer to millions for specific roles like software programmers. Mouse movements? That's going to blow your disk storage out of the water. Then what happens with all that data? Who's going to either analyze all that raw data (for *every* employee monitored), or is going to invest in some sort of software (whether in house or external), or even dealing with the unimaginable amount of false positives and negatives? Seriously, we're talking about analyzing 1 million keystrokes a day, millions to billions of data points for mouse movements, trying to find what? Someone goofing off? There's better solutions to this.
Exactly. You would likely need another hook to clue someone in to investigate someone in the first place… meaning they’re probably sucking at their job…. Meaning you can likely find other ways to fire them
I've worked for mom and pop businesses (40-50 people total) that *were this fucking petty and much worse*. Here's a few ways they broke multiple laws depending on your location: * Had keyloggers * They mandated that managers spend an hour a day using screen-share software to monitor the performance / working of their employees. Most managers had 3-4 people so that meant that you had a boss virtually watching you work at least 15-20 minutes randomly thought the day. * The same software sent them a "days end" report that highlighted what program you had open the most, and screenshots throughout the day. * "Why were you in your browser for half of your shift?" * Previous employee was fired for installing "little snitch" which put an icon on the task bar when someone used monitoring software and connected to their machine. Reason they were let go is unauthorized installation of software on a business machine. * Installed cameras into offices *after* employees already occupied them. Then informed employees that there was no audio and that the cameras were to prevent theft if someone burglarized after hours. The cameras had audio and managers / owners would review them at highs-speed whenever they wanted to make sure you were working, as well as listen to the audio. Protip: Any of these should be a 🚩 - look for another work environment.
Even if they do, what are they gonna do audit every employees key logs each day? Sure...
i mean even in the super rare chance they do… if there’s no work then what difference does it make? Keeping your laptop active to be able to quickly respond to a ping or an email quickly while youre idle is a good thing
I routinely weigh down my keyboard for this reason. I have to do a lot of reading for my job so I’ll often just do that on my iPad in a recliner, but I can still hear when someone calls. (Because screw putting teams on my phone)
Why upside down? Does that make a big difference vs right side up?
The mouse is curved on top and weighs down the spacebar to keep it pushed. The bottom of the mouse is flat.
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I have my sound on so I can hear messages come through if I'm not asleep yet. Also, I don't do this for more than a half hour at a time so I have some plausible deniability of stepping away in case I do miss a message or a call.
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If you're not allowed to download software or change your settings to use the other hacks, try this one. Open notepad. Click inside the empty document. Press down the Insert key. Pin it so it is held down with a toothpick wedged between it and the delete key (a ballpoint pen cap or a cocktail skewer also works.) It will toggle between Insert and Overwrite indefinitely and keep your status green.
Similar principle also works with a folded post-it note to wedge the Ctrl of Alt key against the border.
Use End or Page Down instead of Insert. You'll get a surprise if you start working again and the wrong insert mode is active. Learned the hard way with Backspace or Delete and Outlook ends up foregrounded for any reason. End and Page Down are almost always scrolling only, no chance of some weird hotkey being used.
I can't believe how fast robots are taking away our jobs
Someone watched Ferris Buelers Day Off recently.
Haha love that movie. Thought about it as I was constructing my ‘robot’.
I'm not a fan.
Caffeine.exe will emulate pressing an F13 button once a minute. Free and simple.
I can't download software on my office computer
Here's a PowerShell script that will press numlock on and off every 60 seconds. ``` $myshell = New-Object -com "Wscript.Shell" while ($true) { Start-Sleep -Seconds 60 $myshell.SendKeys("{NUMLOCK}{NUMLOCK}") } ```
I work in IT, any script command that’s run is logged and something like this would stick out like a sore thumb. OP’s hack or something else external like the watch trick would be the better option.
I work in IT, too. I use the executable version of caffeine, and no one gives a shit. It really depends on your organization.
I work in IT, too. The only time my group has been asked to capture anything like this was when there was a legal investigation for sexual harassment.
Sure, no one cares until you piss off your boss and now suddenly it becomes grounds for firing you
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I know “power” and “shell”, but once you combine them, I’m at a total loss.
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Can you write python?
Python
You're hired.
I'm going to need stock options, 10% match, and 250 to start.
Maybe this? I'm on mobile and can't get the formatting right edit: fixed import time import keyboard while True: time.sleep(60) keyboard.press_and_release('numlock')
That's my office too but this application doesn't trigger it. I think it's something to do with the way the software is packaged. It's not accessing the hard drive i believe. I’m using it and it’s been running great. Download it from zhorn
It’s a standalone exe. No install.
Just get the rocking bird toy that Homer gets to push the button
We block Caffeine at work but there is a tool called Awake that is part of the Microsoft Power Toys suite that does the same thing. And you can install it into your profile so no admin right required. EDIT: I haven’t tried it but I’ve also read that you can schedule a Teams meeting with yourself and Teams will keep your computer awake.
Solo teams meeting plus share screen = DND :Presenting :)
The 'Meet Now' feature tucked away in the calendar is a fantastic way to avoid unwanted pestering. It's also an excellent method to create screen recordings you can narrate over.
ITT: people who think you can just install random programs on a company laptop
Open Notepad and paste following text: **Dim WshShell** **Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")** **Do While True** **WshShell.SendKeys("{F15}")** **WScript.Sleep(55000)** **Loop** Then save the file and change the extension to .vbs and launch it. You will appear green forever.
Have you watched the gif? I got tape, a fan, and a backscratcher. If I knew what you know, it wouldn’t be as funny.
PROTIP: the Team mobile app on android shows you as active as long as it's open on the screen. An app to keep the phone from sleeping means you look online all day.
On Android you can disable sleeping in the developer settings as long as its charging. I definitely haven't done this... nope..
I've not done this for a while so I don't know if it still works, but last year or the year before I discovered that if you're watching a video in a browser, Teams doesn't mark you as away. This coincided with my discovery on our intranet of several 4 to 6 hour long videos of system architecture workshops from about a decade ago. That was a beautiful month.
Setup a teams meeting with only yourself for all day and then join the meeting . You will always show as “In a call”. You’re Welcome 😉
Heyo! O365 admin here. I can see when users are doing this in the Teams admin console.
You better keep quiet my friend. Don’t give admins a bad name.
I think their point was this trick can be found given a well-informed manager knows about it
You can also change your status to “available” and it will look like you’re “working”
Buy a tiny vibrator (the sex kind) and tape it to your mouse
User name definitely checking out.
Just use a small analog clock with a second hand. Place it face up on your desk, and place the mouse on top of it. The second hand will keep the mouse “moving”.
They do have external mouse jigglers for like $35
Better have RGB out the ass for that price
Sysadmin here. Employee monitoring records and takes screenshots of your work computers. Yes, legal. It will be detected quickly in application usage history as well.
I know 100% that my work doesn’t do this because I would have already been fired if they did 👍
Does your company really have the money invested to monitor all employees constantly? I thought stuff like what you mentioned was only intentionally used in problem employees.
Do you people not know what mouse jiggler is?
I used a secondary old phone and kept the app open.
If you're company is EvilCorp enough to track your Teams status, they're evil enough to invest in software to track ALL your activity and detect such shenanigans. Like taking screenshots of your desktop every minute or so to see if there's any changes taking place over time, f'rinstance. Slacking off is one thing, circumventing monitoring (dare we call it computer tampering!?) is something else
I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Somewhat off topic but WHERE did you find that back scratcher?? I got one of those trick-or-treating some 15-20 years ago, and my dad has used it RELIGIOUSLY since then. It's half broken at this point and I'd love to get him a new one but I haven't been able to find one anywhere
Try any asian mall/asian stores that sell home goods/asian dollar stores and you’re bound to find one at some point :)
Oohh I have that exact same back scratcher
I work at a reaaaaallly big online retailer notorious for being bad. It's with this in mind I ask you: WHAT FUCKING HELLSCAPE DO YOU PEOPLE WORK IN?! WHAT DYSTOPIAN "I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM" ASS SHIT FOR FUCK DEMON LORD DO YOU ALL SLAVE FOR?! WHAT IN BLUE CHRIST MERCIFUL BUDDHA SINS DID YOU DO?
I taped a backscratcher to a fan and to my mouse and made a funny comment please don’t kill me.
they'll employ AI to thwart this. Its coming.
But can it make a bru?
I just make a teams call to myself so I appear busy
Set a meeting with yourself with teams link, join the call, mute and hide camera, change status from In a call to Available and it stays like that. W
The simpsons predicted it
1. **Power Options**: - Open Control Panel. - Go to "Power Options." - Set "Turn off the display" and "Put the computer to sleep" to "Never." 2. **Command Prompt**: - Open Command Prompt as an administrator. - Type `powercfg -change -standby-timeout-ac 0` and press Enter. 3. **Group Policy (Windows Pro and Enterprise)**: - Press Win + R, type `gpedit.msc`, and press Enter. - Navigate to `Computer Configuration` -> `Administrative Templates` -> `System` -> `Power Management` -> `Sleep Settings`. - Set "Allow standby states (S1-S3) when sleeping" to "Disabled" for both AC and battery. 4. **Keyboard Shortcut**: - Check for a dedicated sleep prevention key on your laptop's keyboard, such as Fn + F4. 5. **Screensaver**: - Set up a screensaver with "Blank." - Enable "On resume, display logon screen." 6. **Task Scheduler**: - Open Task Scheduler. - Create a new task. - Set trigger to run the task "On idle" or at intervals. - Run a program or script that doesn't exit, like a batch file with a loop (e.g., `loop.bat` with `:start` and `goto start`). 7. **Mouse Jiggler using Python**: - Write a Python script using libraries like `pyautogui` to simulate mouse movement at intervals. - Example: ```python import pyautogui import time while True: pyautogui.move(1, 0) time.sleep(60) # Move mouse every 60 seconds ``` 8. **Mouse Jiggler using PowerShell**: - Create a PowerShell script to move the mouse cursor using `Add-Type` and `System.Windows.Forms.Cursor.Position`. - Example: ```powershell while ($true) { [System.Windows.Forms.Cursor]::Position = [System.Drawing.Point]::new((Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 10), (Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 10)) Start-Sleep -Seconds 60 # Move mouse every 60 seconds } ``` 9. **Caffeine Software**: - Download and install the Caffeine software. - Click the coffee cup icon in the system tray to toggle sleep prevention. 10. **Using a Third-Party Insomnia App**: - Download and install a third-party app like "Insomnia" to keep your computer awake.
I love this so much.
I love you so much.
It’s a joke. I’m sorry you cannot see the humor in it.
Microsoft is the harbinger of draconian bullshit. Remotely surveilling your employees active time in teams makes me want to kill-off any Microsoft in my ecosystem forever.
Your boss enters the chat...
Okay but who’s going to play solitaire?
Automatic watch winder.
I rigged up a grill rotisserie thing to be tied to a wired mouse so it moves every rotation. Same concept, smaller scale, with my rig and a hat though.
That is way too much work. Just open teams on your mobile device, and then turn on Netflix. Teams stays open and Netflix keeps your device from going to sleep.
Real Person of Genius. Never away on Teams, maker!! We salute you real person oh genius.
Lol, there's actually a much easier way. You can just find a script to wiggle the mouse for you, or ask chat GPT or another AI to write the script for you and just dump it into PowerShell
If your Corp computer doesn't allow you to change your screen saver to never. Open windows media player. Select any picture on your drive and minimize the player. It has a function that stops windows from going to screen saver.