I'm Working, I Swear

The Situation

You kicked off a build. Claude Code is doing its thing — reading files, writing code, running tests, refactoring things you didn't ask it to refactor. It'll be a minute.

So you stand up. You stretch. You wander into the hallway. You are technically still working. The machine is working. You are part of the machine. Therefore, you are working.

This is airtight logic. 🔒

🚩 What It Looks Like

Standing in the hallway chatting
Refilling coffee for the 4th time
Checking phone, leaning on wall
Explaining memes to confused coworkers
Taking "a quick lap" around the office
Staring out the window philosophically

✅ What's Actually Happening

Monitoring an autonomous build pipeline
Optimizing biological fuel intake
Reviewing deployment notifications
Cross-functional knowledge transfer
Conducting a facilities walkthrough
Strategic architectural contemplation

Approved Waiting Activities

☕

The Coffee Run

Estimated duration: 4 minutes. Actual duration: 20 minutes. You ran into Dave from accounting.

🚶

The Hallway Drift

Walking with purpose but no destination. Phone in hand. Nodding at people. "Hey, how's it going?"

🧑‍🤝‍🧑

The Impromptu Standup

Three people in a doorway solving a problem that could've been an email, a Slack message, or nothing at all.

📱

The Phone Check

Waiting for the "task complete" notification. Accidentally spending 8 minutes on Reddit instead.

🪟

The Window Stare

Contemplating whether this is what the future of work looks like. It is. This is it.

🍿

The Snack Expedition

The vending machine is a 30-second walk but a 12-minute commitment. Someone will ask you something on the way.

"If the AI is writing all the code, and I'm managing the AI... am I a developer or a project manager?"

"My job is 40% prompting, 40% waiting, and 20% pretending the output was my idea all along."

"I should look busy. Let me open a terminal and just... leave it there."

"What if someone asks what I'm working on? 'Overseeing an autonomous development pipeline.' Nailed it."

"I've mass-produced more in the last 2 weeks than I did in my entire career. And I've never looked less productive."

$ claude "build me the entire thing"
Reading project files...
Analyzing codebase structure...
Writing 47 files...
Refactoring 12 modules you didn't mention...
Adding error handling you would've forgotten...
Running tests... 142 passed, 0 failed
Generating documentation nobody will read...
⠋ Still going... maybe grab a coffee?

I'm Working.I Swear.