Web review: How stupid is your boss?

– by Tina Gasperson –
Why are so many middle managers and executives technically inept? If they weren’t, we might have more companies running their intranets on Linux. But if they weren’t, we might not be able to surf, download, and email on company time quite so much.Today’s web review is for deskbound workers with clueless superiors. It’s calls Don’s Boss Page. When the index page is loaded, it looks like an Excel chart. If you scroll down, you’ll see the real intent of the site.

There reside, of all things, sound effects to make it sound like you’re typing away, a list of hints to make it easier to “stealth-surf” and get away with it, and something called “the panic button,” a clickable icon that quickly brings up the fake Excel chart screen in case your boss shuffles by unexpectedly. If he stops in to the cube to see how you’re doing, you might be in trouble. But we’ll just go on the assumption that he won’t do that based on previous experience.

Here are a few of the hints to get away with stealth-surfing: Hide the buttons and navigation on Netscape so it doesn’t look like you’re using Netscape; change the color scheme to black and white; keep a legit application open under your browser and use alt-tab to bring it up quickly.

The site also has some pretty funny e-postcards to send to your co-workers, and a list of Web sites that have the cool little panic button displayed on their sites, bringing new meaning to the term “safe-surfing.” Let’s see … the Claudia Schiffer fan club site is there, as well as a page for Cindy Crawford, and PezBoy’s Star Wars Corner! Just make sure the panic button works and you know where it is before you start ogling the bikini shots and forget you’re at a place of business. And don’t forget alt-tab — it’s saved thousands of jobs.

Enjoy being a slacker — go visit Don’s Boss Page.