# Story 2: Task masking: the new workplace resistance movement

- **Episode:** [174](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/174.md) (2025-02-25)
- **Type:** news-roundup
- **Tags:** task-masking, resistance, productivity
- **Time:** 8:00–14:24 (start 480s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/174?t=480](https://truthliesandwork.com/174?t=480)

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[8:00] Al Elliott: Yes, I have got a new term for you. It's going—
[8:04] Leanne Elliott: You're finding all these new terms at the minute, aren't you?
[8:06] Al Elliott: No, I know. It's a TikTok thing, understandably. Entrepreneur.com wrote up a whole thing on it. And this new term is— are you ready? It's called task masking. Not Taskmastering. It's a different show. Task masking. Any ideas?
[8:22] Leanne Elliott: Well, I know what masking is in terms of general psychology literature. It's usually when we try to hide our thoughts or feelings or emotions or behaviours in a way that allows us to conform, fit in, avoid negative consequences. So we typically see it quite a lot. People with autism have lots of masking behaviours. As a woman, I might have masking behaviours in these more masculine workplace cultures. So task masking. Pretending to do something you're not?
[8:50] Al Elliott: It's exactly what it is. I actually, 'cause I had, I didn't know why it was called task masking, but that's, that, well, there we go. Every day's a school day. Yeah, basically it's the modern equivalent of carrying a folder around the office to look busy when actually the folder is empty or just full of, I don't know, takeaway menus or something. I don't know. This article states that the younger workers are retaliating against this return to office mandate by performing what they're calling productivity theatre. Now, according to Gallup, and I think we've all known this for a while, about 60% of remote workers would rather find a new job than actually go back into the office. But companies like Amazon and JP Morgan are still pushing ahead with these mandates. So pushing back, these employees are downloading social media apps to their work computers so they, so they can be mucking about online when they look like they're working. They're making frustrated noises every 15 minutes. Oh God, they've worked so hard. They're walking quickly between fake meetings, and my personal favorite, they're making extraordinarily serious facial expressions, which is what the article says, while doing fake business hand gestures on phone calls when in actual fact they're actually on the phone to their mates. Amanda Augustine, she's the resident career expert for Career.io, said this: companies that demand their employees to return to the office are sending a message that presence equals productivity. However, the latest TikTok trend indicates this is not the case. Task masking reflects young professionals' beliefs that time and face time at work isn't equal to the outcome and impact. Leigh, thoughts?
[10:24] Leanne Elliott: I'm not surprised. I mean, it goes back to the root of what masking is, isn't it? It's to, to look like you're fitting in when really you have very different, different thoughts or feelings or emotions. Um, I get it as well, pushing back against authority. If we don't have that autonomy, we tend to get a bit defensive in a way that they'll react in a way that we want to gain some control back. The problem is for anyone who is out there currently task masking, and you'll know this already, this won't be a surprise to you. It's that dissonance that's going to cause the problem of how you're kind of thinking and feeling and then actually turning up like with a smile on like you're, you're doing the work. It's that not wanting to be in the office and having to be in the office, however you think, feel, physically have to be there
[11:08] Al Elliott: Yeah
[11:09] Leanne Elliott: If those 2 things are mismatched, that dissonance is going to start to get to you in terms of stress, in terms of frustration, in terms of detachment from work, all the really bad things. And that is when it is actually going to start to impact your mental health and your performance in ways that your employer may notice. So, it's tricky. I'm not sure it's sustainable, but I get it. It's a bit of a virtual finger up to the people that have made you go back into the office, hasn't it? And I think if that power struggle is what is going to be the continuous narrative post-pandemic, Um, I totally get why, why people are turning to TikTok to, um, to show off their task masking
[11:44] Al Elliott: I love it. I love it. I think there's, um, there's something which you've told me about this before. Um, I think it's called reactance theory or something where—
[11:52] Leanne Elliott: Never heard of that
[11:53] Al Elliott: Have you not?
[11:53] Leanne Elliott: Not to say it isn't true
[11:54] Al Elliott: It's when you lose control over one thing, so therefore you just, you take something, uh, you try and gain control over something perhaps a little smaller, more granular. So for example, if you feel like you're completely out of your depth at work, then you might be fastidious about your to-do list because that's the thing you can control. And I feel like this is it, that people are being sent back to work. They don't wanna be there. Clearly they don't wanna be there. And so they're going, right, well, if I can't control where I work, I'll control how much work I do and how I actually do it
[12:23] Leanne Elliott: It's disengagement. We can wrap it up in whatever, whatever word we wanna call it. When people disengage, they'll quiet quit or task mask. They are disconnecting from work and they're doing They're putting in less effort because, because they're, they're very confident that they can continue to do that, deliver the outcomes they already have been, because they're not more productive working from the office. Do you know what I mean? It's all just, it's all just disengagement. It's bad for people, it's bad for organisations, it's bad for working life, and it's not got better over the last 20 years plus. Um, I, do you know what I want to talk about? Let's just talk about engagement. Can we just talk about engagement, please?
[13:05] Al Elliott: Yeah, what, right now?
[13:06] Leanne Elliott: No, just in general. We don't need to like dress it up as stuff, you know
[13:10] Al Elliott: Well, the other thing is that if you, if you are running decent engagement surveys, um, there is one called the RX7, which, um, my wife and co-host has, um, has invented, which is incredible. But if you're running a decent engagement survey, you're going to soon find out that this is what's happening. You'll soon find out that people are totally disengaged and that what this is down to, this RTO thing. Still don't fully understand why people are insisting on RTO. They say it's because it's better productivity. They say there's more creativity when you sort of bump into people. Um, at work, you don't need to be creative all the time. I don't think most jobs— perhaps if you're, if you're Mad Men or something like that, you might be creative all the time. But, you know, why not just one day a week? And then you can potentially go in and bump in and play ping pong or something and come up with great ideas
[13:52] Leanne Elliott: Then make it an environment that is conducive to those, I mean, those types of behaviour and that type of activity. I mean, we spoke to Ed Williams, the CEO of Candy Kittens, who's created a phenomenal office where people not only want to be, they bring their friends and family with them just to kind of show how amazing the office is. It's somewhere that, that they feel productive, they feel engaged, that they want to, they want to be. Make workplaces better and people will be more inclined to go to them
[14:19] Al Elliott: Yeah, 100%. 100%. Well, Le, that's me. What else have you seen this week?