The ultimate guide to watching the World Cup at work

10. Know the reflective surface situation

The cool thing about light is that it bounces all around and goes “weeeeee.”

You can use this to your advantage. Each of us has that one special corner of where we work that basically seems to be off limits. No matter what happens, other people’s eyes can’t see it. That can be the underside of your desk, behind your monitor, on the third wall of your cubicle next to your coat, in the third slot of your physical message center, and so on.

The problem with this is that staring at that particular area might give away the fact that you’re not doing work. Your coat is not your computer monitor. It just isn’t.

But mirrors, dude. Mirrors exist. They will continue to exist between now and the end of the world cup. If your a clever mirror-position-doer, you can use their existence to your advantage.

Do some simple geometry, maybe a protractor, some string, and a tape measurer and figure out how you can design some line-of-sight workarounds to get your gaze from near your monitor to the place where you’re going to have the game playing.

If you’re going for the underside of your desk, all you might need is one mirror by your feet. If you’re trying to loop around behind you, you’re probably going to need a couple. Each situation is unique, so take a bit of time to figure out which situation is going to work for you.

Better still is taking advantage of natural reflections to make it work. Maybe someone is watching the game on there computer and you just need to bounce your gaze off a window. Keep your eyes peeled.

Now I know what you’re wondering: “Matt, won’t having a bunch of mirrors be as much of a giveaway as just staring at some corner of your desk?”

My answer to that is, “Shut up, and stop asking questions.”