Many people tend to decide to play games at their jobs, at least occasionally. For people who spend their workday at a computer, this can take the form of secretly (or not so secretly) playing a video game.
The most common choice is Solitaire, which was commonly found bundled with older Microsoft Windows systems. This is not only an indication that the character bored out of their mind, but they don't even have the means or the energy to download or install something cooler, or their work computer does not allow foreign programs to be downloaded without administrator permission, which they most certainly cannot get. Later Windows machines require you to download games yourself, which might lead to something a bit more involved like Tetris or surreptitiously playing a phone game like Angry Birds.
Before multitasking became as feasible as it is today, many older PC games had a function hotkey for either instantly quitting the game, switching to another program or covering up the game with a fake spreadsheet, often colloquially dubbed the "Boss Key" or "Boss Button".
The person playing may be a Surveillance Station Slacker. Often doubles as a Funny Background Event. Compare Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.
Examples:
- One British press recruitment advert for a management consultant company challenged the reader to spot how you could tell a lazy colleague was lying when he said he was too busy to help you. (His monitor screen was reflected in the window behind him, showing that he was playing Windows Solitaire.)
- In Paranoia, unactivated clones pass their time in a small, dark room playing games against each other before being called to duty. Unfortunately, they can guess what the others are thinking since they all share the same thoughts.
- In issue #227 of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), while The Team is infiltrating the Egg Base, they move into view of a security camera. Luckily, the Surveillance Station Slacker in charge of it is playing an (unidentified) game and thus doesn't notice. Later, when one of the two dual bosses of the base discovers this, she says that if he's going to slack off, he needs to at least beat her high score.
- This
Dilbert comic.
Dilbert: One month to build the product and five months to play Doom on my computer. - One Doonesbury strip has Mike tour his software company, and happen upon one of Kim's hires playing solitaire. The testy fellow claims he's developing a new paradigm.
Mike: Red queen on black king.
Jerkass: Yes, I know. Do you mind?
- In Bee Movie, the director of the Honex Industries can be seen playing a hexagon-shaped Solitaire at his computer during Barry's motivational speech at the end. Justified in that at the time, the honey production was shut off and the bees had nothing to do.
- In Big Hero 6, when Hiro leaves a police office after unsuccessfully trying to convince a bored policeman about a supervillain being on the loose, a game of Solitaire can be noticed on the policeman's computer screen.
- Sev Trek: Pus in Boots: Instead of scanning for the shapeshifting alien, Beta uses his toycorder to play Pokémon. Later he pinches the joystick they need for a Plot-Demanded Manual Mode to play Space Invaders, so the captain just orders helm control transferred to his console. Given that as an android he can multitask, Beta is able to take down the enemy ship and improve his previous high score.
- The 400 Blows: When Antoine is locked up at the police station for the night, the police officers on duty are seen playing a dice game.
- The Avengers (2012): After Tony Stark comes aboard the Helicarrier, he gleefully points out that one of the bridge deckhands is playing Galaga at their desk. Shortly after the scene ends and the heroes leave, the deckhand turns their screen back to Galaga again.note
- Brazil (1985)
- The introduction of Mr. Kurtzmann has him looking out over his office at the Ministry as his workers rush about their tasks. The moment he closes the door however, they start looking at old movies on their computers. Kurtzmann gets suspicious and tries suddenly opening the door a couple of times, only to find his workers busy at their tasks again.
- Sam visits an oil refinery where all the workers have to wear Hazmat Suits, including a crowd of them playing volleyball.
- Dante from Clerks closes his store early so he can host a hockey game on the roof.
- In Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Benji is briefly seen playing Halo 5: Guardians at the CIA and flipping screens when anybody important comes where they could see.
- Ocean's Thirteen has a clerk playing Solitaire rather than working as part of the long chain of humiliation for the hotel reviewer.
- In Office Space, lead character Peter Gibbons, having taken a more casual attitude towards his job following his hypnotherapy session, is at one point playing Tetris on his office desktop as his Pointy-Haired Boss Lumbergh comes in.
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine introduces the mobile game and Candy Crush Expy Kwazy Cupcakes — spelled "Kwazy" with a K and, oddly enough, a backwards W. Gina quickly gets addicted to it, and when she introduces it to Capt. Holt, even he gets addicted to it — Foreshadowing of his characterisation in later seasons as a gambling addict.
- CSI: NY: In "Kill Screen", Mac overhears Adam and Danny speaking excitedly, goes to investigate, and finds them playing Gears of War 3. Adam explains that it's part of their case: the motive was someone hacking the game in a tournament to make the winner's hit box twice as big as it should've been, while simultaneously reducing the opponent's box to half its size.
- Mystery Science Theater 3000: In "The Undead", Mike mentions that before he was sent to the Satellite of Love, he had a really good temp job where he mostly ate bearclaws and played Doom. He has no idea why he got fired, though.
- Night Court had an episode where the staff is filmed for a documentary crew. In the intro, Mac shows off his computer and says that he can easily bring up a file by pressing a button. He presses a button to demonstrate and brings up a game of Super Mario Bros.
- The Office (US):
- Dunder Mifflin Scranton employees, particularly Creed, can be seen playing games like Solitaire and Hearts on their computers as a sign of their apathy towards their jobs.
- Stamford branch employees spend a lot of time playing Call of Duty on their work computers and take it very seriously. Jim's lack of skill at the game causes a lot of tension.
- Dwight, fighting a bout of depression, spent an episode playing Second Life at his desk. Also, when he created Mega Desk while Jim was away on paternity leave, he dedicated one section for gaming between sales calls.
- Stanley spends most of his days drinking coffee and solving crossword puzzles.
- Psych: Gus is doing this when he's introduced in the first episode. Shawn notices immediately due to his hands being on the keyboard in the proper position for playing a First-Person Shooter.
- In The Darkside Detective, examining Officer Murakami's workstation at the precinct house results in McQueen remarking that Murakami has achieved a new high score in "whatever he's playing" (and Dooley complaining that he's never going to catch up when McQueen keeps making him work during work hours).
- In Invisible, Inc., the first heist has the team break into an executive's office and hack his workstation to get data needed to plan future heists. The game has several descriptions of the workstation that it rotates through, one of which notes that the executive is in the middle of a game of Solitaire.
- In the cinematic trailer for Overwatch, a guard at the museum can be seen playing Hearthstone on his tablet instead of monitoring the security cameras. Hearthstone can be found on various tablets and monitors throughout the maps, mostly at research stations and consoles where important work should be conducted.
- In the Sam & Max: Freelance Police series, the Shambling Corporate Presence plays "Mimesweeper" when accidentally sent to Santa's workshop, and again when he's sent to his proper office in Hell.
- In The Stanley Parable, on rare occasions, you can stumble across some office worker's abandoned workstation whose monitor has a game of Solitaire still opened.
- During the opening cutscene the Player Character of Sunset Overdrive is casually gaming on his phone instead of cleaning up the concert, as is their job. What makes this interesting is that the game they're playing is... Sunset Overdrive.
- In XCOM: Enemy Unknown, you can hear Bradford complain about someone doing this in the Situation Room:
Bradford: Are you really using our tracking terminal to play Civilization?! I at least hope you're going for a Military Victory.
- "Can't You See I'm Busy!" was a website with games specifically designed to look at the first glance like normal Office programs, allowing one to play them without being detected (as long as nobody is looking at them too closely).
- The Amazing World of Gumball: In "The Signature", at the town hall where the Wattersons, Granny Jojo and Louie sort out their Relative Errors before Richard's dad Frankie would possess their house, they go through a long and tedious process of lampshadedly slow bureaucratic transactions. One transaction has them seeing an employee playing Solitaire and surfing through an expy of Facebook.
Nicole: We're here to get a marriage license!
Employee: Uh, uh, one minute. [clicks on his computer, Beat]
Nicole: Are you playing solitaire? [employee clicks again] I can hear you watching cat videos.
Gumball: [hears a 'ping'] What the?! That's the sound of ElmorePlus Messenger!
Employee: No, it's not. Hashtag... - The Hey Arnold! episode "Suspended" has a non-adult example. After Arnold and Harold get suspended from school, they go to the public library do some research on an appeal to the school's constitution. However, only Arnold does any actual research on his computer, as Harold is seen playing a Rampage-like game on his computer, until an unamused Arnold sees it and shuts the computer off.
- Mordecai and Rigby from Regular Show tend to slack off on a very frequent basis, much to the endless frustration of their boss Benson. This ranges from playing video games to getting distracted with other activities when they're supposed to do their jobs. Their professional procrastination tends to cause about half the conflicts in the show, which often leads them to go on crazy misadventures trying to fix the resulting problems.
