I don't like to brag about my many, magnificent accomplishments in the field of workplace studies, but I do believe a Nobel Prize is appropriate for my insights into what has become a major trend in business today -- the big boom in looking busy.

Note to the Nobel committee: I said, "Looking busy." In our down economy, few people out there are "really busy," unless they work in human resources, and can fill their days by stuffing pay envelopes with pink slips. For the rest of us, our work flow is drying up, turning our once-crowded workdays into desolate desert landscapes with nothing to see, or do, in the vast open spaces between coming in late and sneaking out early.

In such arid workplace conditions, the basic genetic instinct for survival triggers the basic genetic instinct to look busy. "I know we've discussed firing Frobisher," is what you want your manager to conclude, "but she must be doing something valuable, because she's so darn busy all the time."

Given the low level of mental acuity in management, fooling the boss into thinking you've got work to do shouldn't take a lot of work. After all, they did buy the story of your latest sales triumph, even when you explained you had taken payment in magic beans.

Still, even the best of bad workers can learn some new tricks. This explains why I was so delighted to see a Page One article in the SundayStyles section of "The New York Times" dedicated to the subject of Working Hard To Look Busy.

"Looking busy when you're not in order to fool the boss can be something of an art form," writes reporter Jan Hoffman. "But now, when business is very slow, and the possibility of layoffs, icily real, looking busy is no joke."

The need to look busy when you're not is a real disadvantage to your co-workers, who have been occupied in years previous with being highly productive. This presents a big opportunity to people like thee and me, who have spent the boom times busily avoiding work, and are now ready to leverage our highly developed slacker abilities.

Consider Hoffman's report of the big-time lawyer who put an oscillating fan next to his desk to trick the motion detector in the office lighting system to believe that a sentient being was moving around in his cube, burning the midnight oil. From Day One, we've been trying to convince management that there was a life force in our cubicles during the daytime hours. Forget the fan. Running a chinchilla farm in your file cabinet not only keeps the lights on but it provides extra income at holiday time.

And what about the genius at a New York advertising agency who discovered that if he turned his computer monitor away from the doorway, no one could see that all the pounding on his computer keyboard did not represent hard work, but hard times. The reason for the "furrowed brow and the studious squint" was not job-related, Hoffman reveals, but reflected the pressure of keeping up with frenetic bidding on eBay.

I am willing to give props to anyone who is trying to look busy by buying and selling Star Wars action figures online, but as a highly evolved Cyberloafer, you know the most effective way to spend your online auction time is by selling your company's office furniture. That way, when the business goes bankrupt, you've already cashed in.

According to the article, most workers who feel they are in job jeopardy resort to the basics -- they try to look busy by doing busywork. Like archeologists exploring a tomb, they slowly study old files, revive old contacts, review and revise ancient memos. As a result, they not only look busy, which is good, but they clean up their desks, which is an employment death sentence. As one misguided worker put it, "I have a clear desk blotter. It's completely neat."

Except, of course, for the letter of separation that is sure to show up the minute her boss has visual proof that she has no work to do. That's why I'm sure my new business idea is not only going to save my job, but make me a fortune! I'm going to be constantly working, night and day, selling overstuffed, generic work files online. They'll be available in tattered file folders, complete with coffee stains. Just scatter these bad boys across your desktop and, trust me, you'll have a job for life!