Face-Lift
Disguising Facebook as a Spreadsheet

Last month you nearly canceled your subscription to Spreadsheet Quarterly.

Just kidding, it doesn’t exist.

But if it did, this would be the mother of all cover stories.

Say hello (in your most hushed indoor voice) to HardlyWork.in, a cleverly named covert application that disguises your Facebook wall as a legitimate-looking Excel spreadsheet, online now.

In a way, this is sort of like sticking a pair of those Groucho Marx fake-nose-and-mustache glasses on your computer screen. Only, you know, a little less obvious. And a little less adorable.

Here’s the deal: a Yale undergrad double majoring in computer science and minding-your-own-business developed a program that populates a perfectly normal spreadsheet with your real-time Facebook news feed. So while it may appear that you’re diligently analyzing the heck out of some analysis, you’re actually reading friend comments and poring over thumbnails of tagged photos from your recent trip to the Faroe Islands. That one of you with the breaching whale: profile picture material.

Of course, if a nosy HR cop starts sticking their snout where it doesn’t belong (like, over your shoulder), a tap of the space bar, aka “Boss Key,” will immediately encrypt the entire spreadsheet with a bunch of important-looking numbers.

And if that fails, we’d suggest a swiftly applied sleeper hold.