The constant whipping at my office generally just keeps me from working on potential backlog items. I have been told too many times to not do extra work beyond

The constant whipping at my office generally just keeps me from working on potential backlog items. I have been told too many times to not do extra work beyond the minimum required effort, to do anything other than finish my explicitly assigned tasks and then goof off. I think the danger is that if I get deep into refactoring the nightmare module that no one wants to touch, I might be tempted to waste time getting to a sane stopping point before switching to whatever "change the font of this GUI label to be Comic Sans, bold" task I might be assigned next. If I could work remotely, and weren't specifically barred from having other employers by company policy, I could probably work 2 other full time jobs just like this one, and still have time for HN.