Coffee Badging
Etymology
A recent coinage that spread in 2023, popularized by a widely cited Owl Labs workplace survey. The "badge" is the office access card swiped on arrival; the joke is that the whole visit exists to register that swipe. It names a small act of malicious compliance produced by the tug-of-war over hybrid work.
noun · /KAW-fee BAJ-ing/
Showing up at the office just long enough to be seen — badge in, grab a coffee, chat — then leaving to do the actual work from home.
What it names
A crisp name for how employees game return-to-office mandates: satisfying the letter of "be present" while quietly rejecting its spirit.
Example
Half the team is just coffee badging on Tuesdays — in by ten, gone by eleven, back on Slack from the couch.
Related idea
It is productivity theater aimed at attendance metrics rather than busyness: the performance is being counted as present, not looking hard at work.