Businesses and the military in China have taken to monitoring personnel’s brainwaves using something that’s being called “emotional surveillance technology.” While the technology cannot parse out specific thoughts, it can identify basic emotions, as well as pick up on if the employee is at risk of falling asleep. Wow — does anyone else feel very seen right now, but like in a really bad way?!

While there are currently no plans that we know of to bring this terrifying technology to North American workplaces and army bases, there are already numerous ways for employers to monitor their minions. You should be aware of these, and always have a plan in place to minimize how many bad things your employer can learn about you. Here are some tips on evading workplace surveillance.

Emotional Surveillance

This one is difficult because it monitors your brainwaves in order to determine your emotions. I’d recommend lying to yourself about how you feel, and also keeping a plan of how you will explain away the various emotions you have that are wrong. When the technology determines that you’re falling asleep at a meeting, for instance, simply explain to your superiors that you were up late last night working. When your brain waves indicate a deep sadness at what your life has become, simply tell your employer you’re sad because you wish you could work 24 hours a day and seven days a week. You’ll be CEO in no time!

Social Media Monitoring

The reasons people have been fired due to social media infractions are varied and often hilarious. One woman went viral on social media after giving the presidential motorcade the finger. And then there’s the man who got busted for leaving work because his house was on fire, but was later tagged in a photo of himself in a kiddie pool on social media.

Stories of social media gaffes that leave people involuntarily unemployed abound. But you don’t have to go viral in order to hurt your standing at work. Did you know that simply tweeting throughout the day on your unlocked Twitter account could imply to your employer that you are not doing one whit of actual work? And that even if you have all your profiles on lockdown, that coworker you courtesy friended could actually tell your boss about the posts (erm, post) where you call him a loud jerk?

A good rule of thumb is that you should assume that your employer and all potential employers can see everything you have ever posted on social media. And unless you’re comfortable with your CEO reading your hot take on how our government is all lizard people, maybe you should save those hot takes for when you’re drunk at a party.

And if the damage has already been done, just say you were hacked by the same guys who did Equifax. Handled!

Email and Chat Surveillance

Here’s a scary thought: your employer has access to every single email and chat log you produce. They can watch your screen at any time. This privilege is usually reserved for the all-powerful IT employee, but if HR suspects you of doing something bad, like using company time to advance your theories about powerful people in society actually being lizards, then they might use the privilege to check up on you.

Even scarier is that employee sentiment analysis technology is being developed, which means that your employer could figure out from your correspondence how much you hate your work and everything it stands for. Oh no!

So what can you do to protect yourself in this scenario?

Well if you’re part of an industry that retains its communications to fulfill regulatory requirements, the damage has already been done. You just have to pray that no one investigates you for the seven years it will take to delete that email from the vault that you sent about your boss having a booger sticking out of his nose for his entire presentation to the board. Pray so hard.

Otherwise, you can stop revealing your true feelings about your job, your colleagues, and the lizard government today, and never do so again. Your job security may depend on it.

Internet Presence Checks

When a firm is hiring, the first thing it will do with a prospective candidate who has passed a cursory resume scan is Google them. This shouldn’t be a surprise, but if conspiracy-theory.com is your primary source of news, it just might be. Don’t panic, but do remove your public profile from conspiracy-theory.com. Not because it will affect your chances of employment, but rather because I want you to. Thanks!

Cognizant of the fact that Google is a tool available to everyone, I recommend that you Google yourself every few months to ensure that your MySpace profile has been effectively dealt with, and that no new Reddit threads have been started about what an idiot you are. Oh sorry, that was me!

But seriously: delete any old accounts of yours that come up on search results, ensure that the inflammatory blog posts you write about lizard people running the world are written under a pseudonym (a piece of advice I would have been well advised to follow before publishing this particular post, but live and learn I guess), and try to limit the number of pictures you’re tagged in holding a margarita and wearing a sombrero, your glassy, dead eyes staring out at the desolate nothingness of the world. Employers frown upon this stuff.

And if the damage has been done, and you get asked about that weird post about lizard people in an interview, just say you were joking. But secretly also take that as confirmation that the people running the interview are lizard people too, and they fear discovery just as much as you fear what they may do to our world.

Hidden Video Cameras

Yeah so there’s no explaining away what the cameras captured. You need to begin looking for a new job ASAP, and be aware that most buildings have security cameras.

Bringing it all together

So as you can see, employers are developing new and terrifying ways to monitor employees. It’s important to note that one of the key driving factors behind this technology is the desire to retain top talent. Nobody is trying to spy on you or catch you, not even the lizard people.

And if you believed that, then I have this great beachfront property in Idaho I’d like to sell you!

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Written by: Kristen Pyszczyk