Employee Used Empty Potato Chip Bag as Faraday Cage to Get Out of Work

This guy deserves an award for the lengths he went to in order to avoid work. He created a Faraday cage to hide from his employers.

A Faraday cage is something that blocks electromagnetic fields, something that is common knowledge for an electrician like Tom Colella.

Earlier this month it was discovered by the Fair Work Comission in Australia that the 60-year-old had been ditching work and was getting paid for it. He hid his movements with an empty chip bag.

The foil-lined bag was used to carry Colella's PDA and acted as a Faraday cage. Once in the bag, the GPS signals from the PDA were effectively blocked and he was free to leave work.

"As an experienced electrician, Mr Colella knew that this bag would work as a [Faraday] cage, thereby preventing the PDA from working properly — especially the provision of regular GPS co-ordinate updates," Fair Work Commissioner Bernie Riordan said in his decision. "I note that Mr Colella's supervisors knew that he placed his PDA in the foil bag and that they should have known the effect that this action would have on the PDA device.

An anonymous note tipped off Colella's supervisors and revealed that he was sneaking off to golf during work hours. He was fired from his position and now works as a driver for Uber.

Read more at NPR.