Showing face in the House of Lords to claim a £300 daily attendance fee was once so widespread that a peer was brazen enough to leave a taxi engine running outside the Houses of Parliament while he signed in. Minutes later, he was back in the car and on the road home. Similar tactics are now taking place in corporate Britain. As more and more bosses force staff back to their desks, employees are finding ways to bend the rules. Enter “coffee badging”. Equivalent to the politicians showing face for 10 minutes, it refers to the practice of conspicuously clocking in before sneakily leaving shortly after. The phrase refers to performatively grabbing a coffee near a manager to earn a “badge” before leaving. “People will go in for a meeting so that they’re seen to be there but then disappear straight afterwards regardless of the time,” notes one FTSE 100 boss, who is concerned about the increase in “performative behaviours” among staff. A third of UK workers who are able to work flexibly admit to “coffee badging”, according to a survey by tech company Owl Labs. Online forums and TikTok posts are abuzz with people discussing the new workplace trend....