I can just imagine the followup to this comic: Two beat panels of Wally sitting in the middle of his office staring at nothing. The last strip, PHB pokes his head in and asks Wally if he's working, to which Wally reminds him, "Planning, remember?"
But that would just be ruining the joke. Hilarious strip.
And we all thought only the management could come up illogical sounding options. Wally should take up a part time job as a visiting professor for management studies at Stanford or Harvard. The way those grads have played on Wall Street, it is better that they learn tricks of avoiding work rather than actually doing it!
@tessla, it worked for me. Staring into space with a vacant expression on my face meant I was thinking and ought not to be disturbed. If my eyes were closed, it meant I was thinking really deeply. A variant on this was when I was hunched over, staring at the VDU and muttering to myself whilst occasionally battering a few keys. This meant I was really, really busy doing something vitally important and on no account must I be disturbed. That one never failed.