I'm reminded of Rodney Rothman's My Fake Job (New Yorker, November 2000), a "personal history about the writer's tenure at an unnamed downtown Internet company where he did not actually have a job":

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2000/11/27/2000_11_27_120_T...

* Reporter's fake job irks real dot-com: http://articles.cnn.com/2000-12-05/tech/reporter.irks.dot.co...