When a buddy covers for a friend by arranging a workspace (office or cube) to give the appearancethe friend is in the office but just away from their desk.
Bridget was running late, luckily Ben was used to staging her office so it looked like she was there and did so quickly.
The practice of covering your desk with papers, completed work, and other important-looking papers to give the appearance that you are really busy when really you're surfing the net, watching YouTube vids and doing other non-work things.
"My realtor taught me this trick of staging my house for sale so I tried it at work, I started desk staging so it looked like I was too busy to take on another task and voila, my boss bought it!"