Haha I remember hitting the boss key in Leisure Suit Larry 1, I think it showed a fake productivity graph or spreadsheet or something. Surely no one actually used that to pretend to be working!

I think the two things are different. "Boss mode" is a quick cover to hide something you're doing (e.g. hit F9 to replace a game screen with a black screen with a command line), but this is a complete replacement UI for doing the actual activity while appearing to be working.

In an organization as flat as mine, Cover UI works really well actually. Not sure who my Boss would be...