It doesn't have to be "doing nothing", just doing it a different way.

Before retiring, I used to carry my own tool kit in the work bag; since the office tools always moved from place to place and lot of time was wasted trying to locate this or that. I didn't have much patience for wasted time. So, when something went wrong, I temporarily shifted to a different task. Then during lunchtime, when everyone went to eat, I got the tools out, fixed the problem and restarted the task. Boss never cared about those details. He only wanted results. So, I got the job done without telling anyone that there was a problem and I used MY TOOLS to fix the problem. This way none of my stuff got borrowed or lost.