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Workplace Monotony?
bcorrigan78 asks: "I love programming, however I work in a network operations center with very few co-workers where the air conditioners can just about put you to sleep. Besides music, what do all of you programmers do to avoid workplace monotony?"
I see you've picked up on one of them... post here!
I touch computers in naughty places
Hard industrial music, lots and lots of black coffee and cigarettes.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
Try to work arround your company firewall... its MS stuff and its fun to see how our IT thinks some things can't be done.
Half a bottle of good Scotch every morning before work is your solution of routine. You won't get much work done and you might even get fired, loose your family, and sell your car and house to buy alcohol, but hey!, no routine there!
nonono - do not leave your cube! Disaster will strike if you leave your cube! Under no circumstances are you to abandon your cube!
Create little homemade darts using just office supplies and see how many I can get to stick in the ceiling.
1. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.
2. Send e-mail to the rest of the company telling them exactly what you're doing. For example: "If anyone needs me, I'll be in the bathroom."
3. Every time someone asks you to do something, anything, ask them if they want fries with that.
4. Put your trash can on your desk. Label it "IN."
5. Make up nicknames for all your coworkers and refer to them only by these names. "That's a good point, Spike." "No, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you there, Sparky."
6. High-light your shoes. Tell people you haven't lost them as much since you did this.
7. While sitting at your desk, soak your fingers in Palmolive liquid. Call everyone Madge.
8. Hang mosquito netting around your cubicle. When you emerge to get coffee or a printout or whatever, slap yourself randomly the whole way.
9. Put a chair facing a printer. Sit there all day and tell people you're waiting for your document.
10. Send e-mail back and forth to yourself engaging yourself in an intellectual debate. Forward the mail to a co-worker and ask her to settle the disagreement.
11. Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair-dancing.
12. Feign an unnatural and hysterical fear of staplers.
13. Send e-mail messages saying there's free pizza or donuts or cake in the lunchroom. When people drift back to work complaining that they found none, lean back, pat your stomach and say, "Oh, you've got to be faster than that."
14. Put decaf in the coffeemaker for three weeks. Once everyone has withdrawn from caffeine addiction, switch to espresso.
15. Find out where your boss shops and buy exactly the same outfits. Wear them one day after you boss does. (This is especially effective if your boss is of a different gender than you.)
Run one lap around the office at top speed.
Groan out loud in the toilet cubicle (at least one other) 'non-player' must be in the toilet at the time).
Ignore the first five people who say 'good morning' to you.
Phone someone in the office you barely know, leave your name and say "Just called to say I can't talk right now. Bye".
To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your ears and grimace.
When someone hands you a piece of paper, finger it, and whisper huskily,"Mmmmmmm, that feels soooooo good!".
Leave your fly unzipped for one hour. If anyone points it out, > say,"Sorry,I really prefer it this way".
Walk sideways to the photocopier.
While riding in the lift, gasp dramatically every time the doors open.
Say to your boss, "I like your style" and shoot him with double-barreled fingers.
Babble incoherently at a fellow employee then ask "Did you get all that,I don't want to have to repeat it".
Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle (there must be a 'non-player' within sight).
Shout random numbers while someone is counting.
At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to conclude with the singing of the national anthem (extra points) if you actually launch into it yourself).
Walk into a very busy person's office and while they watch you with growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off 10 times.
For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as "Bob".
Announce to everyone in a meeting that you "really have to go do a number two".
After every sentence, say 'mon' in a really bad Jamaican accent. > As in "the report's on your desk, mon". Keep this up for one hour.
While an office mate is out, move their chair into the lift.
In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and mutter, "Shut up, damn it, all of you just shut up!".
At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again".
In a colleagues diary, write in 10am: "See how I look in > tights".
Carry your keyboard over to your colleague and ask "You wanna trade?"
Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person:"Do you hear that?" "What?""Never mind, it's gone now".
Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say, "I can't talk about it".
Posing as a maitre d', call a colleague and tell him he's won a lunch for four at a local restaurant. Let him go.
Speak with an accent (French, German, Porky Pig, etc) during a very important conference call.
Find the vacuum and start vacuuming around your desk.
Hang a two-foot long piece of toilet roll from the back of your pants and act genuinely surprised when someone points it out.
I think there is a joke here about being on your knees and juggling balls, but damned if I can find it...
Chop
Suggest that beer be put in the soda machine.
Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair dancing.
Determine how many cups of coffee is "too many."
Develop an unnatural fear of staplers.
For a relaxing break, get away from it all with a mask and snorkel in the fish tank. If no one notices, take out your snorkel and see how many you can catch in your mouth.
Send e-mail messages saying free pizza, free donuts etc... in the lunchroom, when people complain that there was none... Just lean back, pat your stomach,and say, "Oh you've got to be faster than that."
Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark 17 inch paper, 99 copies.
In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sexual favors."
If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.
When driving colleagues around insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions "to keep 'em tuned up."
Reply to everything someone says with "that's what YOU think."
Practice making fax and modem noises.
Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and "cc" them to your boss.
Finish all your sentences with the words "in accordance with prophesy."
Disassemble your pen and "accidentally" flip the ink cartridge across theroom.
Adjust the tint on your monitor so that the brightness level lights up the entire working area, and insist to others that you "like it that way."
Staple papers in the middle of the page.
Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a croaking noise.
TYPE ONLY IN UPPERCASE.
type only in lowercase.
Dont use any punctuation either
Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute the company staff as they arrive in the morning to a nearby competitor's carpark.
As much as possible, skip rather than walk.
Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin.
When nearly done, announce "no, wait, I messed it up," and repeat.
Ask people what gender they are.
While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.
Sit in your car in the carpark at lunch time pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
Ask your co-workers mysterious questions and then scribble their answers in a notebook. Mutter something about "psychological profiles"
"Hi-lite" your shoes. Tell people that you haven't lost your shoes since you did this.
While sitting at your desk, soak your fingers in "Palmolive".
Put up mosquito netting around your cubicle.
Arrive at a meeting late, say you're sorry, but you didn't have time for lunch, so you're going to be nibbling during the meeting.
During the meeting eat five entire raw potatoes.
Insist that your e-mail address be "zena_goddess_of_fire@companyname.com"
Decorate your office with pictures of Cindy Brady and Danny Partridge. Try to pass them off as your children.
For a relaxing break, get away from it all with a mask and snorkel in the fish tank. If no one notices, take out your snorkel and see how many you can catch in your mouth.
(And rather large, I might add.)
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
i'll be getting my coat then... adios
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