un-mute.com

Since Robert Goulet only comes after 3:00pm…It’s imperative that we find ways to enjoy the work experience. These are helpful hints for the working class stiff. **Disclaimer - I recommend either being a valued employee or just not giving a damn about your job before you attempt any of this. A combination of both is great.**

1) Random laughter - At various times during the day I just burst out laughing and I don’t tell anyone why. I have been known to do this in 5 min. bursts. It doesn’t help that I sound like a cross between The Count and The Joker. When people get annoyed…I laugh louder.

2) Throw things - This is a random thing. Ex: I’m walking through the office and someone is writing something, I grab the pen from their hand and toss it across the room. I also do this with papers that people are reading, basically anything that won’t break. If they are looking at something on the table I push it into the floor.

3) Blasting music - Sometimes this won’t work cause people may like your music. I recommend playing things like: Tom Jones - She’s a Lady, Skid Row from the Little Shop of Horrors soundtrack, or Robert Newman’s -Short People (got no reason to live). If your office hates rock…Ironman by Black Sabbath. I also like to play Comedy C.D.s.

4) Make light of your co-workers flaws - One of my co-workers is on a diet so everytime I’m going out and she asks me to grab her a cookie or something I crack on her about her addiction to sweets. “Yo, yo just let me get one choclate chip…it be calling me son.” This will vary with each co-worker but the more they hate their flaw the more fun you can have with it.

5) Inter-office prank calls - I love to find something about a co-worker then call from a different extension in my best white man voice and act like I’m talking business about it (student loans, any type of debt is great). Even better is to have someone call from outside of the office and harrass someone. A good one was my boss having her friend call (as a miscellaneous woman) and say she had been checking me out. The problem was instead of being embarrassed I suggested we go have lunch. It would have been good, if I had been shook.

6) Computer Backrounds - There is nothing worse than getting up to do something and coming back to your computer and the backround is changed to something like this. Know the limit…I, however, go to the abyss - Darkness!!!!!

7) Offensive Screensaver - I prefer the saver in windows that lets you type in text and then choose how fast to make it spin. People see it and have to find out what it says. Too bad for them mine reads, “Read me loser”. It’s one of those things were you shouldn’t have been bothering with it anyway so you feel stupid when you get insulted by it.

8)Where am I? - We have on of those boards with each staff members name on it and a magnet you can slide to an In or Out Column. I like to leave mine in the middle and in the comments section I wrote, “Physically here, mentally….”.

9) Rubber bands - This is too easy. I had my boss order me a bag of rubber bands in a Staples order. Every now and again one of them mysteriously flies across the room and hits someone. I insist that it’s an equipment malfunction.

10) Creative use of soundfiles - This depends on your circumstance and ability to acquire sound files. For example: One day a co-worker found cause to wear a totally pink out fit. For the rest of the day when she walked into or past my office the theme from the “Pink Panther” cartoon started playing. A client wore some plaid pants that looked like a picnic table cloth and was introduced into the room by “The Teddy Bears Picnic”.