How to keep a healthy level of insanity in the workplace

  • Page yourself over the intercom. (Don’t disguise your voice.)
  • Find out where your boss shops and buy exactly the same outfits.  Always wear them one day after your boss does.  (This is especially effective if your boss is a different gender.)
  • Make up nicknames for all your coworkers and refer to them only by these names.  “That’s a good point, Sparky.”  “No I’m sorry, I have to disagree with you there, Skippy.”
  • Send e-mail to the rest of the company telling them what you’re doing.  For example, “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the bathroom.”
  • “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.
  • Put a chair facing a printer, sit there all day and tell people you’re waiting for your document.
  • Arrive at a meeting late, say you’re sorry, but you didn’t have time for lunch, and you’re going to be nibbling during the meeting.  During the meeting eat 5 entire raw potatoes.
  • Insist that your e-mail address be: “ZenaGoddessOfFire@CompanyName.com”
  • Every time someone asks you to do something, ask, “Would you like fries with that.”
  • Send e-mail to yourself engaging yourself in an intelligent debate about the direction of one of your company’s products.  Forward the mail to a coworker and ask her to settle the disagreement.
  • Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair dancing.
  • Put your garbage can on your desk.  Label it, “IN”
  • Determine how many cups of coffee are, “too many.”
  • Develop an unnatural fear of staplers.
  • 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 off your snorkel and see how many fish 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.”
  • Put decaf in the coffeemaker for 3 weeks.  Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.