Office Bingo

I've started scheduling random meetings and marking them as private in my calendar. I have invited four or five fellow co-sufferers who are on the same floor as me and together we play Office Bingo.

To play office bingo you create your wordset (synergy, proactive, compliance, etc...), and then create a bingo board that looks like either a schedule or something similar (so it's not quite as obvious that you're just playing bingo) and then listen to the conversations around you.

With the obnoxious jackasses in the next aisle over, this is a charm for me - especially compared to people across the floor from me. The real trick is announcing you  have bingo (easier to do if the Office Bingo 'meeting' includes a conference call) without informing the floor you're not doing any work.

Aggressive Office Toy of the Week:  Magnetic Accelerator Cannon

Scavenging - It's A Lifestyle

I was doing the low-level work for my boss the other day (rhymes-with-witch work), when I unearthed a hidden gem. I was scheduling a meeting for a large group when I saw a note in the reservation system that conference rooms must be occupied for meetings or the organizing group would be charged. This means if someone in my company schedules a meeting over lunch, they mean it.

It took a moment for me to realize that these meetings were important, and would therefore most likely include food. So I tested my new theory out. I saw that there was a meeting two floors down from me - a floor that is loosely related in group - I'm not a stranger down there, and I could most likely BS my way into/out of the meeting if I really needed to.

I staked out the hallway by pretending I was on the phone with someone, and as soon as the meeting ended I slipped in a space, claiming I had left my notebook in there. It was as if I had entered the Nirvana of the cheap-meeting-food world. There were sandwiches, bags of chips, soda, and even sides! I walked over to "my chair" first and snaggled a few abandoned sheets of paper from the middle of the desk, and as I walked back out I "noticed" the food.

"Well, can't let it go to waste. Did you send the word out yet?" I asked the guy at the door. He shook his head.

"Nah, we're letting meeting participants fill up first." I nodded

"Wise man!" I picked up a sandwich and soda and moved as if to leave. He turned, and spun back around, sticking another sandwich, and three bags of chips  on the paper, while squirreling two sodas away in each pocket. I stepped out the door sideways while kicking the trashcan. He looked back inside, and I moseyed on over to the elevators.

I now have my daily lunch procedure down.

Plain-old aggressive office toy of the week:  Annoy-a-tron (because it's funny if it's not on your floor)