Day O of the 2013 Blogging from A to Z April challenge. Today’s topic: office worker.
My writer’s biography starts out, “ED Martin is a writer with a knack for finding new jobs in new places.” Some of those jobs are ones I want, like teaching and research-based ones, and others are placeholders that give me a paycheck.
The problem with placeholder jobs is that they don’t require much from you. Type, file, no thought required. And I’m a thinker. When spending my days completing mindless tasks, I evaluate the computer system and come up with shortcuts that produce more meaningful information. I mentally add fields and procedures to enhance the product. But because often I’m just an over-educated automaton, no one wants to hear my ideas.
So I look for creative outlets. Like popping all the keys off my keyboard in the name of cleaning it (those things get nasty fast), but then rearranging the keys when I put them back on. And being amused when another data-entry person uses my computer and becomes all confused because she can’t type well enough to do it without looking.
Or plastering my workspace with origami fish, culminating in a “tank” that I earnestly reminded people to feed if I was going to be gone.
Or decorating Santa for the off-season (he didn’t last very long, unfortunately; supposedly a patient complained, although we suspect it was a fun-hating
But the best, by far, was Norman.
Norman was a life-sized turkey head we adopted from the cover of an old hunting magazine we found lying around a waiting room. He loved to travel around the office, jumping out at people when they least expected it.
Chris over at Plumbed Down shared some of his workplace antics, which are a lot more athletic than mine and definitely worth checking out if you want a good laugh.
What kind of I’m-bored-and-don’t-care-if-I-get-fired pranks have you played at your workplace?
Enjoyed your post and pranks. :) We had our boss’ extra keys to his car and decided to play a prank. One of his good friends moved his car to another parking space, and not just at work. When he went to lunch, and when he had a meeting. So this went on all day. Then another day his friend changed all his CDs in his car to another stack of CDs. Another day his friend just moved his seat really close to the steering wheel. We were just dying to ask him, but we kept silent. lol This went on for two weeks before he finally broke down and said something. It was too funny and luckily he thought so too.