When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: ‘Whose?’
Don Marquis (1878 - 1937)

Once again I come to save the cubicle dwelling freaks. Those who are dying slow deaths under the buzzing of flourescent lights and waiting for a crappy cup of coffee to help their day move on a little quicker. The folks for whom having a window would be a step up. The ones who live for five o’clock. For the uninitiated check the past installments 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Now for today’s fun.

1) Running an Errand.
Running errands can be an office workers best friend. It not only gets you out of the office, but if you work the situation you can stay out and do things for yourself. The best things are errands that are not immediate. This means there is a chance to stack things you need to do. Check the location of your errands to see what’s close by that you would like to do. Then run your errands at a time that means you’ll be off when you’re done. For instance. I have 3 errands that will take 2 or more hours. One is downtown. I do the first two at 2:00, then the one that takes me downtown. Then I go to Barnes & Noble, buy a venti mocha and read whatever book looks interesting…I leave at around 4:30 and head home. On the way home I say I’m finishing whichever errand was the furthest and since we’d be off by the time I get back I’m going home…see you tomorrow.

2) Chair Kicking
This one is more simple, but it requires the right equipment. I’ll just explain my set up. We have an intern in the office and two of the chairs she sits in have wheels. I walk up prop my foot on the arm and push. I do this whenever she is sitting down. Sometimes I pull her chair out just so it will move further when I do kick it.

3) Hideaway
I take and hide things from people. Pens, sodas, whatever is handy. In a meeting it’s usually pens. As soon as the person isn’t looking I put their pen on the other side of the table. If they get it back without knowing I moved it I keep doing it, just putting it in different spots. I also do it with sodas…the things is you to move something that will be looked for almost as soon as you move it. It’s more fun when the people really don’t notice it’s gone. You also have to put it in plain sight…just in a place it shouldn’t be.

4) Accent
Sometimes when I have to talk to a supervisor I like to use english slang that they won’t understand…or that at least will confuse them for a minute. Boss: “Amadeo how do I blahzay blah!”, Me: “Keep your Alan Whickers on, get a referral form, fill it out, have blank sign the authorization, call downtown, ask for Jones, get his info send it to him, wait for his confirmation and Bob’s your uncle.” The first phrase threw them off, the directions made them relax and then the last phrase created more confusion. If they ask me to repeat it my response is, “Bugger me.”

5) Calendar
This more fun when you have vacations coming. I like to write things of consequence only to me on other peoples calendars. Like I’ll write a countdown of days til’ my birthday. For example: I’ll start a month before my birthday and every day after put, “_____ days until the greatest day in the world.” I do the same thing for vacations. Sometime I also put things like: Amadeo will be out of the office at 12:00 - going crazy, may not return.

6) Sing a song
Since I am under a new oppressive regime and can’t do all that I used to I’ve had to come up with new material. For instance I sing. Not just any song, but something long that’s likely to annoy people. Last week I sang “The Song that Never Ends” Not familar…here are the lyrics:
This is the song that never ennnnnnnnnnnnnnds.
It goes on and on my friennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd.
Some people started singing it not knowing what it was.
They’ll continue singing it simply just because…
Repeat (until someone loses sanity).

There are two goals here one to annoy, two to see if you can get it stuck in someone elses head. I also recommend Muppets songs and things of that nature.