Office activities?

[Ultralight]

For those of you that are still cubicle monkeys or loan drones (like myself) what do you and/or your coworkers do to make the place more tolerable?

At my work we do a number of things:
-On breaks we put together huge jigsaw puzzles (up to 2,000 pieces ones)
-We have "Purple Shirt Thursday," which is a tradition I started because as a minimalist I have few shirts and always wear one on Thursday. Someone noticed this and said: "Is it purple shirt Thursday?" I said: "Yes!" Then others started doing it. Now every Thursday most people wear a purple shirt (or tie or pants).
-Cookie Monday: A colleague decided that once a season everyone should bring in cookies, preferably homemade. This is held on a Monday to bright the gloomiest of workdays. This has morphed into Pie Monday and Muffin Monday too. On the first Cookie Monday the originator of the ate 14 full size cookies!
-Goofy Shirt Happy Hour: A colleague came up with this idea and I organized it. We're going to have happy hour wearing our most outlandish shirts. For instance, a colleague has a bobblehead shirt where his head is the bobblehead. Another coworker has a heavy metal T-shirt where a devilish goat is playing guitar in hell. They will wear these shirts.
-Rubber band wars: We sling rubber bands at people, down hallways, and over cubicle walls
-Impromptu dancing: We listen to music while we work on a weekly group project. One coworker does the moon walk, another does the freaky-deek, I do the two-step, etc. It is total silly stuff.
-Thanksgiving: We have a potluck meal with our "work family."
-Coffee runs: Every day we'll walk to a nearby cafe so people can get coffee. This becomes a consistent way to learn about what people did the previous weekend or what they plan to do the upcoming weekend.
-Taste Tests: We bring in all sorts of foods (cricket energy bars, ice cremes, pumpkin rolls, exotic fruits, etc.) for taste tests


What do you all do? Any ideas you have? Any ideas you like?

[herbgeek]

Back when I went into an office, I used to have a weekly tea party for my staff with tea and treats in the software lab, complete with tablecloth and everything. For other meetings, sometimes it was food musical chairs- make just enough baked goods minus one so that the last person arriving to the meeting doesn't get one (this was with a chronically late staff, amazing how quickly this turned around). When I was in software testing, we had a set of flying bugs , kind of like oversized rubber bands that we'd shoot around (get it, testing/bugs???). We also had a big pool noodle that was put in the cube of anyone who broke the software build- it was so tall it drew attention. We dressed up for Halloween. Had Secret Santa at Christmas. We used to thematically decorate my peer manager's office when he was on vacation in politically incorrect ways (this was the late 90s). One year we did up his cube with Nascar posters, a gun rack, red flannel jacket and put his chair up on blocks. Another year we filled the cube completely with balloons and shrink wrapped the door.

[Ultralight]

Back when I went into an office, I used to have a weekly tea party for my staff with tea and treats in the software lab, complete with tablecloth and everything. For other meetings, sometimes it was food musical chairs- make just enough baked goods minus one so that the last person arriving to the meeting doesn't get one (this was with a chronically late staff, amazing how quickly this turned around). When I was in software testing, we had a set of flying bugs , kind of like oversized rubber bands that we'd shoot around (get it, testing/bugs???). We also had a big pool noodle that was put in the cube of anyone who broke the software build- it was so tall it drew attention. We dressed up for Halloween. Had Secret Santa at Christmas. We used to thematically decorate my peer manager's office when he was on vacation in politically incorrect ways (this was the late 90s). One year we did up his cube with Nascar posters, a gun rack, red flannel jacket and put his chair up on blocks. Another year we filled the cube completely with balloons and shrink wrapped the door.

Fun stuff! Great ideas. I especially like the idea of filling an office with balloons. haha

[Tammy]

Having time for all this amazes me!

I am one of 3 managers for a combined total of about 450 direct reports. We managed to have a bosses day lunch together this week. But most of the time we divide and conquer, representing each other at meetings cause we are double and triple booked on s daily basis.

But the camaraderie gained by the ideas in this thread is awesome. Keep it up!

[ApatheticNoMore]

Having time for all this amazes me!

I doubt most of this takes much work time (although if you are making cookies or something that certainly takes non-work time), and coffee is provided where I work - so that noone has any excuse to leave, and I've seldom worked anywhere with group projects. But yea under a reign of terror with time (and everything else at my job), so I mostly just work (uh it's salaried work no breaks are required), and can't really function in the last hour or so anyway because I'm entirely burned out. I don't even test my work as I've realized that seems mostly unwanted and considered as wasting time, so unless I can somehow sneak testing in to a little spare time (and I've done this - heck I've probably given up lunch breaks) I let it go. Because considering I get accused of doing nothing, when there is no basis of truth to it, but I have come to see truth matters as little there as in the Trump white house ...

People do the usual stuff they socialize and go out, but considering I am under particularly strict management and don't want to weigh 200 pounds which is what I figure going out to lunch would lead to (so I exaggerate some as I don't weight anywhere near that but ..), I save my restaurant meals for some of the times with my bf (I do get tired of cooking for others etc.) and try to limit them ... I just work, that is all, I eat the salad I made for lunch daily.

[herbgeek]

Having time for all this amazes me!
Most of this was in the 90's, early 00's. Ain't nobody got time for shenanigans now.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Most of this was in the 90's, early 00's. Ain't nobody got time for shenanigans now.

there does seem to have been a real shift since 2008, in the sheer brutality of the work experience. Me and my bf have both seen it. I just hope everywhere isn't as bad.

[Zoe Girl]

there does seem to have been a real shift since 2008, in the sheer brutality of the work experience. Me and my bf have both seen it. I just hope everywhere isn't as bad.

I agree, and I have shared that often. Feels more like office space and you keep on passing the cake and never get a piece.

I play with children professionally so I don't see my peers that often (we each have different schools). When we go to the main office for meetings mostly we just want to get things done but sometimes there is fun stuff. The year for the new Star Wars movies we had some trivia contests and events.

[Chicken lady]

Let’s see, Thursday was pizza lunch, Friday I brought the chicks in with me, yesterday was Hawaiian day, today was the 80’s and donuts for jennifer’s Birthday, tomorrow is mismatch day, and Friday is Green day (which cracks me up because I read it as the band). The friendly frog monster has been roaming the halls, and someone set up a giant marble works in the lobby.

but I play with children professionally too.

oh! I almost forgot the snowman insurrection, but that’s just between me and the kids.

[Simplemind]

We were never allowed to make it more tolerable in any way. There were no windows and it had more mismatched office furniture than not. We were not allowed to decorate and with the exception of supervisors nobody had their own desk and had to switch positions every four hours so there was no personal items on desks that didn't move with you. Drab and boring and soul sucking for my inner creative self.
We did potlucks on occasion but food was mostly eaten at the desks which was frowned upon. So another shift supervisor and I would either treat our shift for pizza before the shift started or I would have them over for a brunch. It was best to spend time together outside of the office environment. Then the shifts who didn't get taken out got ticked off about it. Sigh................... no good deed went unpunished.

[Yossarian]

https://youtu.be/8p8Ni1sXBLk

[Tammy]

Office Space is my all time favorite movie. I think I've seen it a dozen times.

[ApatheticNoMore]

really psychological survival in the day to day is more the priority, but maybe if my biggest problem was boredom then having fun could be a priority (which sounds like a nice problem to have, however I know boring jobs are often dead-end jobs and that just leads to being an unemployed person noone wants to interview in the long run, so I get out of those situations - bad for the resume know what I mean?).

Oh my answers on a days off work is I forget work to a remarkable degree (not 100% as I'm permanently always on-call and so literally have to check daily what's going on at work, whether it's a work day or not, every single day, but ... other than that I forget about work to a degree that's almost bad for me even though it does increase my happiness at the time - but I probably learned it long ago as a coping technique - it is not afterall the first time I've been in this type of work situation, though I thought last time was the last time).

[Yppej]

Lots of people chitchat or look at social media on their smartphones especially before the boss is in, while he's at lunch, or when he's on the phone.

The company sponsors certain things some of which benefit them. For instance if you want to wear jeans on a particular Friday you have to donate $5 to breast cancer research and also wear pink. The company gets a PR benefit by bragging about how much they donated to the cause, when it's the employees' money. And if you don't participate you are thought less of.

[Lainey]

It's been a while, but here's a few we did:
- baby photo contest. We each brought in a photo of ourselves as babies, and gave them to the admin across the hall. She was the only one who knew whose was whose. She numbered them and posted them on the board, and everyone had to guess to match up the photo with the co-worker. Pretty funny.
- penny icebreaker. We had a dish of pennies and each co-worker picked one. Then we went around the room and they had to say what they were doing in the year that was on the date of the penny.
- one co-worker had a 6-week assignment in Canada. When it was over he returned to find his office decorated in Canadian-friendly theme: Large photos of Canadian Mounties, maple-flavored candy, the Canadian anthem on his office door, fake maple leaves scattered about, etc.
- some departments have a friendly competition on weight loss. They had teams of 3 and had creative names for their teams. The company nurse kept track so weigh-ins were private and only the final total of team weight loss was known.
- we had a shelf of mostly fiction paperbacks that was a take one/leave one. I know some workplaces have a "free" table where people bring in small items for others, like maybe a lotion they were gifted and didn't like, a bag of coffee when they are non-coffee drinkers. Easy to share and also declutter your own stuff.
- several co-workers used to do some epic summer vacations, like motorcycle trips in South America or wilderness trekking in Alaska. They would pick a lunchtime on everyone's calendar in the fall and we'd see their photos and hear some funny and interesting stories.
- Oscar predictions. Try to correctly predict the Oscar winners. (a friend won this 3 years in a row - she's an Oscar savant..)

[Ultralight]

It's been a while, but here's a few we did:
- baby photo contest. We each brought in a photo of ourselves as babies, and gave them to the admin across the hall. She was the only one who knew whose was whose. She numbered them and posted them on the board, and everyone had to guess to match up the photo with the co-worker. Pretty funny.
- penny icebreaker. We had a dish of pennies and each co-worker picked one. Then we went around the room and they had to say what they were doing in the year that was on the date of the penny.


We have done the baby photo one! Many laughs!

The penny one, I like!

At my work we also created a Kudos Wall where there are pics of us and people attached congrats or words of encouragement to each other. The wall itself was named after two colleagues who everyone likes and admires. Mike and Michael's Wall of Pure Business. haha

We also have nicknames. Most people have nicknames. For instance, mine is "Jaggy" (because my middle name is Jaguar). Other nicknames of coworkers are:
"RayMar"
"The James"
"J-Mack"
"Bad & Boujee"
"Weave Zees"
"Pure Business Machine"
"Deer Doe"
"Dee Jay Millah"

To name a few...

[LDAHL]

We have a betting pool to wager on each year's winning bid rate for our bond issue.

Our budget season opens with a little skit put on by the budget analysts.

I compose and deliver a poem for the retirement party for my staff members. They have titles like "Hard Close", "Defined Benefit", "Moral Hazard" and "Due Diligence."

Assigning nicknames here might get you in trouble with HR.

[iris lilies]

We have a betting pool to wager on each year's winning bid rate for our bond issue.

Our budget season opens with a little skit put on by the budget analysts.

I compose and deliver a poem for the retirement party for my staff members. They have titles like "Hard Close", "Defined Benefit", "Moral Hazard" and "Due Diligence."

Assigning nicknames here might get you in trouble with HR.

I'll bet those poems are hilarious!

I immediately had the same thought about "nicknames." As a manager I wouldn't support that, that could turn sideways pretty quickly.

[LDAHL]

I immediately had the same thought about "nicknames." As a manager I wouldn't support that, that could turn sideways pretty quickly.

It's amazing how quickly skilled professionals can turn "all in good fun" into "a hostile work environment". Not worth the risk.

[Lainey]

We also had our annual end-of-the-year potluck. A simple lunchtime get-together for a dozen of us in the conference room, usually the first Friday in December. We'd ask everyone to have ready a favorite movie clip, Youtube video or silly URL (all SFW naturally). Then someone would bring in their laptop and as we ate we got to watch anything from comedy skits (see Brian Regan's "I Walked on the Moon") to sections of movies like "My Cousin Vinny" to sites like badlipreading.com Pretty funny, looked forward to it every year.

I think these efforts to socialize in the office, if they're kept light and informal, can pay off. Since it's a setting that workers have to be M-F for most of their waking hours, then it makes things more pleasant all the way around by connecting as human beings and not just fellow cogs in the machine.

[befree]

Amen, Lainey! We spend 1/3 of our time at work, so let's make it as enjoyable as possible! I'm a supervisor, and I try to think of a little fun as frequently as I can. I signed up for a website called "Days of the Year" that tells me each week if it's "Ice Cream Sandwich Day" (guess what I brought for the office), or "No Pants Day" (I wore a dress), or just letting people know it's "Evaluate Your Life Day." I decorate and bring a CD of New Orleans jazz, and a king cake, and beads, for Mardi Gras every year. Sometimes I suprise my co-workers with a $5.00 bouquet from the grocery store. Sometimes I just tell them a season-appropriate joke. (What do you call a witch who goes to the beach for vacation? A sand-witch) Our jobs are very stressful, and I like to lighten the angst and let people know they're appreciated!