When you have a 9-to-5, sometimes it feels like you have no power and are simply a tiny cog in the big capitalist machine. But there are little things you can do to take some of the power back that can help you feel less like a robot and more like a human being—it's basically what The Office characters do best. Just be careful that your office rebellions don't cross the line into a fireable offense (and if they do, don't get caught!).
Someone asked desk workers of Reddit: "what are the ways in which you secretly rebel against the man?" These 27 office workers share the rebellious behaviors that would make Jim and Pam proud:
1.) From ass_burgers_:
I stick it to the man by wasting time at work (like everybody else). So when I'm not browsing Reddit, I do the following:
There's this sales guy that works in a cubicle near mine. He has a Rubik's Cube on his desk that he is always messing around with on conference calls, but he can never solve it or even get close. It always gets him super frustrated. He hasn't learned that it's pretty much impossible to solve them just by playing around with it.
Anyway, I'm no competitive cuber but I can solve them in about 2-3 minutes. So for the last few weeks, I've been solving the cube before he gets into work in the morning. It kind of freaked him out the first time it happened, and he started asking people around who did it. I denied it, of course, and he kind of shrugged it off. But it slowly has started to drive him crazy. Every single morning, he comes in and the cube is exactly where he left it, but it has been solved.
He has started telling people around him that he thinks there's a "Good Will Hunting"-like janitor that keeps solving his cube. He's fascinated by it. One time he actually left his laptop at work overnight with the webcam on, pointed at the cube with the "motion capture" setting. Of course I knew this because he told me he was doing it, so I covered the camera right after he left for the day. Another time he brought in an extra cube to see if they would both be solved (they were). I think he is slowly losing his mind.
2.) From JustAnotherConMan:
Every morning when I arrive at my desk, I pull out a stack of papers from my drawer that are old and useless and I scatter them around. Whenever bossman comes around I hide my internet browser, which usually has something not work-related on it, pick up the papers and "organize" them or pretend to read them. At the end of day I put them back into my drawer to be retrieved the next day.
I'm considered one of the top performers in my group so I'm not really sure what my coworkers are doing.
3.) From AlexanderGQ:
Got my offfice in on doing "Pushups on the hour". We all get together and do 25 pushups. The whole process takes about 5 minutes, because people like to BS. They think I'm helping them focuse on their health, I'm focused on getting away from my desk as much as possible.
4.) From toxik0n:
I drink lots of water so I can get up every hour to go stretch my legs and pee. The healthiest form of rebellion!
5.) From onichris:
I'm only allowed to have 2 personal items at my desk, but I actually have 3!
6.) From [deleted]:
I wear dinosaur T-shirts to work when I'm alone in the shift. We're supposed to look professional all the time, but that doesn't matter when I'm at the office and not visiting customers...
7.) From crystalfrostfire:
I ride my bike to work, I work for an oil company.
8.) From postoasties:
My boss is very anal about how staplers and other such office materials are arranged and is very adamant about keeping them in order. For the longest time, I've been secretly nudging one of the staplers out of place just the tiniest bit randomly throughout the week just so I can witness the horror and discomfort in his eyes when he walks by the stapler and can't help but fix it.
9.) From [deleted]:
I spend all day teaching myself new skills, then find a task to apply them for so I can say I did X Y and Z at my job then apply for a higer paying job.
10.) From throwaway890899:
When writing emails, spelling out SUCK IT, F*CK OFF etc with the first letter of each sentence.
ETA: The last one was along these lines:
Sorry for the delay. Usually we’d have got this back to you sooner but we have been lacking junior staff recently. Client has already agreed to the previous fee quote, please the attached email to confirm. Kindly also find attached the TPS report as requested. I have cc’d the manager (Benjamin Dover) and the senior manager (Phillip McCracken) as requested, because of all the usual corporate bollocks.
Thanks and kind regards.
Fellow Hapless Drone
11.) From rockerchu:
Most of my job involves removing staples from documents I later scan in. I hoard the staples I remove. Someday, I will make it rain pain.
12.) From ajtroedel:
I got stuck on extra duty while in Iraq for questionable reasons. As a result, I had to clean the Battalion building every night. As payback, I moved the desk of my rather rotund Command Sergeant Major one inch closer to the back wall every night. My goal was to make him think he was getting fatter as the space behind his desk gradually shrunk.
13.) From [deleted]:
My work has 30min lunch breaks and recently eliminated 15min breaks. That shit shouldn't be legal.
I take my lunch break outside the office approx. 20-25 minutes before my boss and many of my coworkers, take almost a full hour, and return to the office before everyone else gets back from lunch. They think I was gone for half an hour, but I was really gone 45-50 minutes.
Then, I'll take 15 bathroom breaks and just Reddit.
This only works because I'm salary and don't have to punch in. I feel sorry for the hourly employees that have to put up with this shit.
14.) From bulltrout:
Read receipt request on the email you sent me? I will always click NO. ANARCHY FOREVER!
15.) From [deleted]:
I never answer my phone. I let all calls go to voicemail. I wait a few hours to return calls and about 90% of the time I get the other person's voicemail. We play voicemail tag for days even weeks.
16.) From RyanDestroy:
I sit by the copier, somtimes ill make a few copies of a paperclip on the glass, the reload them into the paper tray. it's hilarious watching people look for the clip on the glass but finding none.
17.) From F*ck_You_Downvote:
My previous manager would bring in bagels every Friday. In all other ways he was a slap-dick-do-nothing, but at least every Friday, I could count on breakfast.
Fast forward to new manager. First thing I tell him is that we have a pact, he brings in bagels on Fridays, and everything is cool. He laughs it off as a joke, but there are 30 people here who are quiet used to being f*cking fed on Fridays.
First couple weeks, there are bagels and all is right with the world. Then he misses a week. People are upset, but people are human.
Then another week. Then 2 weeks in a row. Then they show up again. Then they are gone.
Things are descending into chaos. People bring breakfast on Fridays only to discover free bagels were waiting for them. People skip breakfast because the bagels never showed up.
After about three months of spotty bagel service, I need to take maters into my own hands.
I bring my waffle maker and make f*cking waffles. Syrup and butter and everything. People smile. Hey, thanks.
Boss shows up. No bagels, comments half-heartily, thanking me for making waffles. He thinks it is a one time thing.
Next week. He brings bagels, but it is too late, 1/2 the office already ate waffles cause he is rolling in at 9 in the morning.
Week after, he shows up with bagels, but again I am there making waffles.
There is a little tension. People are unsure where their loyalties lie. Do we eat waffles and side with our co-worker, or do we eat bagels and side with the new boss.
Some people split the difference and eat BOTH waffles and bagels.
This goes on for awhile. The famous Carb war of 2010.
For about four months bagels and waffles are trading blows and then, after awhile the bagels peater out.
LIKE I KNEW THEY WOULD.
I knew his plan all along was to stop bringing in the bagels, that he expenses to the office, basically free bagels. He was going to kill them eventually, but the waffles brought up the question in everyone's mind. Who is the boss here?
I continue making waffles. There is a new boss and he wonders why I make waffles on Friday, three f*cking years after they stopped bringing in bagels.
I am known around the office and around the company as the waffle guy. I pay for the waffle mix myself, along with the butter and the syrup. I spend $400 a year on waffle making supplies, that I pay out of my own pocket to feed the entire office on Fridays.
And I do it with a smile. Because I know I won. Every waffle is a little f*ck you to changing the rules and taking away what little we had.
I have been making waffles for almost 4 years now. A lot of the office has turned over, and not everyone was there for the bagel wars. To them, waffles are the norm. Just something nice I do.
To others, they are in on it, and they know. Never forget. Don't let them take away what makes you special, no matter how small and petty.
Edit: Thanks everyone.
For those of you that asked, this is the waffle maker I use :[GE Flip Rotating waffle maker] (http://www.walmart.com/ip/GE-Rotating-Waffle-Maker/15063552)
I can make a waffle in about 3 min. The trick I learned is that you do not want to flip it all the way, not the full 180 degrees. If you go 90 degrees, (up and down) the steam exits the waffle maker faster.
I do not make it from scratch, it is from a mix krustez.
I also do not add any eggs, basically it is just 1/2 a stick of butter, and then the other 1/2 I melt slightly and leave on the table.
If you add more water, the waffles are thinner and crispier. If you add less water they are thick and you do not get as many.
Some waffle making tricks Cinnamon Roll Waffles.
These cook in about 30 seconds and you need a lot of spray otherwise they stick.
You can make bacon in the waffle maker too, you just have to cook it the day before. Same thing goes for chicken, but I found that adding just chicken skin to the waffles is better then actually making fried chicken the day before (for chicken and waffles).
If you are going to use fresh blueberries, you want to roll them in the dry mix first. I lost a waffle maker by using fresh blueberries. The mess was too great and just easier to get a new waffle iron.
Each box of mix will make around 10 - 14 waffles, and many times people do not want to eat a full one, so leave some empty plates around and you will end up with "waffle buddies". These are people who may not know each other but split waffles every Friday since they do not want to be seen eating a whole waffle.
My waffle making has been grandfathered in but I think if I ever left jobs I would insist that the new company would need to pay for my waffle making supplies on Friday.
18.) From kssummer:
One day in each month
All my emails are haikus
Today is that day
19.) From AngryJigglypuff:
The bottled water is only for clients.
I drink the bottled water.
F*ck the man.
20.) From jonah4342:
My boss hates the sound of cabinets closing, so when she's not looking I open and close them repeatedly and pretend to look for things. She's also incredibly neurotic about the spices being organized, first by the region where they're used most and then by color. I put the cumin in the Asian section and she loses her mind.
21.) From dueljester:
As one of the few people that aren't related to the sales department I find my office empty, a lot. A good portion of the time the big cheese takes sales & sales assistants to lunch while ignoring the rest of us.
So in that time of passive "why aren't you people selling" windows I have done the following:
Switched all the coffee to decaf
Switched around personal photos (you'd be amazed at how long it takes someone to notice)
Removed all the staples from staplers but three or four. Put the rest away in the boxes, and put the boxes on the empty desk
Mouse moving to slow? Time for it to start moving at mach 5
And my favorite:
When the annual "we need to lose weight ladies!" party arrives there is always a prize to the two gals (men never partake) who lose the most. I will go to coscto and spend some $50 or so on the tastiest junk food you can find. Through the time they have the competition I'll leave bountiful bowls of candy around, and occasionally I'll have the misses make a batch of coffee cream muffins for the office. Not once have I been caught doing this, instead; they will turn on whoever seems to be doing the best or is already the smallest gal in the lot. It's like watching a nature show seeing these women turn on themselves.
22.) From notnicholas:
I work from home but we have a "virtual office" environment (instant messenger and we have to keep "office hours").
I keep my laptop next to my bed. Log in at 7:30 and answer a few emails and accept a few meeting invitations before other people are up, then rollover and get another hour of sleep.
I'll also usually get some work done before I go to sleep at night but save it in draft form so I can send it randomly throughout the morning. I don't want to give the impression that I routinely am available after 5:00 pm.
23.) From OK4U2LOVE:
someone while back on Reddit recommended an office prank that involved an official HP notice print out saying "this printer has been equipped with voice technology" and it said step 1: say your name step 2: say function (scan, print, etc). I had my manager yelling at the printer 3 times, "ERIK, ERIK, ERIK" he was even mad, it didn't recognized his name. The entire office was making fun of him for a while and I felt like the man.
24.) From THE_LOUDEST_PENIS:
They say I can't drink energy drinks at my desk. I pour my red bull into an empty Coke can and drink to my heart's content.
25.) From jezmi:
In the corridor I hold the door open for some people when they are slightly too far away, so they have to jog a little bit to catch up.
26.) From SamSham:
Everyone has a container of paper clips on their desks, and since I work at a construction company and I am alone for 90% of the day, I go around and make paper clip chains at everyone's desks and then shove it back into the container. It is the best to watch their faces as they reach to grab one paper clip and they get a chain of 100+.
27.) From workacct20910:
I got a job as a federal attorney. I rebel by trying to make government actually function in a progressive manner.
28.) From CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH:
Every time I see a sign I do the opposite of what it says.
Pull with two hands to get paper towels. What am I your slave? One hand in the middle and let that bitch rip.
29.) From Ravinac:
In our office we are allowed to have either 2 posters and a picture at our desk or 2 pictures and a poster. Well I have 2 posters, one is a list of Chuck Norris facts and the other is from a show I watch. I have a picture of my dog haning next to the show poster.
One day I got bored at work and had nothing to do, so I went online and became a minister of The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster just for shits and giggles.
So I get my certificate and forget about the stupid limit on personal items. So along comes my asshole of a boss who everybody in the office hates, telling me that something has to go. Well rather than give into his demands for an honest mistake on my part, I decide to claim religouse profiling, and that he was discriminating against my "faith". I argued that my certificate should be exempt because it is niether a picture nor a poster. Well my boss doesn't like it so he presses the issue, so I call up an HR rep and talk to them about it. Long story short boss gets in trouble for religious profiling, and I get to keep the certificate.
30.) From [deleted]:
I steal coffee creamer. I don't even drink coffee.
31.) From markstrech:
You can get back at the man by opening your own business and becoming the man.