jducoeur

Depending on the size of the game, there could be 2-3 cults, mutually antagonistic, and nobody knows who's in which. There could even be someone who's in all of them.

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I knew one intern who habitually wore blue jeans, a shirt that was never more than half tucked in, and a tie. A bright orange tie, loosely knotted.

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J, the $50M contract happened to me, which is why Metageek knows it. The team working on the bid (me included) worked late nights and early mornings for weeks, and then the damn CEO blew it up with that interview. We had been looking at significant-figure bonuses personally, as well as the company ramifications.

I sent the incident to Scott Adams, and I believe he used it in his "Boss goes to Irish Line Dancing lessons and doesn't mail the bid" strips.

Nepotism: my sister's company has been partially drained dry by the company credit cards issued to the two former-owner's daughters. The credit cards were canceled this month and everyone who actually does any work there (not the daughters, who have been "fired" if you can call what they were doing before "work") are taking a 10-20% paycut to try and recover. And the poor daughters, oh, we weep for them: they now have to pay for their own apartments! And their own luxury boxes at stadiums!

Other things that really happened to me: Salespeople being called in to help assemble and ship out computers in the last few days before the end of the month. I started not answering my phone the last week of every month due to this -- you only got called if you lived within about 5 miles to the office/factory. I'm sure you can imagine the skill level displayed by office workers on the production line. (Also used by Scott Adams: "This one's getting gum!" He actually wrote back to me on that one, which he stopped doing later.)

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Office Xmas gift exchange: One fellow brought a book "Guide to whorehouses in Mexico."

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I have an online pal who seemingly wears only red, black, bats and spiders, and who knits. Lots.

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There should be frequent reorgs, and not all of them should be communicated to everybody. This actually happened to me at Netscape: my group got moved to a different department, and nobody told me until the admin of my old department came by with my mail and told me I should be using the mailstop for my new department. (In 2.5 years at Netscape, I went through 10 reorgs.)

To crank it up a notch, you could have people getting silently reorged into new responsibilities, and then they get in trouble for still doing their old jobs.

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The people who are married to each other, have different surnames, that (almost) nobody knows are married.

The person with significant verbal claims of $CONDITION who does not exhibit any obvious symptoms.

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jducoeur

Possible, but that may start to get away from the core spirit of the game. (And in fact, I've already played that game: Secrets of the Necronomicon, wherein our group -- consisting of the Wolfman, Dracula, and the insane FBI Agent -- were essentially the good guys because we were the only people *not* in a demonic cult.)

But we'll see: everything's on the table at this point...

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jducoeur

Interesting -- the deliberately rebellious intern. That has possibilities...

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jducoeur

The team working on the bid (me included) worked late nights and early mornings for weeks, and then the damn CEO blew it up with that interview.

Ouch -- a definite "fist of death" moment.

Lots of fine ideas here: thanks!

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jducoeur

... oh, this is a dangerous idea. I could have the Mandatory Fun be a gift swap. That could be *horrifying*...

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jducoeur

Oh, that's a nice one! I was already thinking about organization-chart confusion, and this is a good twist on that idea.

(In 2.5 years at Netscape, I went through 10 reorgs.)

I will say that this thread is doing nothing to change my preference for small companies. (Which, admittedly, have their own problems, but at least I have a little more influence.)

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jducoeur

Both excellent details, that I might use to beef up a character. Thanks!

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Happy to help.

Another: the day someone foolishly had food for a lunch meeting set up in the cafeteria, where uneaten food from meetings was habitually left for anyone to graze. Result: no lunch for the meeting.

Another: a secretary for a very small office is hired, and then declares that she will not answer the main phone line. I never figured out why they didn't fire her on the spot, but it was England, and maybe labor laws are different...

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jducoeur

Another: the day someone foolishly had food for a lunch meeting set up in the cafeteria, where uneaten food from meetings was habitually left for anyone to graze. Result: no lunch for the meeting.

Horrible, funny, and terribly plausible. It's a wonder that doesn't happen more often, given how deep the "anything out in the kitchen is fair game" meme permeates many companies...

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cellio

Related -- how could I have forgotten speaker-phones?

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Oh, he wasn't rebellious; he was just confused. Jeans and a not-tucked-in-shirt would've been normal in that office; what was bizarre was wearing a tie with them (or, indeed, at all).

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My dad actually dealt with an even worse version of this - construction outside screwed up, and dropped a concrete pillar on his boss's office, smashing the exterior wall down and destroying quite a bit of desk, computer, etc. But every surface was also covered in deep stacks of paperwork, and the rain was pouring in from outside...

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On the fridge, I have often found that shared ones get so vile-smelling that it wouldn't be a big leap to make it like the Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul fridge, simply unopened by anyone for months now...

On muting, a recent group of mine was on a conference call where the (religious organization) customer was demanding to know when they could look at the work we'd just started, and one of us, assuming we were on mute, sotto voce remarked "when it's fucking done!".

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There was the time the whole company got called to a same-day surprise mandatory offsite meeting, and half of them were discreetly lead to each of the two rooms, with my half asked not to try returning to the office. That was 5 days before Christmas.

For multiple rounds of layoffs,

jducoeur and I got to see maybe 4 rounds where each time the management swore it would be the last...

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Things I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere. All are from places I've worked; some may be from places we've both worked; some of them might have been me.

- The guy who wore headphones all the time, bounced around, sand aloud with his music, and played occasional air guitar.

- The guy who was constantly drumming on every surface nearby, in his cube, at meetings, etc.

- The girl who always ended your sentences for you, sometimes muttered under her breath.

- The VP who kept trying to nudge the company in the direction of the porn industry.

- The CEO who openly discussed his, probably ceased, meth habit, and gave people tips on passing drug tests.

- The new-employee hazing which included getting up in front of everyone and telling an embarassing funny anecdote about yourself. (I actually skipped out on that one completely.)

- The employees who ordered a monogrammed wooden combination bottle opener and dildo shipped to the VP at the office.

- The employee who emailed the whole company at 3am apologizing for his poor understanding of appropriate office behavior. And who later on wandered around with a guitar serenading management. And who was a week or so late coming back to work because he didn't have enough money to fly back from Spain.

- The CEO who was pre-op transgendered and presented professionally as female - except when government customers were visiting, when he expected everyone to know that he was presenting male.

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I just started rereading The Dilbert Principle, and realized you should be mining it; it's got stories even stranger (or at least more detailed) than ordinary Dilbert.

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jducoeur

Hmm -- all good ideas, some of which are nice nuances to add to characters already suggested and some of which are new and different. I suspect I'll use at least half of these: thanks!

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jducoeur

Hmm. Okay, I'll add that to my game to-do list...

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