Levity in the workplace

Subject: Levity in the workplace
From: Paul Branchaud <paul -at- VEDGE -dot- COM>
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 10:51:46 -0400

All this talk about people not having enough time for their outside
interests, needing vacations, being unhappy in their workplace, and other
unpleasant stress-inducers has me wondering what people do to lighten the
mood and prevent them from "going postal".

I have been blessed to date, working with other writers who have a
wonderful sense of humor and are able to make the best of a tough
situation. I think it might be interesting to find out what others do to
alieviate their daily pressures.

Among my favorite pranks/mood lighteners was to "booby trap" my
supervisor's chair: He had one of those seats with a "pneumatic" piston
for comfort. I bought one of those greeting cards that "sing", removed the
speaker and mini circuit board and placed them into the main "tube" of the
chair's piston, so that when he sat down, it would trigger the music. It
was hard to keep a straight face, when he sat down and music started
emanating from his chair. :)

Other classics were to "test" the attention span of the people doing our
technical edits. One or two pages would be filled with random words,
arranged to look like proper sentences. The funniest was a 20 page manual
formatted with the Corel "kids" font that came back with edits, but no
mention of the crayon-like font.

How do you make your job fun?

Disclaimer: I will not be held responsible by any person, at any time, for
any repercussions resulting from persons replicating, in whole or in part,
the above-mentionned pranks.

Paul
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Paul Branchaud "Men, do you fear that, one day, your
paul -at- vedge -dot- com wife will run her hands through your
Technical Writer hair... and you won't be there?!"
Visual Edge Software, Ltd. -- Richard Jeni (on hair loss)
--My opinions are rarely shared by Visual Edge and other smart folks--

TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send commands
to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/ or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html


Previous by Author: Re: Pronunciation
Next by Author: Re: Question about learning to develop online help
Previous by Thread: RoboHelp
Next by Thread: Re: Levity in the workplace


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads