h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've had my own office with a door etc. for almost ten years. My pointy-haired boss is now proposing that I, along with a bunch of other people who previously had their own offices, would "improve productivity" if we all moved to a single room with no natural light and had an "open plan" office space with cubicles. Not a single person (other than the PHB) affected by this is in favour, but there seems little prospect of preventing it from happening merely because it will be time-consuming, expensive, pointless and disastrous for morale.

So, on to the question. I will, obviously, be ordering a speaker phone so that my colleagues can share in my vital conversations with suppliers and contractors. I will, obviously, be modifying my diet to consist of more baked beans, sprouts, curries, rare steak and other foodstuffs that will cause my digestive system to turn into a poison gas factory. I will, obviously, be buying a digital photo frame which will show a selection of personal "favourite" photographs - a portrait of Hitler, Dennis Nielsen, etc.

I invite suggestions as to how else I can make the experience of sharing an open-plan office with me as unpleasant as possible. I'm determined that if I'm forced against all common sense to do this, I shall at least derive some entertainment from it.

Any ideas?

Eating lunch at your desk, noisily, with large quantities of garlic...

Developing a taste for music... Either playing it out loud through the speakers or, if you prefer headphones, making sure that the volume is high enough so that everyone else in the room can hear the rhythm section.

Never, ever, tidy your desk... Coke cans, yesterdays dinner, etc. should be placed in the general vicinity of your waste bin.

Coffee cups should be left until they are doing a passable impression of the first life on earth.

Cultivate poor personal hygiene habits
Stare at other people when they are working
Don't wash up your cups/plates but leave them to fester
Say "Guys, guys! You've got to hear this one!" and proceed to read out all the spam and chain emails you've signed up for
Invest in a radio. The differing tastes in music will surely cause annoyance to at least one person (possibly yourself, though)

On the other hand, working in an open plan office can be a positive experience if you are lucky enough to have good collegues.

Oh, and once your own desk is covered... Do not hesitate spreading across to your neighbours desks...

Wandering across to your neighbour for a chat with a nearly empty coffee cup in your hand and 'forgetting' to take it with you when you've finished chatting is also a good way of getting rid of unwanted crockery.

Remember to make sure that all the food you eat while actually at work is a) foul-smelling and b) noisy.

Give personal hygiene a skip for a few weeks.

Cultivate a sniffing/throat clearing habit.

Remember - an idle hand is a wasted opportunity. Tip tap tip tap tap, to no decertainale rhythm.

Imagine your keyboard is a particularly loathesome ex - pound those keys.

Don't forget to inform others of how productive you're being - a running commentary of your every action and thought is vital.

I work in an open plan office and you do get used to it quite quickly but then we don't conduct a great deal of business on the phone so it stays reasonably quiet.

The most annoying thing is people eating smelly food at their desks. I'd suggest nose-picking as a good way to upset people.

Constantly wandering up behind fellow workers and commenting on whatever they're doing - preferably negatively.






God! I must be a nightmare to work with!

Garlic! Yes! I love garlic. Garlic bread for lunch... mmm.

I hate to be dull but as you all dont want to be doing it, wouldn't it make sense to try and make it as good an experience as possible? In my small experience they rarely change these things back no matter how much you end up hating the colleagues you used to get on just fine with?

Alternatively, a passion for office plants. Preferably in the middle of a cluster of desks so that they overhang your fellow employees desks over the dividers...

Rather than adopting the poor personal hygine thing, which can be just as unplesant for yourself, and is hard to cultivate, I imagine a better way, is to ensure that you buy lots* of cheap perfume, err probably helps if your female, but it'd work even better now I think of it if your male.
All the really strong smelling perfumes, and deoderants and sprays; the kind of ones aimed at teenagers, which gives anyone in the nearby vacinity a headache, extreme alergic reaction, or just makes their sinus's go mental with the overpowering smell...

Conduct loud, long and explicit personal phonecalls, on the speaker phone, regularly....Ensure your mobile is on full volume, and turned on, and then set up twitter so that you get a TXT every time anyone tweets... just so its going off constantly; adjust ring tones/message alerts to the most annoying possible...

Cut your toenails whilst at the desk, leaving the clippings neatly piled up on the desk in view; file your feet, and just leave the filings on the floor... ensure there are a good supply of used, crumpled tissues on every surface possible...
Once an hour, on the hour, conduct a pseudo-religious ritual in full view, and full volume of the entire room; this should include worryingly strange and peculiar jestures and body movements and quite a lot of indesipherable muttering; no one would even dare question what your doing as they'd fear offending your clearly deep religious sensabilities... It shoudl also help instill a sense of fear in your work coleagues...
Keep a large knife on the desk and use it for opening mail but ensure its more like some stupid huge survival knife...
Shave your legs, armpits or wherever else you feel like whilst at the desk too... Electric razor type thing might be good as they're nice and noisey....

Have a vivarium with scorpions or large hairy spiders. Then one night replace it with an empty one, and the next morning pretend that you lost the animals.

Something I can definitely say makes open plan working unpleasant is clipping your fingernails at your desk... especially if you let them ping off in random directions. Ceci n'est pas une yuk smiley.

ask for showering facilities to be provided as you will be jogging/bike in to work and your BO will upset people in an open plan office

ask for 'real light' bulbs to be put in as you have a tendancy to suffer from that seasonal disorder thing, SAD, when you don't get sunlight

ask for fresh air breaks, as some of your co-workers will be smokers and in the interest of equality, if they get a fag break you should get a fresh air one

the office will now need a public performance licence as when you play the radio in your office its single ocupant listening, while in a open plan office it will be a public broadcast

ask for A/C because there are no windows and you need the temp. regulating(get together with the others and all ask for different temps. to be set)

humidifier to control moisture

de humidifier to control condensation

will it be cubicles or open open plan.....cubicles make you claustraphobic...open open plan makes you agrophobic

rack up a list of NEEDS that makes it uneconomical and throw H&S around as well

cook realy smelly pungent foods and eat at your desk

God I hope I never ever share an office with 2legs.

On the fidgeting thing: wedge your knee against the desktop or deskpilar and vibrate it, so the whole unit has a minor vibration for everyone using it.

Set your PC up so you have two monitors, and one of them always shows news items from the tabloids. preferably news items with lots of animations. The thing to do is look as if you are wasting your time browsing the internet all day. You can work as normal in the other one.

Get a webcam that looks over your shoulder or over the wall of the cube and display the feed on the second monitor in another window from the news items from the tabloids. That way, anyone who comes up behind you sees themselves approaching your desk in one of your monitors.

Cough.

Turn up very late. Leave very early.

Turn up very early. Leave very late.

Keep empty but not yet cleaned bottles of smoothies on your desk.

Build a can wall.

Build a book wall.

Build a cereal box wall.

Populate the top of the walls dividing you from your fellow workers with small irritating items such as lots and lots of matchbox cars, model trains, sea-side knick-nafferies.

Whistle? http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/F19585?thread=8068080

If there is an office microwave there are a couple of antisocial tactics I have observed/secretly wished for (I'll let you guess which is which)

Cook bacon sandwiches in the wrong microwave when the inevitable 'halal' microwave arrives.

Cooked a fish curry on the Sunday and then eat portions throughout the week reheating it each day in the Microwave. It will get increasingly rancid as the days pass,

Going open plan after your own office with a door? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I dream of the day I'll have a door on my office.

Aren't you an engineer? Since when has that been a social event... resist resist resist. Strike perhaps?

""Cook bacon sandwiches in the wrong microwave when the inevitable 'halal' microwave arrives.""

ask for a halal microwave

come to work in a burka, you are converting to islam and considering a sex change!!!!!!!

Wear the same socks three days running and develop a habit of kicking off your shoes whil working..

Anyway you want to try TEACHING in an open plan classroom..Shudder.

take off youe trousers and work in a kimono