Top-post countdown No. 8: Pretend Office
April 27, 2010Jon Brooks Comments Off- Pretend Office – Freelancers write pretend email messages about pretend office matters. (Apr 12, 2010)
Original post:
If you’ve been unemployed a long time, perhaps you miss the kind of electronic back-and-forth that goes on in an office. If so, check out Pretend Office. Here’s a description:And a weird thing happened.
With no planning, we all started acting as if we were people in a real office. Almost immediately we began to adopt characters and send officious announcements. Soon we were referring to characters in the office who didn’t exist in real life. Meeting rooms were booked, couriers arrived, servers went down, timesheets were requested, and embarrassing emails were accidentally sent to everyone in the company.
Here are all the email messages about pretend matters, sorted by pretend thread, pretend subject, pretend author, and pretend date.
One funny thread:
[Everyone] server downtime tonight
Can I remind everybody that the fileserver (ie, your N and Q drives)
will be going offline at***5PM***
today for about an hour? We are upgrading its version of Windows NT. I
understand this is inconvenient but it is a CRITICAL upgrade, and it
has been scheduled to cause minimum inconvenience.So: make sure you’re not using your N or Q drive by 5pm, please. We
should be back up by the morning.Tom.
(also: we know about the photocopier on the third floor. We can’t fix
it, it’s a building services issue, so please stop emailing IT support
about it).
–
Tom
IT Support
“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”RE: [Everyone] server downtime tonight
What is up with the photocopier on the third floor? It never works. IT
support – SORT IT OUT!!!!!Russell
(Offsites, insights, upsights)
Do you really need to print this email? Why not do it anyway?RE: [Everyone] server downtime tonight
It hasn’t worked since SOMEONE WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS decided to
photocopy their nether regions at the Christmas party. There’s always
one, isn’t there?—-
Zelda
Quantitative Arbitrage RequantifierRE: [Everyone] server downtime tonight
Just a note from the legal eagles:
ongoing disciplinary issues should not be the subject of company discussion.
Thanks
RE: [Everyone] server downtime tonight</em
Hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ben
Snr Deputy Exec Assistant
UK London Office / East
Skype: ben_snr_dep_exe_ass
Cell/Mob: 07999 123 456
Direct: 020 7777 4472
Direct Fax: 020 7777 4672
Office: 020 7777 4444
Office Fax: 020 7777 4666
IM: ben_snr_dep_exe_ass
Please don’t print this email unless you really, really need to.
Thanks. Think about the trees. Thanks!!
Runner Up: Snr Deputy Exec Assistant Awards 07
Anyone want to rent a room? Clean, non smoking, no pets. IM me for details.
“You know, I think that R2 unit we bought may have been stolen.”RE: [Everyone] server downtime tonight
Oh f***, did that go to everyone in the office?
Sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ben
Snr Deputy Exec Assistant
UK London Office / East
Skype: ben_snr_dep_exe_ass
Cell/Mob: 07999 123 456
Direct: 020 7777 4472
Direct Fax: 020 7777 4672
Office: 020 7777 4444
Office Fax: 020 7777 4666
IM: ben_snr_dep_exe_ass
Please don’t print this email unless you really, really need to. Thanks.
Think about the trees. Thanks!!
Runner Up: Snr Deputy Exec Assistant Awards 07
Anyone want to rent a room? Clean, non smoking, no pets. IM me for details.
“You know, I think that R2 unit we bought may have been stolen.”
Previous top-post entries:
- 25. Colorado Springs: City of the future? – Anti-tax haven Colorado Springs finds itself in desperate fiscal straits, touching off schadenfreude and defensiveness on the Web.
- 24. Sub-prime the Musical – college student creates series of podcasts on the causes of the credit crisis and, naturally, adds song parodies to illustrate the concepts.
- 23. Friday photo gallery Nov 20, 2009
- 22. The Skyscraper Index – This metric shows that the world’s tallest buildings rise on the eve of economic downturns.
- 22. Chances of passing a health care bill – On March 10, Bush administration economist Keith Hennessey upped the chances of health care’s passage from 10% to 40%.
- 22. Friday photo gallery Oct. 30, 2009
- 21. If persons were treated like corporations – Political cartoon from Kevin Moore’s In Contempt site.
- 20. Rappin’ economics – Rap adaptation of the classic econ textbook “Principles of Economics.”
- 19. Friday photo gallery Oct. 9 2009
- 18. Facebook “likes” by city – 210 million Facebook profiles broken down into which pages users click the “like” button on, organized by city.
- 17. Repaired Things – The blog – collection of pictures of things that have been repaired
- 16. Podcast: Local currency bucks the dollar – cash-strapped communities throughout the U.S. make their own money
- 16. Defriending over health care – Did you defriend anyone on Facebook, or were you defriended, in the midst of the furious health care debate?
- 16. Cards of change – altered business cards uploaded by people who have either been laid off or experienced a change in career situation
- 15. Who are the worst tippers? – Waiters comment on which groups of people are the worst tippers, and no one is spared.
- 14. 100 Motivational Blog Posts for the Unemployed – practical and emotional tips, tools, and resources
- 14. Teabonics – misspellings spotted on Tea Party rally signs
- 13. Facebook connections analyzed – interactive Facebook map with lines drawn between geographical areas that share a lot of friends
- 13. Friday photo gallery Nov 6 2009
- 12. Happy all the time – Diary of a McDonald’s Happy Meal purchase, in which the subject of the experiment stays unnaturally fresh for a whole year
- 12. Merry Recession! – Recession-themed Christmas cards
- 11. Living Craigslist – Unemployed college grad travels cross-country using only Craigslist.
- 11. Who’s paying taxes?; Distribution of wealth – charts showing which income levels pay what percentage of taxes in the U.S., and the distribution of net worth and wealth
- 10. The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness – 24-year-old Brianna Karp’s blog about losing her job and falling into homelessness
- 9. Best of Craigslist: Economy version – Craigslist-user nominations of posts that are particularly interesting and humorous also serve as indicators of the rotten economy.
