The Friday Afternoon Guide

The Friday Afternoon Guide to Lowering Office Productivity: Old Jokes

I guess my colleagues don't think very highly of me – or at least my sense of humour.

A while ago, they finally had enough and told me to put ¥ 1 in the swear box whenever I made a pun. It looks like I will have to start embezzling money to be able to keep up my habit. I felt like a child with Tourette's Syndrome trying not to say the word "F – F – F – F – F – Falkland Islands." Well aware of the power of sublimation, I forced my linguistically hyperactive mind to focus on sex instead; which of course led to other problems that I would not like to discuss further.

To make your workplace a bit more enjoyable, here are some old jokes you could try out on your colleagues:

 

Awful Authors

Last week, I –this time unintentionally – wiped out a good hour of productive time for one colleague when I introduced the "Awful Authors" topic.

This type of riddle is an excellent way to drive linguistically apt colleagues insane. Come up with a book title, and then an imaginary author where the author's name is a pun:

Easy Money by Robin…?

Self-help by W. … ?

Stand and Deliver by Anne…?

(Scroll down for answers)

 

And here are some more Awful Authors, courtesy of Oxford Dictionaries.

 

 

Communism & Eastern Europe

"If all else fails, try Wales": Neighbouring countries are always welcome targets of jokes. Arguably, the ones who do it best are the Eastern Europeans – with a brand of humour that is both harsh and hilarious. Next time you meet a Pole or a Czech, ask them to tell you a few jokes about Russians, I can guarantee you some surprises…. In the meantime, you might find some really absurd ones here.

And of course, communism had a huge effect on the jokes that were told in from Prague to Vladivostok. Here's a review of a recent book on the subject, from The Economist. And for jokes about communist Hungary, just click here.

 

Confucius say…

The Sage lived in so-called interesting times: the fifth century BC was a time of constant strife, but also of rapid social, technological and political change. His followers compiled 論文, The Analects of Confucius which contained advice on a number of subjects: good leadership; proper conduct, living in a just and moral way. However, there are some more apocryphal utterances of the Sage, known collectively as "Confucius say…":

"Confucius say man who throw himself off cliff, jump to conclusions."

"Confucius say man who drop grand piano into mine shaft will hear tone of A flat miner."

"Confucius say man who drive like hell is bound to get there."

 

A man walks into a bar…

Everyone knows at least one or two "Man walks into a bar jokes. As Bill Bailey so wisely put it: "A man walks into a bar, and the story unfolds with tedious inevitability." The great thing about generic jokes like these is that it is very easy to waste precious working time on them: telling one at the right moment will lead to the next person feeling compelled to telling another one. Suddenly, everyone starts googling more jokes; and with a little bit of luck, no actual work will done for the next hour or so – just in time for the next coffee break.

I leave you with my favourite "Man walks into a bar…" joke:

 

"A Irishman, a Scotsman, a prostitute, and a catholic priest walk into a bar. The bar man says: "Is this some kind of joke?"

 

 

 

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: Reading the legal disclaimer before signing the contract will make it invalid. Now scroll down further for the answers to the awful authors.

 

 

Answers: Banks; Anchor; Dover

The Friday Afternoon Guide to Lowering Office Productivity: Unexpected Delays

Due to circumstances beyond my control (i.e. sheer laziness), the Friday Afternoon Guide will be delayed this week.

 Here’s a link to cheer you up: "Why teachers drink"

 

The Friday Afternoon Guide to Lowering Office Productivity: Eavesdropping

Autumn is here... It's getting darker outside, the leaves are falling, and all you think about at work is lying naked in bed with a glass of vino in one hand, and a good book in the other. This time of year, it's easy to get depressed: after all, life is short, we're all going to die alone, and there aren't any snacks left in the cupboard. You just wish something interesting could happen, something that will make you feel alive.

Unfortunately, in this vast expanse of pure boredom we call 'an open plan office', there are few reasons to be excited.

If you're lucky, there might be someone attractive of the opposite sex a few desks away. Frankly speaking, though: people who are trying to write a twelve-page utilisation report usually don't show their sexiest side; and even if they inadvertently do so, they will be quite annoyed when a trusted colleague finally informs them that "the creepy guy over at sales" (i.e. "you") has been staring at their legs for the past quarter of an hour.

Unless there's an outage or a hostage situation, everyone's likely to be busy with something. You look at your watch for the third time in about two minutes: it's still half past two. You wish that someone would at least throw a tantrum at the photocopier, and a few moments later you start planning how to create a paper jam in the A4 tray (Hint: used sheets that are a bit torn usually does the trick, especially if the paper is of the low-quality 70g variety, and your chances of success multiply if you're blessed with double-sided copying.).

Sometimes, there might be some drama to shake you out of your catatonic state, something that will make you feel almost like a human being again… Someone starts sobbing because he or she has just been abandoned by her boyfriend.... The fat bloke at marketing falls off his chair (again) and lets off a loud moan when he finally realises that his head is about to hit the floor…. A buzz from your phone reveals that you have received a well-deserved text message, saying "I hate you. You are disgusting. I hope you die alone. I never want to see you again. PS I left a sandwich for you in the fridge." It might be a sudden stray ray of sunlight – or maybe the fire alarm going off. (It's probably just a drill, but at least you get some fresh air and a chance to nick cigarettes from innocent bystanders.)

Another reason would be your supervisor walking towards you, a cold stare in you general direction. Since you are so insignificant that he has already forgotten your name, the reason for him coming over to your desk is probably just a new "fun" teambuilding initiative, with mandatory participation. Another afternoon ruined. (Mandatory "fun" in the workplace is about as fun as sitting in a dentist's waiting room stark naked, without anything to read. A recent column in The Economist reveals how depressing it really is.)

So if this is what our workplaces are like, what should we do to make it bearable? One way to break the tedium is surprisingly simple: just pay attention to the people around you. Sooner or later they are bound to say something interesting, or at least ridiculously stupid. With average colleagues, it's usually the latter. It doesn't really matter if they know you, or even tacitly acknowledge your existence…

The best place for eavesdropping in an office is near the coffee machine, or in the smoker's area. It is here that people let their guards down. Throughout my life, I've been doing my best not to draw any attention to my person. It finally pays off when you're able to float pasts people engaged in sensitive conversations, completely unnoticed: you get to know a lot about what's going on in the office: who is gay, who is being unfaithful, and who is about to be fired.

You have to be careful about who you're eavesdropping on, though: the danger is that you waste time on people who are extremely boring.

It happened to me once: walking past a manager's office, I realised that the two people inside were strangely excited. The door was slightly ajar, and I could hear what they were talking about. I expected stories of coke-fuelled orgies, and was of course bitterly disappointed to find out that they were in fact talking about walking down to the first-floor convenience store to buy sweets. I swore never to walk past that door again.

If you happen to be in the vicinity of Americans, you need to actively opt out from eavesdropping.

One late evening, I went to a quiet Middle Eastern restaurant for a meal and a book. It was quite enjoyable until a loud voice cut through the silence. At first I assumed that this was some comedy act, since the person speaking was putting on this larger-than-life Sarah-Palin-voter-from-hell persona. "This is a really skilled actor", I said to myself. He sounded a bit like what Goofy would have sounded like if he was a bit drunk and firmly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. After ten minutes in character, Goofy turned out to be the real McCoy when he started telling his Norwegian date about how amazing it was to shoot squirrels. Another ten minutes later, when I left the restaurant, he was still going on about it. I realised that the only plausible reason for the man with the Goofy voice to be here in Shanghai was that he had been employed by Disney English.

Of course, I am not the only person in the world to eavesdrop, and here is a method of making the office a bit more interesting: make people eavesdrop on you. If you're talking on the phone near the coffee machine, someone is bound to eavesdrop on you. So why not see if you can create a few interesting rumours? In a serious voice, tell the imaginary person on the other end that you have testicular cancer. Soon, everyone around will suddenly be very nice to you, and people you don't even know will come up to you and ask you if you are alright. Many thanks to the fine publication Ladies' Home Journal for providing me with this useful technique of deception.

 

Finally, a link completely unrelated to the text below, that I managed to get hold of while eavesdropping on a tough-looking tattooed American girl in a café: awkwardfamilyphotos.com, which is a collection of mullets and embarrassing mums. Enjoy your Friday afternoon!

 

 

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The photocopier is your friend. It does wonderful things for you, if you want it to. Please don't punch it, kick it or put 70g paper in its A4-R tray.

The Friday Afternoon Guide to Lowering Office Productivity: Outlook

Life.

Why are we here? Where are we going? Is this real? Why are we asking pointless questions? 

One of those moments for me, when I finally figured out that things had gone terribly wrong, was when I realised that my employer requires me to have Outlook open at all times. I used to joke about it: whenever I needed to decline a social invitation – for instance if I needed/wanted to do something private, criminal, illicit or just plainly boring – I simply replied "I need to go and organise my Outlook contacts". Now, every second of my life is dictated by a Microsoft Exchange Server. Not very funny.

Any "personal productivity expert" would tell you that you need as few distractions as possible in order to be as efficient as possible. That little envelope in the bottom-right corner of your screen gets me jumping every time. Is it a surprise assessment meeting? Important changes to the current project? Have I been fired? Have I won a prize of 1.6 million Ugandan dollars? Is there a God?

Usually, though, it's just one of those e-mails to be placed in the folder entitled "no further action" (i.e. useless and irrelevant, but might oddly come in handy at some distant point in the future when you need to contact the person in charge of rationing PostIt™ notes).

E-mails range from the important (rare, but usually needs to be dealt with sooner or later), semi-unimportant (for instance your invitation to the company softball league party), and general nonsense (which tends to come from well-meaning colleagues, or higher management). I absolutely love those 4.9 MB e-mails consisting solely of pictures of cute cats, since they clog up the Exchange Server, especially if they are sent to all recipients on a mailing list.

And then there's the higher management. No matter which company you work for, their e-mails invariably contain the following information: "Work harder!", and/or "Thank you!". Unfortunately, the desired meaning is usually hidden beneath piles of management mumbo-jumbo, taking up at least a whole sheet of A4, if not more, which means you have to scroll down the page to make sure that there's not any actual message. (There never is. Why would the top-level management be interested in you?)

A few minutes later, you get the next annoying/unsettling/distracting blip on your screen. Some genius has decided to reply, using the "reply to all" button.

It takes you a few seconds to realise that there is another, "No further action" item waiting to be dealt with. The e-mail reply is generally even more pointless: "I acknowledge that I have received previous e-mail. Besides that, I have nothing else to add." The best way to achieve this effect with a minimum of keystrokes is simply to write some sort of smiley J, and nothing else. Of course, these pointless replies are usually written by well-meaning but rather dim colleagues.

I remember one such colleague in particular. Since I'm placed under a gag order due to ongoing court proceedings, I am not at liberty to divulge the name of this individual. BLANK is currently holding a managerial position at a Shanghai English training centre.

I was absolutely fascinated by her e-mails, which were obviously written by someone who has spent years on perfecting the art of time-wasting. The e-mails were written using an incredibly annoying colour and font. each sentence ended with several exclamation marks. (The more the better, apparently.) To accent words that might otherwise be ignored, the clever device of all caps was used, rendering the text even less legible. I would look forward to Friday afternoons, since that meant heartwarming e-mails from her, about some charity drive or softball league event. Of course, BLANK loved the "reply to all" function, which meant it would waste everybody else's time as well.

She had obviously done her maths. Let's say that you're fairly efficient, and that you've managed to react, read and delete in 10 seconds: if there are six recipients, the total time-wasting effect is 1 minute. Sixty recipients, 10 minutes of wasted time. Six hundred recipients, one hour and forty minutes….

If you want to lower the overall productivity of your company in a cost-efficient way, then you should use the "reply to all" button as much as possible, and write short pointless replies to messages with many recipients. [ Extra points for use of Comic Sans in STUPID colour/style/all caps and multiple exclamation marks!!!!! ]

Another way to waste time is to make sure that you reply to every single e-mail you receive, even e-mails that should logically conclude the thread – especially if the reply is either sarcastic, contains a smiley, or Comic Sans. The master of writing replies is without question David Thorn, an Aussie graphic designer who knows how to use the wonderful communication tool of Microsoft Outlook to the fullest. My favourite is the e-mails he exchanged with an annoying neighbour. The site might contain strong language; if you think you might be offended, you should not attempt to still your curiosity. Enjoy your Friday afternoon!

 

 

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: Above information is for demonstration purposes only. Usage of the "reply to all" button may cause lung cancer and/or decreased fertility.

There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

The Friday Afternoon Guide to Lowering Office Productivity: Self-help

Sundays… You wake up and realise you don't have to go to work; instead, you have 24 hours of absolute freedom ahead of you. The sky's the limit, and if you behaved like a responsible adult the day before, you won't be suffering from hangover or guilt. One whole day of contemplation and relaxation, without any managers telling you what to do…

When I woke up last Sunday, that was exactly how I felt. The only problem was that my flat looked very much like mid-1990s Sarajevo. I walked around randomly in the room, trying to figure out the best way of solving the problem. The first thought that sprung into mind was arson. I quickly abandoned the idea when I realised that it meant that I would have get dressed and buy matches from the convenience store.

After having walked round in circles for a while, like a shell-shocked kitten, I finally found the solution to all my woes. It was a DVD by the American self-help guru Anthony Robbins. If I put it on, I would have a good excuse not to do anything about the mess.

A student had given that motivational DVD to me last year. Or maybe she lent it to me? If I had been a good teacher, I might have been able to teach her the difference between 'give' and 'lend'. The price tag on the DVD case said £200, but the photocopied cover and the poor quality of the DVD suggested otherwise.

Mr Robbins would most probably never see a trace of that money. Content with this state of affairs, I promptly inserted the disc into my DVD player and pressed play.

I was lying there in bed, while the motivational guru talked about getting your act together. It was the highest form of hypocrisy. "Commit yourself to being a full on team player", he said. "Yeah, great idea" I replied and I decided to try that out as soon as the office softball league gets the stamp of approval from the upper echelons of the company – and I'll actually try to push that a bit at the next team meeting.

Unfortunately, the DVD was only about an hour long; by the time it had finished, though, I had all the inspiration I needed, and I could continue procrastinating for the rest of the day.

I know what you are thinking now. You think you can't do it, because you are at work. Of course, with a negative mind-set like that, you won't be able to be a successful time-waster. First, you have to make a conscious attempt to reprogram yourself. It is possible; you just have to make it happen. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and hold it for ten seconds. Just relax. Next, open your eyes: just look out the window, and imagine you are a bird flying away towards the horizon. (You probably need to use your imagination for that last bit, since the horizon is hidden behind row after row of office buildings.)

Now, return to the room, and look at the PowerPoint presentation on the screen in front of you. Your existence is completely pointless. What you do at work doesn't matter to anyone. No one would notice if you suddenly disappeared from your desk.

You need to click on that red X in the upper right corner. When it asks you if you want to save your work, just click 'no'. With a little luck, you've just lost a whole day's work. If you have managed to follow these instructions, you can already feel how your life is changing: a strange sensation, a mixture of fear, guilt and joy. You can't turn back now, so you'd better carry on.

At this very moment, you are probably quite susceptible to self-help and personal productivity nonsense.

Since you're already in front of a computer, you might want to have a look at the site http://www.lifehack.org/ which deals with self-help and personal productivity – exactly the kind of site that attracts chronic time-wasters. This week, they even published a post entitled "9 ways to tell if you are a self-help junkie, and what to do about it" which says a lot about the site's clientele.

The big problem with the people who generally read self-help books – as well as the people who write them – is their lack of humour, sometimes bordering on autism: it's like talking to a scientologist on his way back from a funeral. Fortunately, there are intelligent and witty people writing about the topic of 'mental wellbeing' and Oliver Burkeman is one of them. He's the author of a regular column in – surprise! – the Guardian, entitled This Column will Change Your Life. Funnily enough, the latest column deals with the protestant work ethic, one of the greatest evils of this modern age.

Mr Burkeman was kind enough to share the following gem: http://www.everydaysystems.com which deals with interesting ways of avoiding procrastination, losing weight etc., all of them based on simple rules, such as "being a weekend luddite" (i.e. not using your computer at the weekends) – something I should definitely try myself!

Finally, I couldn't resist the temptation of sharing the following article about the self-help guru who abandoned his family and ran off with a masseuse: Jack Canfield, author of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Oran Canfield, the said self-help guru's son, came out with an autobiography this year. This is from an article in the Independent:

"By the time his father had authored several self-help books, all national bestsellers, [Oran] Canfield was addicted to heroin, ' regularly stealing from his friends to fuel his habit – if only because stealing from friends was easier than asking his estranged father, whom he saw every couple of years, for handouts."

More on the topic in this article from the Independent. Enjoy your chicken soup!

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: It is very unlikely that anyone could be fired because they read self-help materials during office hours;

However, in the very unlikely event of your contract being terminated, the author(s) of this post cannot be held responsible for any losses incurred (i.e. It is all your fault). Have a nice day.

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The Friday Afternoon Guide to Lowering Office Productivity: “Proper” English

The most annoying thing about teachers – apart from their commitment to teaching people things that they don't want to know – is that error correction is part of their job.

John! Don't say "me and Jane"! It's "Jane and I"!

Never end a sentence with preposition!

It's a 'garage', not a 'garridge'!

 

To be honest with you, I have actually never heard anyone tell me not to end a sentence with a preposition – a statement so ridiculous that the only sane response would be to use a phrasal verb that unfortunately can't be printed here.

After having been removed from the trenches of classroom teaching for the time being, I've had the pleasure of copy-editing textbooks. At last, I had the chance of getting my revenge on the teachers by correcting them.

The whole process of copy-editing made me realise one very important thing: if you really want to waste time at work, one of the safest ways to do so without attracting suspicion is to actively correct errors, especially when they don't really matter. If somebody has put up a sign saying "stationary" on the cupboard containing office materials, you must immediately – instead of replacing the erroneous sign – put up an even larger sign next to it saying "It's 'stationery', not 'stationary'!!!!!!!!!"

Not only have you wasted a minute or two of your own time, plus one sheet of A4 paper; no, you have also managed to make an almost unnoticeable spelling mistake much more annoying. In addition, your own little sign is even more annoying than the original spelling mistake ever was, but the note's pathetic self-righteousness makes it hard for anyone else to put it in the bin.

Actually, you get a few bonus points for the typographically incorrect use of multiple exclamation marks – especially if you used either Times New Roman or Comic Sans. (By using either of these fonts, it will also be easier to conceal your identity, because they are the ones less talented colleagues would use.)

If you are part of an organisation that encourages time-wasting, then of course there are ample opportunities for that during meetings. A backhand way of doing it is simply to ask your manager about what to do in a certain situation, especially when it comes to trivial matters such as capitalisation of proper names in official materials: "Is it 'south east Asia' or 'South East Asia'?" If you ask the question in a deliberately ambiguous way, you will be able to sit back and relax: your petty colleagues will immediately engage in a ridiculous shouting match, while you can quietly continue solving today's crossword, or perhaps contemplate the strange shapes of the little fluffy clouds outside. In the unlikely event of the conflict being resolved quickly, you could just ask if there should be a hyphen between 'South' and 'East'.

The whole concept of time-wasting can be taken to whole new level if you happen to share an office with people from the less fortunate side of the Atlantic. Since Americans are brought up to believe that they have the God-given right to promote the American way of life wherever they go, it is amazingly easy it is to wind them up by using British spelling, proper date format (9.11.10 means 'the 9th of November 2010') or even the metric system.

Just a simple thing like consistently setting the editing language to "English UK" in all documents that you send to American colleagues will go a long way in disrupting their overall productivity. And of course, if you schedule a meeting in the floor above G/F, make sure that you consistently refer to it as the first floor without giving any other indication that would help them translate the floor numbers to Americano.

 

Maybe you're tired. Maybe you want to wait until next week before you start writing angry anonymous notices to colleagues who don't know the difference between "stationary" and "stationery". In that case, you should definitely have a look at PassiveAggressiveNotes.com, a nice little collection of notes, put up in shared spaces around the English-speaking world. Y

And, if your self-worth is based on your ability to spell words like 'acknowledgement' or 'Astrakhan', then you will have the opportunity to prove it in the Times Spelling Bee. Challenge your colleagues, waste some time, and have a good weekend!

 

 

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: Times New Roman and Comic Sans are proprietary fonts, owned by the Monotype and Microsoft corporations respectively. There is nothing wrong with using them; people will just think you've never seen a computer before.

And by the way: our lunch break ended two hours ago. Go back to work!

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The Friday Afternoon Guide to Lowering Office Productivity: Alcohol

The main reason I got into the teaching profession was Michael Caine. Educating Rita (Lewis Gilbert, 1983) tells the story of an Open University professor teaching English Literature to a working class woman, like a contemporary Dr Higgins. The main difference between Caine's character and Higgins is that the former spends his working hours a wee bit inebriated.

I was of course bitterly disappointed when I realised that my teaching career wouldn't even be remotely similar: instead of English Literature with a bit of scotch in the cupboard, I got to teach five-years with colourful puppets in the cupboard where the scotch should have been.

I guess the prospect of teaching five-year-olds would have been much more bearable if I could at least have had a few pints before class. I might even smile and enjoy work.

Besides improving the perception of the workplace environment, alcohol also improves the student talking time of shyer learners, something that I would have implemented in some of my intermediate classes… Well, at least if the teenagers' parents could be kept blissfully unaware of the mood-enhancing additive in the soft drinks.

However, here in Shanghai, there are some students who self-medicate.

I remember one 14-year-old, who was a bit of a punk. One day, her attention span seemed even shorter than the usual five seconds. I asked her if she was OK. She replied by spelling out the word "D – E – E – R". I found it a bit strange, so I concept-checked by making imaginary deer antlers with my hands. She shook her head, and made a drinking gesture with her hand.

"That's 'beer'. B – E – E – R." I said, not sure where this conversation was heading. She replied: "Oh, yes teacher." My patience was running out, and I asked her what seemed to be the problem. With a sheepish grin on her face, she continued: "Teacher! Before class, I drink a lot of beer."

In that moment, I did what any responsible teacher would have done: I promptly told her to use the past tense.

So the topic of this week's edition of the Friday Afternoon Guide is alcohol, one of those classic ways of lowering your overall productivity.

Regrettably, the days when it was acceptable to get drunk during business lunches are long gone, and unless you are irreplaceable – which few of us are – or if you work from home, you have to stay sober.

There are ways to get round it, though. There are those skiving experts who spend most of their Fridays planning the weekend's debauchery, selecting venues, sending invitations and trying to make their colleagues join in.

And of course, Sunday hangovers in bed are for lightweights. If you're a real drinker, you are hung over at work, stoically resisting the urge to vomit on the expense report in front of you. Suffering from a weekday office hangover is even more fun if there are other sinners in the vicinity, suffering even more than you do.

I prefer drinking on my own, though. Real writers are never completely sober. And there are several reasons why it is not a very good idea to get drunk with your colleagues. My main reason for avoiding it I'm literally a lightweight: I weigh about nine stone on a good day, and have a physique that is more apt for long-distance running than all-you-can-drink establishments.

How would you like your boss to remember you: as that quiet drone quietly working away in the corner, never saying anything; or, as the person who vomited on his own shoes inside that teppanyaki restaurant? Whatever you do at work from that moment on, you will always be remembered as an irresponsible drunkard who doesn't even had the decency or self-control to run outside to throw up.

And the converse situation isn't really much better: seeing your boss lose control completely on the dance floor, or making lewd comments about your colleagues to their face… The most embarrassing situation is when your superior is trying to start an affair with a co-worker. I thought I would never say this, but thank god for camera phones: suddenly the whole extortion racket became much easier to implement.

Paid work is suffering and humiliation, mixed with liberal amounts of boredom – that's the whole point of it. Who can blame us for trying to break the tedium by flirting with or dreaming about with the people we share an office with? One interesting thing about the human brain is that it is in constant need of stimuli: if you lock someone inside a so-called isolation tank (where all sensory stimuli are kept to a minimum), the brain will fill in the gaps with hallucinations. Most offices are the same: it is very easy to start dreaming about a quite unprepossessing workmate, since the only competition in the field of seduction she is likely to get is from the office photocopier or filing cabinet.

And of course, in the unlikely event of your workmate actually responding positively to your advances...

So you're having a daily 4: 45 exchange of innuendo by the photocopier with a colleague of the opposite sex? The main reason is probably because of the lack of competition, not your irresistible charm and your savage sex appeal; it's probably just that you are mildly more attractive than the large grey slab of office equipment in front of you.

I guess it's a bit of harmless fun though, at least until the yearly office party. With inhibitions, taste and the last remnants of professionalism gone after one or two beers, all that innuendo will be tempting to actually try out.

There are really only two things that could happen, both equally bad:

1 – You make a pass, which is promptly rejected. No matter how tactful he or she is, it will make you look extremely pathetic, especially since the rest of the office and perhaps other branches of the company will know all about it within a matter of seconds, thanks to Facebook and Twitter. There might even be pictures or video available.

2 – In the unlikely event of scoring – which must be considered an own goal, by the way! – you will have a much bigger problem on your hands…

Obviously, the Facebook pictures documenting the event will now be much more explicit, and since your workmates aren't exactly on par with Henri Cartier-Bresson, the images will hardly be flattering – even if you weren't that drunk.

Besides, you'll be working for years with that person, and the last thing you want is some sort of seedy office romance going on, or worse yet: a serious girlfriend/boyfriend at work. A relationship with a workmate means surveillance 24/7. And if your office flirt is in a relationship, it is very likely that he or she will avoid you completely – at least until the next office party.

Finally, to improve your current office predicament ever so slightly, I present you with a link to Modern Drunkard magazine. Since I'm a complete lightweight, my description of this fine publication will not do it justice. Just read it, and

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The above examples are for demonstration purposes only, and might not represent the actual intoxication experience ahead of you. All examples are purely fictitious; the author of this post has never exchanged comments or movements that could in any way be interpreted in a non-professional way.

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The Friday Afternoon Guide to Lowering Office Productivity: Fantasy Football

Sports really unite people – at least if they have the same nationality and gender. I made the mistake of watching England – Germany in a restaurant full of German supporters – none of them actually German. Luckily, I could take out all my drunken frustration on a friend afterwards.

Of course, most of us aren't actually able to support our home team unless it's the UEFA or World Cup. Honestly, can you really support Man U if you grew up in Essex?

 

There is one solution to this problem, though: It's called "money". You have the moral right to support any team or cause if you have bet money on it; and no one may question your motives or your dedication. You don't question the motives of those friendly girls at the Pudong Sports Bar [537 Changyi Rd., tel. 5876 8411] who come up to you and ask you to buy you a drink, do you? Fortunately, they tend to leave you alone once you've told them that you're a teacher; and since he beer is cheap, the happy hour seems to last forever, and the manager even lets you plug in your iPod, there's no reason not to spend all your evenings there. (Ask for Simon, and tell him Mr Wu sent you. If he doesn't understand immediately, tell him my nickname is "Ming".)

Anyway, today's topic is football. I recently received an e-mail from a former colleague, containing an invitation to a so-called Fantasy Football league, one of those great ways to waste time at work. From what I could tell, most of said workmate's working hours were spent on managing his fantasy football team.

This colleague was promoted recently, which means that someone must have recommended him, although I can't think of anyone who would – except maybe Steven Gerrard, who his striker of choice in last year's Premier League.

For this season, just check out http://fantasy.premierleague.com/

 

If you find it boring simply to bet on the best players, why not bet on the worst? Fantasy F***wit lets you do just that: the players get points for losing games, getting yellow cards, or getting sacked; off-pitch behaviour is also monitored and rewarded, which means that they get points for drunk driving and cheating on girlfriends. Enjoy the rest of your Friday afternoon!

 

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: This post does not in any way encourage or condone gambling, prostitution or football during working hours.

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“Our Ever-changing English”

Looks like we're not the first people to complain about the decline of the English language, apparently Jonathan Swift did the same. The Daily Mail – that bastion of culture and education! – published an article entitled "Britain declares war on words that snuck into our skedule" , and Alison Flood of the Guardian just wrote an interesting little comment on that

Unfortunately, things change – and so does our language.

The Friday Afternoon Guide to Lowering Office Productivity: Mobile Phones

If someone asked if you could imagine a world without Facebook, without iPhones, without free Wi-Fi, you would shake your head in disbelief, thinking that they explaining the plot of some implausible sci-fi film starring Leonardo DiCaprio; but actually, it's just what we used to call "reality".

You're so used to having a mobile phone that you would feel naked if you left home without it. Conservative as I am (I was reprimanded by my superior for still calling China's North-East Manchuria) I waited as long as humanly possible before I bought one of those horrible devices. In the end, I too succumbed to the disease of wanting to be reachable.

My first phone was supposedly state-of-the-art technology, but the most exciting thing you could actually do with it was to play Tetris, which ate the battery before you ever had a chance to complete level ten. (God knows I tried, though!) I still remember that fatal moment in a Singapore hostel, when the phone managed to escape from my lazy grip in one last defiant leap, and subsequently plunged to its death on the concrete floor six feet below. At that moment, I felt like a part of me died. My life would never be the same.

 

Reality is one thing that you're blissfully shielded from if you work in an office. One of the best things about spending eight hours a day in a room with thirty-or-so strangers who call themselves "colleagues" is that you become intimately familiar with their ringtones. One manager, who sits only a few yards away from me, is kind enough to leave the door to his office all the time, so that we can listen to his pointless conversations at all times, and of course his phone.

He must be suffering from some kind of debilitating neurological disease making him numb to vibrations, since he is quite incapable of switching on silent mode on his phone. Unfortunately, the said manager has exactly the same Nokia phone as me, which means every time the bastard receives a text message or phone call, I: (a) reach for my phone; (b) feel deeply embarrassed that I have forgotten to switch on silent mode (c) get really annoyed since I have once again mistaken his phone for mine (d) feel depressed because no one actually bothers to call me – unless it is a Chinese-only telemarketing company, asking me if I have considered the services of Double Happiness Wedding Photos.

 

In times like that, you realise the futility of trying to work. You need to let your mind drift away for a while. Fortunately, the new mobile phone technology makes that task much easier. This week's Friday Afternoon Guide is about what you can do with your phone to waste time:

 

Twitter

There have been quite enough written about Twitter, so there is not much point in explaining it. Twitter takes the whole Facebook nombrilisme to a new extreme: you can post a status update at any time, detailing your every move, complete with your current longitude and latitude from your phone's GPS.

Seriously, who in their right mind would be interested to know that I am currently in a cheap Japanese restaurant, drinking Asahi on my own, like the sad little semi- middle aged man that I am? (My latest actual Tweet.)

On the other hand… Immanuel Kant, arguably the brightest mind of the 18^th century, was unaware of the Storming of the Bastille until something like two weeks after the event. Even if something happened In the age before the Internet, it would take time for the journalists to arrive and interview eyewitnesses; it would take a while for them to write the story; it would be read and edited; and finally reach the readers the next day.

 

I'm pretty meticulous, so it takes me a while to write a standard post on 978-7. (Funnily enough, as I was writing this, I received a Tweet about "Ten Ways to Stop Procrastination", which I shall ignore for the time being.) The good thing with twitter is that you're limited to the format of a SMS, which means it doesn't matter that it's really short. Also, since it's compact and fast, it works really well on your mobile phone. It is also a good way to keep your mind away from the topic of actual work.

You can follow the author of this post on Twitter:

@afternoonguide

In their endless battle against workplace procrastination and time-wasting, the government of the People's Republic of China have blocked access to Twitter, but some unscrupulous individuals have devised sinister ways to get round it, such as…

 

Socially

This application for Symbian phones (i.e. Nokia) somehow works as a mobile proxy server for Facebook, Twitter and FourSquare, granting you the privileges of the decadent West: "Tweets", "Check-ins" and Facebook "likes". The application also gives you fast access to LinkedIn – the site Facebook that could have been if the general population had been more mature and responsible.

 

Google Latitude

George Orwell wrote about the ubiquitous Big Brother, constantly watching you. The novel Nineteen Eighty-four was published in 1949; any contemporary Big Brother wouldn't need t to work so hard, thanks to the shocking amount of information that people willingly publish about themselves. Workmates and fleeting acquaintances tend to waste our lunch breaks and evenings with their endless talk about their children or their stupid little dogs, so why would we want to know about their sex lives on Facebook – even if we didn't have to see all the pictures?

If you want your friends, acquaintances and temporary sex partners to know your present whereabouts, then I advise you to start using Google Latitude.

The service syncs nicely with the latest version of the Google Maps application for your mobile, and even shows your friends' profile pictures on the map.

 

Foursquare

Oh dear… If you ever need to stalk somebody who isn't one of your Google Latitude friends, you should try Foursquare. This social networking site is all about "Checking in" at locations, to let your friends know where you are, or to write things about it. What it actually means is that when you switch on the application, you receive information about restaurants, bars, cafés within a mile or so, and you can also read other people's recommendations. In addition, you can see where your friends are, if they've bothered to "check in". You can even link your Foursquare status to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, which means that every time you check in somewhere, you're whereabouts will be posted on both Facebook and Twitter automatically. This might not be a good idea, though, especially if you have 25,000 Twitter followers. Even posting it on Facebook might be dangerous, especially if you've forgotten to "un-friend" one of those psycho ex-girlfriends.

A while ago, the Guardian published a long article on the subject, with the heart-warming title "How I became a Foursquare cyberstalker"; judging from the content, though, it sounds more like "How to become a Foursquare cyberstalker". Scary stuff indeed!

The article mentions the site pleaserobme.com, which tries to raise awareness of privacy issues related to Twitter and Foursquare.

Enjoy your afternoon!

 

LEGAL DISCLAIMER:

The ideas expressed in this post are the personal views of the author, and might not be shared by Twitter, Foursquare or Immanuel Kant. The Friday Afternoon Guide to Lowering Office Productivity cannot be held responsible for loss of work due to your own Friday afternoon laziness.

Stalking somebody without prior permission is considered a criminal offence in many jurisdictions, unless he/she is a celebrity.

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