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> Work must be serious and professional I disagree. Certainly, that's the default expectation for corporate office culture... and it works for a lot of people.

> Work must be serious and professional I disagree. Certainly, that's the default expectation for corporate office culture... and it works for a lot of people... but I think the best way to approach work is to make not feel like work. Having toys around to play with is one (small) way to make the workday seem like fun. To be clear, I'm not condoning any of the behavior described in OP. At a former employer, we had nerf guns and plush toys we'd throw at each other occasionally. But there are certain unwritten rules to it: 1) don't nerf anyone who doesn't want to be nerfed. 2) probably better to just not nerf someone unless you know them well and have good relations with them. 3) by default, assume that women don't want to be nerfed. That last bullet may seem like it's exclusionary or sth, but it's my experience that women genuinely don't appreciate this particular game. Those who do want to participate in the nerf wars can signal that by nerfing someone. Yeah, and spiking someone's drink is definitely not ok, in the office or anywhere else.

gkya 9y ago
I'm sorry but I'm getting a cringe out of this. I seriously can't imagine a workplace where people are throwing things at each other. I could list here my potential thoughts having to work at such a place but I'd probably get banned then. There are people for whom work is trying to not fall down from tens of meters of height, people for whom work is watching people die at your hands when you're trying to bring them back to the only life they have, people for whom work is to collect before sunrise the scraps thousands of idiots litter around all the day, people for whom work is to read thousands upon thousands of pages to make humanity a bit less ignorant cave men; and then here I'm being told whom I should aim with a toy gun in an office. And the same privileged bunch that can't do work when it feels like work can't be bothered to blinking do some work like it's supposed to be regardless of whether or not their work feels like work or not, given the loads of crapware that's pushed around all the day. And then people go on questioning how women are scarsely represented in IT, heck, anybody with some manners should be underrepresented in such a work environment. Flying toys around my head when debugging some funny exception that I don't know what the cause is, of course I'm not debugging, either I'm monkeying around along with the "colleagues", or waiting for the annoyance to stop to start writing my letter of resignation. And WRT drinking in workplace, I have not seen a single bartender drink while working, to this day. I can't imagine blokes that throw toys at each other in an office while sober getting drunk.
- I_Know_Why 9y ago
  Clearly you'd be one of those who don't appreciate being nerfed and you'd be therefore excluded from it by my rules. Probably you wouldn't appreciate that kind of workplace at all, and so shouldn't work at such a company. People can have different preferences for this stuff, and that's ok... ... but I think you're imagining a much more extreme environment than I have experienced myself. Throwing foam toys was something that happened occasionally, it's not a constant annoyance. Maybe it was different with this group at google, idunno. If it were more than occasional, I would squawk just as much as you. Must work always be so deadly serious that you can't ever appreciate an attempt to crack a joke, blow off a little steam, unwind a bit before getting back to it? Yeah, I sure wouldn't want to hear about surgeons engaging in such antics in the operating room, but why does that make a difference in an office? > And then people go on questioning how women are scarsely represented in IT, > heck, anybody with some manners should be underrepresented in such a work > environment. I really doubt that nerf guns are the reason that women are underrepresented in this business. I really want to understand your position on this, not trying to sound sarcastic: If 2 people are throwing angry birds stuffies at each other (on occasion) in your office, and neither of them is you, that alone will make you so mad? Do you really care so much about what other people are doing? > And the same privileged bunch that can't do work when it feels like work > can't be bothered to blinking do some work like it's supposed to be > regardless of whether or not their work feels like work or not. I dislike being labeled as privileged, tho maybe you weren't aiming that at me. (Tho of course, everyone who gets a cushy engineer's salary is privileged. That would include you as well, presumably.) Personally, it's not at all that I can't work without the toys and jokes and whatnot every so often, but that it just makes the working day a little more pleasant. For me. And when I'm happier, I'm more productive. > And WRT drinking in workplace, I have not seen a single bartender drink > while working, to this day. We're getting very offtopic here, esp since we violently agree about drinking in the workplace, but you must not drink in the same bars I do. I have often seen bartenders take shots or sipping on cocktails. In fact, I think most bars allow everyone working there one free "shift drink" per day. Not all bartenders do this. The more serious career-bartender cocktail-nerd types tend not to drink on duty (or at all, for that matter). But for most of them, it's just a job and they'll take the shift drink as a fringe benefit.

gkya 9y ago

I'm sorry but I'm getting a cringe out of this. I seriously can't imagine a workplace where people are throwing things at each other. I could list here my potential thoughts having to work at such a place but I'd probably get banned then. There are people for whom work is trying to not fall down from tens of meters of height, people for whom work is watching people die at your hands when you're trying to bring them back to the only life they have, people for whom work is to collect before sunrise the scraps thousands of idiots litter around all the day, people for whom work is to read thousands upon thousands of pages to make humanity a bit less ignorant cave men; and then here I'm being told whom I should aim with a toy gun in an office. And the same privileged bunch that can't do work when it feels like work can't be bothered to blinking do some work like it's supposed to be regardless of whether or not their work feels like work or not, given the loads of crapware that's pushed around all the day. And then people go on questioning how women are scarsely represented in IT, heck, anybody with some manners should be underrepresented in such a work environment. Flying toys around my head when debugging some funny exception that I don't know what the cause is, of course I'm not debugging, either I'm monkeying around along with the "colleagues", or waiting for the annoyance to stop to start writing my letter of resignation. And WRT drinking in workplace, I have not seen a single bartender drink while working, to this day. I can't imagine blokes that throw toys at each other in an office while sober getting drunk.

I_Know_Why 9y ago
Clearly you'd be one of those who don't appreciate being nerfed and you'd be therefore excluded from it by my rules. Probably you wouldn't appreciate that kind of workplace at all, and so shouldn't work at such a company. People can have different preferences for this stuff, and that's ok... ... but I think you're imagining a much more extreme environment than I have experienced myself. Throwing foam toys was something that happened occasionally, it's not a constant annoyance. Maybe it was different with this group at google, idunno. If it were more than occasional, I would squawk just as much as you. Must work always be so deadly serious that you can't ever appreciate an attempt to crack a joke, blow off a little steam, unwind a bit before getting back to it? Yeah, I sure wouldn't want to hear about surgeons engaging in such antics in the operating room, but why does that make a difference in an office? > And then people go on questioning how women are scarsely represented in IT, > heck, anybody with some manners should be underrepresented in such a work > environment. I really doubt that nerf guns are the reason that women are underrepresented in this business. I really want to understand your position on this, not trying to sound sarcastic: If 2 people are throwing angry birds stuffies at each other (on occasion) in your office, and neither of them is you, that alone will make you so mad? Do you really care so much about what other people are doing? > And the same privileged bunch that can't do work when it feels like work > can't be bothered to blinking do some work like it's supposed to be > regardless of whether or not their work feels like work or not. I dislike being labeled as privileged, tho maybe you weren't aiming that at me. (Tho of course, everyone who gets a cushy engineer's salary is privileged. That would include you as well, presumably.) Personally, it's not at all that I can't work without the toys and jokes and whatnot every so often, but that it just makes the working day a little more pleasant. For me. And when I'm happier, I'm more productive. > And WRT drinking in workplace, I have not seen a single bartender drink > while working, to this day. We're getting very offtopic here, esp since we violently agree about drinking in the workplace, but you must not drink in the same bars I do. I have often seen bartenders take shots or sipping on cocktails. In fact, I think most bars allow everyone working there one free "shift drink" per day. Not all bartenders do this. The more serious career-bartender cocktail-nerd types tend not to drink on duty (or at all, for that matter). But for most of them, it's just a job and they'll take the shift drink as a fringe benefit.