Office Space

You know the scene in the movie Office Space where Peter, the hero, waltzes into the office midday in a Hawaiian shirt and new suntan, carrying a cooler with a fish in it? He then proceeds to gut his freshly caught fish on his desk in the middle of the office. Slacking at its finest, indeed a level to which we all, at some point, have aspired.

Some might say I have achieved this right now. I currently: am wearing a cowboy hat; have half a margarita from the office building ‘ritas and salsa mixer on my desk; am playing with a bouncy/squeezy ball from the piñata at said mixer; and between typing bursts, lean back and spin back and forth in my chair.

Yes, it’s late Friday afternoon as I write this, and that could be to blame. Or it could be that today is Contributing Editor JR Sutich’s birthday, and I keep getting interrupted by everyone running around the office on sugar high from his cake, oddly enough, shaped like my right great toe. (I didn’t indulge, it didn’t seem right.) It could be the half of the margarita that is no longer in the cup on my desk. Who knows?

The weird part, though? This week’s issue is about the tenuous relationship of work and play. And I can’t stop the play in order to work on it. It’s a weird meta … moment of experiencing the subject of this week’s issue.

Everyone out there, grab the nearest toy on your desk (come on, we’re all into games, you have a toy on your desk), lean back and ponder that for a moment. Have your own “meta-moment” before indulging in the offerings of this week’s authors. To whet your appetite, I’ll give a preview of what to expect. Simon Abramovich discusses games in the workplace and the trouble with brain real estate. Corvus Elrod takes a fanciful trip down What If Lane, spinning the story of a day in the life of a loan officer … as if work were a game. And Richard Aihoshi returns to discuss when games and work blur in the setting of online poker.

Work hard, play harder,

-Julianne Greer