Techies thought outside the box. Then the boss decided to take the box away
- Reference: 1748244913
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/05/26/who_me/
- Source link:
This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Hamish" who sent a story recalling a time when his company hired a temporary workspace for a project.
"It was a fairly old-style office with a glassed off inner office," he told Who, Me?
[1]
This column has worked in similar environments, where such offices were derisively described as an "aquarium."
[2]
[3]
Hamish and his colleagues quite liked the aquarium.
"We enjoyed its sound-proof interior," he wrote.
[4]
It also made him mischievous.
"Working in a glass box gave me an idea," he told Who, Me? "I printed off two signs. One read: 'Thinking inside the box.' The other read: 'Thinking outside the box'."
Hamish found some Blu Tack and put each sign on the appropriate side of the aquarium.
[5]
The joke went down well, and the signs stayed up for ages until they became a part of the furniture and people stopped noticing them.
[6]Automatic UK-to-US English converter produced amazing mistakes by the vanload
[7]So your [expletive] test failed. So [obscene participle] what?
[8]Teens maintained a mainframe and it went about as well as you'd imagine
[9]What the **** did you put in that code? The client thinks it's a cyberattack
Until one day some middle managers saw the aquarium, decided it was too good to be occupied by the likes of Hamish, and claimed the room to use for themselves.
Hamish watched as the bosses moved in, saw his signs, then tore them down promptly and with prejudice.
"I think the manager never knew who put up the signs, or perhaps he thought it was a personal insult," Hamish told Who, Me? "But I will always remember the old office every time I hear that saying."
Have you had fun with corporate clichés and ended up in strife? Actualize your experience and reach out to "Who, Me?" by [10]clicking here to send us an email. We'll try to operationalize your ideation in a future instalment of Who, Me? ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aDQ7tC5oSSuHI12hjzWi3QAAAgU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aDQ7tC5oSSuHI12hjzWi3QAAAgU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aDQ7tC5oSSuHI12hjzWi3QAAAgU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aDQ7tC5oSSuHI12hjzWi3QAAAgU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aDQ7tC5oSSuHI12hjzWi3QAAAgU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/19/who_me/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/12/who_me/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/05/who_me/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/28/who_me/
[10] mailto:whome@theregister.com
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Shredder
In days of yore, sticking a sign on the shredder saying FAX was considered the height of office humour.
Re: Shredder
I had a sign saying "Suggestions, vacation requests and salary increase propositions"..
Welcome...
Hamish? You'll have had your tea.
Aquarium offices....
In a place I worked for the room we called the aquarium was for people management wanted gone, but had no legal reason to fire, so they were put there with nothing to do for months in a row in the hope they'd quit or died out of boredom. Thankfully I quit that shithole without being subject to that kind of treatment, but it did inspire me to look for new opportunities.
Listening outside the box
One office I worked in sported the largest conference room among all the various locations the company had. As such it was often used by the higher-ups for their strategic meetings. Even though there were only eight of them (in a room that could hold 40) I suppose there was prestige to sitting around a big table.
What they were unaware of is that the inside wall of the conference room was not soundly (I use the word advisedly) attached to the rest of the building and the occupant of the desk where that plasterboard wall met the exterior wall would often find themselves in a position to hear what was being said inside, in assumed confidence.
I once was at a shooting range, 'cos I wanted to do it once. I keep the paper target with the bullet holes in my office with an additional sign saying "Department of trouble shooting"
I have the impression that most people manglement who use the term think outside the box are the once least doing it.
Shredder
The first thing you must always do when moving into a new office is print a sign saying
"IT Suggestion box"
and stick it above the shredder.
Bonus points if you also print a picture of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arch-enemy, Shredder, and stick that on the shredder.