Some days, you're stuck in the cubicle, needing to get a ton of stuff done. There's all those project deadlines, the status update report, the TPS reports, the halfbakery anno'ing that needs doing, and of course the customer issues.
With a little peer pressure, you feel the need to pull your own weight, and that helps you stay motivated to get things done.
The problem is that, come Friday afternoon, the workplace can clear out fast, and you lose that peer pressure. Now, doing even the smallest task requires summoning enormous discipline.
Enter the solution: Fake Co-Worker Background Noise. Your coworker's PC's can be setup to have screensavers that make inert sounds like a keyboard being busily clacked away at, along with some mouse clicking sounds and paper shuffling.
Now, you'll never know you're alone, and will find it easier to continue momentum into the wee hours.
(Of course, this here HB posting is doing such a service to a peer over the wall.)
This screensaver can serve other purposes, too.....-- sophocles, Apr 16 2005 Background noise http://www.iserenity.com/environments.htmChoose typewriters, traffic, waterfalls... no actual cow-orkers, tho. [ConsultingDetective, Apr 16 2005] I understand the bit about peer pressure driving you on, it's a good thing. But the phrase <stuck in the cubicle> gives me real nightmares. How can you work like that? What keeps you from going mad?-- zeno, Apr 16 2005 Paying rent, [zeno].
[+]-- contracts, Apr 16 2005 There was a Dilbert cartoon where Wally made annoying cubile sounds play on his PC (clipping toenails, etc.) to drive co-workers crazy.-- Widgit, Apr 16 2005 Workaholics will misuse this on off-hours. +-- FarmerJohn, Apr 16 2005 I figured this would be a device you carry around for calling an SO and saying "honey, I'll be home late again today, the boss asked me to stay after" while preparing to commit sexual acts with a person who isn't your SO.
(Color me bitter. I just dumped a girl who had been using work as an excuse not to see me.)-- disbomber, Apr 16 2005 dis, I hate to tell you this but *she* dumped YOU!
if you need counselling, please don't email me, thanks.-- po, Apr 16 2005 why don't you just put this on your own computer, and then you can convince business associates, or the head office that you're hard at work, when you're really lounging on the beach?-- elfling, Apr 16 2005 [po], it was more complex than that, as she was attempting to blow me off for a couple of weeks and leave it open for her to change her mind (as she had often done over the last several months) and start seeing me again. You're sort of correct in that it wasn't a straightforward I-dump-her situation, but--fuck it, nevermind. Rest assured I won't be emailing you for counseling.-- disbomber, Apr 16 2005 Purring Performance? Vibrating Vacuum? Pencil Parade?
[ConsultingDetective]'s link sounds like an alliteratory fetishist site.-- disbomber, Apr 17 2005 The office I used to work in actually did this. I never figured out what it was - I suspect it had to do with something in the ceiling tiles (or maybe above them) that made little intermittent mouse-click-sounding and keyboard-tapping noises so if you were walking around the office while everyone was out, you'd always think there was someone on the other side of the cube wall working late or on the weekend.-- ywong, Apr 18 2005 Yes, background noise can be a terrible give-away when telling a white lie on the telephone.-- Ling, Apr 18 2005 How did they get the sound of Woodstock to go forwards 1 month in time?-- Ling, Apr 18 2005 //The transmission was not actually live - it was transmitted the previous month.//
?? I can't follow the logic. Must be all that background noise....BE QUIET!-- Ling, Apr 18 2005 Not many people know this, but the music festival actually took place at the Sea of Tranquility a month earlier.-- FarmerJohn, Apr 18 2005 Ah, yes, the vibes at Woodstock were so powerful, that they could be detected at the moon, even one month afterwards (and/or prior).
But, back to the point, imagine how much faster we'd have (faked) gone to the moon if the engineers could have heard the (faked) work-noises of their peers. I fear we may be delving back into metaphysics...-- sophocles, Apr 18 2005 If a machine makes noises of mouse-clickings and keyboard-tappings, and nobody's there to hear it, is there an omnipotent being controlling our fate?-- disbomber, Apr 18 2005 If there's no-one around to hear it is the computer making noises at all?-- hidden truths, Apr 19 2005 Is it, perhaps, a Giant Chicken Soda Machine?-- disbomber, Apr 19 2005 Something at Woodstock was pretty powerful, in any case...-- david_scothern, Apr 19 2005 This would be fun to use on the new janitor for the office late at night. Tell him ghost stories the previous morning about IBMs that are possessed by satan and Windows users who were sucked through there screens into a dimension of hell.-- MrDaliLlama, Apr 19 2005 + It's Friday afternoon here in New England, and I really need a "Fake Co-worker", as he left early..... or I'm out of here.-- xandram, Apr 13 2006 I would prefer Fake Lover Background Noise so my friends would be envious when I call them from my cubicle when I'm working late.-- YoDaveG, Apr 13 2006 Poor, [xandram].... it's still Thursday!-- sophocles, Apr 13 2006 I ordered background noise CD #4, "Tax assessor's office," but they sent me "Indian opium lab" instead. So I've been on the phone all day trying to get customer support. Meanwhile, the local FBI office, who swears they don't tap my phones, keep thinking up excuses to deliver stuff so they can snoop. I can't get any work done. The good news is, I now have three bouquets of flowers, four pizzas, and a random assortment of Amazon best-sellers. And I can say "hand me that bunsen burner" in Telugu.-- luxlucet, Apr 25 2006 Dammit, [IT] may just be right - if the Moon is roughly a quarter of a million miles away, then the sound of the Woodstock Festival, travelling at 760mph, would take over 27 days to make the round trip over that distance!My God - after all these years, Tindale, you've cracked it.-- coprocephalous, Apr 25 2006 Poor me is right! I had a fake co-worker, fake calendar, fake clock, and they must have missed me the next day, which was fake Saturday.-- xandram, May 15 2006 This gives me an idea.... even if it didnt, i like it. bread for you.-- Curiosity, May 15 2006 random, halfbakery