Re: Its funny joke Thursday!
With my fervent apologies to its anonymous author, here's one version of:
"How to simulate submarine life in your cubicle!!"
Surround yourself with people you don't really care for.
If you have any openings to the outside world then tightly close & lock all doors, windows, curtains, & blinds.
Electronically seal off rest of the outside world. Pull the plug on radios, TVs, computers, phones, and anything else that would allow you to interact with the rest of society. Internal communications equipment (especially office headsets or phone receivers) may remain in service.
Paint everything the color of Navy "haze gray" or "beach sand". No substitutions authorized.
Wear only navy-blue coveralls or a proper Navy uniform. No hats, special t-shirts, lucky Spiderman underwear, or other unauthorized clothing.
Cut your own hair monthly using scissors. Use of a mirror, razor, or sharp scissors during this procedure is optional.
Shave at least twice a week. To simulate an extended deployment, use the same blade for two months. You may grow a beard/moustache if you pay $10 to the office recreation fund, but keep your neck shaved clean for a good airmask "face seal" (to be discussed later).
Secure the smoking lamp (whatever that is) throughout the building. If all smokers convert to chewing tobacco, then remove all chewing tobacco from the building. Offer consolation with cheerful slogans like "Quit smoking-- it's a life or death decision!"
Adjust your workday to an 18-hour cycle (six hours on, 12 hours off).
Don't flush toilets for the first two days. (This simulates the smell of first blowing pressurized sanitary tanks overboard and then venting them inboard.) Flush daily afterward, preferably between midnight & 6 AM (or whenever majority of coworkers are asleep).
Monitor all operating appliances with hourly log readings. If the appliance is not in use then log it as "secured". Save all completed log sheets indefinitely and inventory them monthly.
Once a day stand in your cubicle, place your telephone receiver or headset to your ear, and announce to the empty room "Phones are manned." For the next four hours you may walk around in (but not depart) your cubicle holding the receiver to your ear. Do not sit down. No bathroom breaks are authorized. Occasionally mumble "Station calling cubicle, say again?" or "Phone check sat" into the receiver.
Listen to the same CD or cassette tape over and over until you can't stand it any more, then play one you can't even listen to without the onset of acute nausea.
Set a Big Ben alarm clock to go off just as you fall asleep. Other alarms may be substituted as long as they're earsplitting, or buy a special alarm with various settings (e.g., "Fire in the kitchen!", "Flooding in the basement").
To simulate what real submarine cooks must be doing, blindfold yourself and prepare food. Try to persuade your coworkers to eat the results. Then eat a can of tuna or peanut butter (but not both).
Cut your sofa in half and enclose all but one side (use the dimensions of a small casket as your reference). Replace the seat cushions with a four-inch foam rubber pad (mattress cover optional). Rig a dark pleated curtain on the fourth side, ensuring it's short enough to allow a 1-2" light gap at the bottom edge. Cover the top of this "rack" with a half-inch-thick plate of stainless steel that makes a nice reverberating "Bong!" sound when you sit up and slam your forehead into it. Add one gray scratchy wool blanket ("U.S. Army" label is optional.) Make up the blankets properly when not actually in your rack, although no one will see or care. Over-pillow lighting is allowed as long as the light flickers, glares, and emits a fluorescent hum.
Secure all building ventilation and place a loud fan in the middle of the office. At random intervals shut it off, look around wild-eyed at various ventilation duct grilles, turn the fan back on, and relax.
Periodically, to maintain the excitement level, open the building's main power breaker and run around yelling "Reactor Scram!" until you're sweating profusely. Then reset the breaker.
With nothing better to do between reactor scrams, don a mask & snorkel and pretend you're trapped in a smoke-filled room. For added entertainment, rig a garden hose to the break room and pressurize it.
To prepare for any emergency, constantly study wiring diagrams and operating instructions for all appliances. Just in case it was going to break, at periodic intervals (daily, weekly, monthly) strip one appliance down into its individual components. The appliance must be completely reassembled before you can take a meal break.
Monthly, collect the dust from your car's brake pads and scatter it throughout the basement. Hang a sign on the staircase labeled "Secured for Maintenance" and rub the dust into all nooks & crannies. Leave the dust in place until Friday. This evolution may also be repeated in your cubicle with the dust & dirt found under the copier or behind the break room vending machines.
Every Friday morning, to ensure you're living in a clean & safe environment, set alarm clocks on "Loud" for a short (but hated) drill sound. Announce "Commence field day!" in a falsely cheerful voice. Arm yourself with a bucket, sponge, & scrub pad and scrub one area (except the basement) over & over-- even if it was already spotless. After four hours, inspect the area and record at least three deficiencies. Inspectors should take turns competing to record the most deficiencies.
Weekly, preferably on the midwatch, set all alarm clocks to "Loud", activate them for 20 seconds, and shout "Man battle stations." Secure all ventilation equipment. Turn lights down low and, despite the ear-splitting noises of a few minutes ago, speak in whispers. Cram all workers into a single cubicle armed with phone handsets, pencils, & sheets of paper. (No chairs are authorized.) Assign two people to the laptop and have them operate its keyboard simultaneously (cooperation is an unexpected bonus). Other personnel may operate PDAs or inactive cell phones. All personnel should hold phone handsets to their ears at all times and conduct all communication through them, despite being within whispering distance of each other for at least the next two hours. Onlookers should use this "communications" circuit to suggest more efficient keyboard operating procedures to the computer users. At least one watchstander should write down all information displayed on the computer screen on their pieces of paper in case the computer loses power. All remaining hands should scribble their keyboarding suggestions on both their PDAs and their pieces of paper and pass them around, ensuring that all users annotate their initials on each piece of paper. After at least two hours and when everyone is exhausted, sweaty, & angry then announce "Secure from battle stations. Commence field day!"
Daily, after normal prime-time programming hours, plug in the TV and watch one (1) movie. Ensure that it is (a) at least five years old, (b) seen at least twice before, and (c) so bad that you have to install a seatbelt in your chair to keep you from leaving (or nodding off & falling over) until all closing credits have rolled. For bonus points, memorize the dialogue and entertain your friends on watch with your re-enactment.
To enhance morale, create a teletype printout entitled "Sports score summary". Flawlessly spell all team names & towns but garble all scores. Repeat this evolution with 40-word messages from your family, including vocabulary like "judge", "accident", "mortgage", and "pregnant". Bonus: Cut off the message halfway through or deliver 20 copies of the same garbled original.
Stockpile Band-Aids, aspirin, Sudafed, and Dimetapp. These will be your only authorized underway medical supplies. Practice treatment on your boss or an office intern (no medicinal taste testing). Surgery & dentistry are optional bonus evolutions.
This simulation should be run for at least three months. Initially promise all occupants to complete the project after one month, and then on day 27 extend it for the remaining two months in one-week intervals announced randomly every five to seven days.
Then sit around afterward and wonder why you had trouble getting your work done.
