9 Quirky Things Every 'Cool' Workplace Is Required to Have

Each person posts theirs as if people's minds are going to be boggled that Nerf guns would be used in a workplace. This video actually uses the CEO (and possibly the only employee) of a web design company talking about Nerf gun strategy as an advertisement for the company. "THAT'S who I want designing my website!" you are meant to say. "This is no boring Joe Schmoe who will give me a beige-colored website. He is a craaaaazy thinker!"

There is nothing more exciting than a guy standing in front of a company logo without a Nerf gun, talking about Nerf guns.

But wait! What about CashLinq, which doesn't just allow Nerf gun fights in the office but actually issues an official Nerf gun to every employee hired? Nobody else would be so crazy as to take fun to the edge like that! Except TerraCycle, and Sudden Impact Marketing, and so many dotcoms in the '90s that it's a standard cliche for a wannabe-edgy company.

Via VentureBeat

The other cliche would be the high-visibility mascot you have to sell when your company goes bankrupt.

The worst part is that Nerf guns probably knock down as much office morale as they boost, leading to a wash. For every employee that loves spontaneous cubicle battles, there is a terrified quiet person or grumpy curmudgeon that will either shut down or snap when the darts go flying. But if the bosses are wacky fun types, they'll just write these people off as party poopers who have negativity problems or something, and keep telling themselves that the forced Nerf culture is great for anyone who really counts.

It can be a homey background decor if everybody's genuinely into that stuff, but when you display it prominently and make sure it gets photographed on a tour as a badge of how cool your company culture is, that's like a hipster pointing out their TMNT T-shirt to anyone in earshot.

Here are Zappos and Groupon showing that they remember something old that is supposed to be cool to remember now.

NerdBusiness.com

I might be impressed if it wasn't all Marvel titles.

BusinessInsider.com

I bet they quote lines from Labyrinth at each other too.

Meanwhile, Mashable put up an ironic Justin Bieber poster:

MashableHQ.com

... only to find out that Twitter had done the exact same thing.

If you really wanted to blow them away, I'd suggest getting an actual soccer field, or I guess maybe a basketball court if you want something your employees would actually want to use.

Those are all Facebook conference room names if anyone was looking for another reason to hate Facebook.

Curious Photos

Another Facebook room.

As mentioned, "creative" naming of conference rooms can lead to internal chaos, such as when a Yahoo! employee was told a meeting was "in Limbo" and went back to his desk assuming the location hadn't been decided on.

They also often cross the line from a winky "We have a sense of humor and aren't stuffy office types," to an obnoxious "HEY LOOK AT ME I'M WACKY," as seen in the Facebook conference names. Other offenders include SoftLayer, which names its conference rooms after obscure inside jokes, which I'm sure visiting vendors and consultants enjoy as much as adults enjoy hearing a gaggle of teenage girls joke about which one of them is the craaaziest.

Poggled names its rooms after memes people won't remember six months from now, and SEOmoz names its rooms after comic/sci-fi locations (Batcave, Mos Eisley) that their children tell them are supposed to be cool.

Another feature that trendy loft offices might as well rent to their tenants as a standard option is the office dog. I'm pretty sure the only tech/animation/gaming/design workplace that doesn't allow dogs is mine because they are mean and have hearts of stone. I keep telling them all the other companies let their employees bring dogs and it's not fair, and they just respond by asking if all the other companies' employees jumped off a bridge, would I jump off a bridge too?

Well yes, if it wasn't a very high bridge, and it meant I could bring a dog to work. Here are some of what looks like 10 million companies that not only allow dogs but have an "official" office dog.

BusinessInsider.com

Etsy.

Working At Popcap

PopCap Games.

BusinessInsider.com

Blue Slate Digital.

BusinessInsider.com

Hunch.

JoshMullineaux.com

TechStars.

Youtube

Warne Marketing.

franken.senate.gov

The office of Senator Al Franken.

As you can see, having an official dog is adorable, but isn't a great move to make your office stand out.

Here's some dudes at PopCap Games showing off the fun they have scooting around on scooters at PopCap:

WorkingAtPopcap

Here's some guy at Facebook showing off the fun they have skatboarding around on skateboards at Facebook:

Bloomberg.com

And here's some parked scooters at Google New York that no one could be bothered to demonstrate for the tour:

The Washington Post

At this point, it's been copied so much that you'll probably have to have your CEO putting around on a Big Wheel to get any attention.

LaughingSquid.com

Less dignity = more industry cred.

... YouTube ...

OfficeSnapshots.com

... TechStars ...

JoshMullineaux.com

... Valve ...

Valve Office Tour

... and many more, but you probably don't want to sit here looking at red walls all day. If you do, I have good news for you, the tech sector is hiring.

... PopCap ...

Working At Popcap

... Skype London ...

NerdBusiness.com

... Digg ...

OfficeSnapshots.com

... Mozilla ...

OfficeSnapshots.com

... Groupon ...

BusinessInsider.com

... Google Stockholm ...

OfficeSnapshots.com

... and a ton of other companies all look suspiciously similar.

And YouTube.

Youtube

And Red Bull.

Designverb.com

And Epic Games.

Cliff Bleszinski

And some office complex in England.

Metro.co.uk

This isn't even a company. This is just an office building that some developer built and is going to rent out to a bunch of businesses, with the deal sweetener of, "Also, it has a slide." That's how ho-hum slides are now. You use them to sell office space to people.

Now a lot of these workplaces are a big step up from working at your average standard-cubicle distribution office or investment firm, sure. But the way they gush about these traits like they're reinventing the workplace or something is ridiculous considering how many other companies are doing the exact same things, in the exact same colors even. As far as who's really setting the bar for a "different" workplace, take a look at Inventionland:

OfficeSnapshots.com

Love it or hate it, you got to admit they don't half-ass it when trying to make a "different" kind of office. They're not just painting a wall red or bringing in a foosball table, they're planting their employees in the middle of goddamned Disneyland. I don't know if that helps them work or not but it sure as hell is commitment to being different.

When your average Nerf-gunning PR person brags to the media about how they're doing wacky, creative things with offices that nobody's done before, they should look at this place and hang their heads in shame. And then take down those stupid internet meme posters.

For more from Christina, check out 5 Reasons Why Anticonformity Is Worse Than Conformity and 6 Things Movies Love to Get Wrong About The Workplace.