The Office Playground Blog

I Weally Miss My Widdle Doggie at Work

So you're one of those incurable doggie lovers, but your workplace isn't one where a woof-woof would fit in. What's a canine lover to do? You could howl like a coyote, run in circles, wait at co-workers sides hoping someone will scratch behind your ears or, most intense of all, sit with your tongue hanging out and beg for their food while they eat lunch. Those are all really excellent ideas, however they don't rate very highly on the acceptable-workplace-behavior scale.

A more practical approach to address your longings for your woofy is to roll over to Office Playground's Dogs & Cats page and fetch some of our fun stuff with a canine theme. Maybe you'd like to impress co-workers (and yourself, and Cesar) with your dog training abilities -- in that case Mr. Mutt is your man... errr, dog. Or it could be that you'd like to see your loyal companion sleeping quietly by the side of your desk -- sounds like you need a Sleeping Dog. And when you need to bounce back from the dog-eat-dog environment that today's economy fosters, what could be better than the master of springiness, the Slinky Dog.

Stop being an ordinary paper pusher and use a Dog Stapler to conjure up thoughts of Fido, waiting faithfully at home, chewing up something new and expensive while you're gone. Don't sit and stay miserable! There's no better time than now to chase that doggie separation anxiety away; run over to the Playground and unleash your yearnings!

The Find It Expert

Find It puzzles are one of the most addictive and entertaining games we have here at Office Playground. Some of my co-workers introduced me to the Find It puzzles this past summer. One of the perks of working at Office Playground is that we get to play with sample products. I’ve found most of the hidden objects in all three of our Find It puzzles, so I now consider myself a Find It expert.

I started with the Find It - At The Beach, not even knowing we had other versions of the game. I was immediately hooked. I used a slow twisting and rocking technique to find over half of the hidden objects in less than a day. Most of the objects were easy to find with some time. At the end of my first day searching, I still had to find a few objects my co-workers had never found after their months of searching. It wasn’t long, though, until I found things they had not. The bathing suit, rock, sunshine and penny were some of the most difficult to find. The penny is supposedly the most stubborn of them all. Its weight, shape and size prevents it from appearing on the outer areas. I became rather obsessed with finding the penny and the rest of the objects. I did some research and discovered a special maneuver that uncovers the penny. I tried a few times and ended up finding the rock, which no one in the office had found yet. After some patience and persistence, I finally found the penny! Only a small amount of the penny was visible, since most of it was still covered in the tiny plastics beads, but it was certainly recognizable as a penny.

Later, I learned that there were other Find It games and we had samples of them too! I found the Find It - At The Zoo to be much more challenging than the Find It – At the Beach. It was difficult to decipher which animal I was looking at, especially if its head was still buried in the beads. The shape and the weight of many of the animals made them rather easy to find, but others were made out of unexpected materials or in a unique form. The kangaroo remains hidden.

The Find It - Original contains a diverse combination of objects, but they are very familiar. After experiencing the other Find It games, this one seemed easy. I could find several objects right away. A handful of the objects took longer to find than most, but became visible quickly. The only troublesome ones were the wing nut, popcorn kernel and the bow. I’ve searched for the bow for hours. I have come to the conclusion that the bow isn’t in my particular puzzle.

On my desk, I currently have a Find It tower of all three puzzles stacked on top of each other. It has caught the attention of co-workers passing by my cubicle and it has yet to tip over!

Customize Your Zen Garden

The Deluxe Zen Garden sat on my desk next to the Beach in a Box. One day the beach items from the Beach in a Box migrated into the larger Deluxe Zen Garden sand tray and a gateway to creativity was opened. I began to add other trinkets to the beach scene such as a little bucket, shovel, sand castle and sailboat. A blue can lid made a perfect pond. I collected tiny faux flowers, miniature animals and trees. Last spring a flower garden appeared in my Zen garden with miniature flowers, a tiny water fountain and an unoccupied chair for an imaginary figure to enjoy the serene setting. My Zen Garden continues to create smiles as others stop by to see my newest creation. Coming soon, a pirate invasion!

The Barnyard Comes to the Office

A favorite activity for some of us here at Office Playground is our daily barnyard animal sound session. We don't have to leave the safety of our cubicles to engage in this entertaining activity -- we just use the excellent vocal talents of our stock of slingshot flying animals, giving each a slap to make them call out. We sometimes have the same animal call in near unison, creating a delayed, echoing effect across the canyons of the office; other times we have different animals respond to one another in zany fashion. Our stockpile of animals includes the Slingshot Flying Chicken, the Slingshot Flying Cow, the Slingshot Flying Duck and, though they are not found in too many barnyards around the world, the Slingshot Flying Monkey.

Get yourself a set of these vociferous critters and start your own cacophonic tradition! Maybe the chicken leads off with its rooster-like calls in the morning, or maybe the duck helps get things going in that sleepy post-lunch phase by quacking everyone up. When you're up for something intense, go all out and have all four sound off at the same time. Hey, in an uncertain world we all need traditions, right?