Harrods
I work in the South East, there's one of those shops in town where you can buy ANYTHING, and at a very reasonable price. That reasonable price is very handy when you are buying big solid non moving things like hammers, but kind of worrying when you look at how much they sell complicated dangerous electrical things like circular saws for. Obviously, it's ended up being called Harrods by us.

I work in an office, not a factory floor, workshop, building site, or anywhere where physical stuff is generally expected. Sometimes we work late though, and Harrods has had a lot of stuff brought for amusement. Including:

Office cricket set: used the main aisle as a bowling run, fielders at their desks. Took out one guy's special recognition plaque.

Office baseball set: used more just to smack a ball around the office. More solid than the cricket set. Took out the guy's other special recognition plaque.

Gnomes: one was moved around the little pond outside quite often. Ended up on a rock, under a bench, one a fence and the like. The office next door kept putting him in the bin. Someone else had obviously taken a shine to Frank (as he was called), because then he ended up silicon glued to the top of the fence. Until one day he wasn't there. Lot of looking around, and then someone spots him lying in the actual pond. Which led to us buying:

Gnome fishing stuff: Plumb lines, sticks with hooks on - anything you could walk around a hardware store, look at and think "I could use that to retrieve a gnome from the bottom of a 3ft deep pond over a fence". None of which really worked. What finally rescued Frank was when a guy on a bike stopped beside two of our lot trying to fish him out and asked what they were doing. When they told him they were trying to fish the gnome out he replied something along the lines of - "I pushed him in, was drunk at the time." Then jumped fully clothed over the fence, dropped into the pond and rescued Frank before cycling off into the distance. We never did find out who that masked man was.

Leaving presents: normally as a small joke part of someone's leaving gift, but one time we made the mistake of letting Harrods's biggest fan go into town on his own to do the shopping. The leaving year in business student received (off the top of my head) - 'Celebration Fruit Drink', a laser gun, 'Tomy Girl' perfume, possibly a bow and arrow, other assorted crap to the value of around £30.

Various guns, arrows, etc: because a department thrives on the fear of getting hit in the back of the head with a plastic suckered arrow or cork.

Radio controlled Subaru car: you can make jumps from bits of desks which are just the right width, and race it around people's legs.

Flying screaming monkeys: pull them back, fire them at someone's head while they're on the phone, or just throw it into their lap.

Horny Franque: Frank's french cousin. Horny Franque is a little bald man who thrusts his hips backwards and forwards to the tune of Blaydon Races. The best bit about Horny Franque is he's motion sensitive, so if you can turn him on without triggering you can booby trap someone's desk.

Not from Harrods, but in the spirit of Harrods playthings:

Radio controlled plane: No steering, just adjustable flaps at the back. Worrying if someone's got their headphones in and doesn't realise it's heading for the back of their head.

Radio controlled helicopter: because landing it on someone's desk is just the way to impress one of the Directors.

Slingshot: one of those ones like fishermen use to fire bait. Firing a gobstopper in a plastic wrapper resulted in it making halfway across the office and dropping to the floor. Firing a gobstopper not in a plastic wrapper resulted in it missing someone's head by inches and exploding against the wall just below a window, leaving a noticeable dent. Slingshot was then banned from the office.




Bored in the office? Buy toys.
PS: Frank eventually was found smashed on the pavement. We blame the neighbours.
(MattWPBS, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 16:16, Reply)