Manage Your Life

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

How to Make Friends at Work

While regularly greeting coworkers, even if you have seen them for the gazillionth time, can help heighten your popularity around the water cooler, a surefire way to get noticed and catapult your social status is by showing your character through cubicle décor. Cluster even a few of these provocative, eye-catching, or downright addictive gadgets around your workspace and your desk will quickly become a must-stop on coworkers’ daily office tours.

Show Your Pop-Culture Credentials

Style can be exhibited through more than mere fashion. Show you’ve got flair, pizzazz, and the pulse on pop culture by placing a red Swingline stapler (a la Office Space) or the Dwight Schrute Bobblehead (one of many gizmos from The Office) on your desk. It won’t take long to learn how many couch potatoes appreciate your hilarious references. You can also bait Gossip Girl, Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty, and Project Runway fans with official collector’s items and fanwear.

Get Goofy
Everybody likes an excuse to lighten up, and with goofy gadgets in hand, you can be it. Hand out mustaches to your peers or bubble gum cocktail wienies and you’re the instant Pied Piper of fun.  

Make Yourself Useful
Sometimes baiting people to flock around you is as easy as being the source for everyday necessities. Like what? A USB Mug Warmer & Hub is a good place to start. Plug it in and see if co-workers are coming around to reheat their cups of joe at your desk. Other good bets include diamond push pins and an all-sizes-welcome wooden pencil sharpener.

Display Conversation-Starters
If you’re looking for tools to tear down the walls between your cubicle mates or melt the icy atmosphere at your workplace, bring on the fun, conversation-starting gadgets, such as a cubicle doorbell. They’ll have co-workers swarming towards your desk like bees to honey.

Related Links:
The Most Stylish Ways to Rock Out
Goofy Gadgets
Funky Flash Drives
The Office Essentials
Cubetastic Editor’s Picks

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.
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From the Community…

Comments 1-3 of 3
  • Mrs. Carol B's Avatar
    Posted by Mrs. Carol B Tue Nov 3, 2009 2:01pm PST

    I did something like this in my position as a visiting nurse. When I was being constantly asked to increase my workload without sign of let up I brought in a toy from Burger King that was a Jedi knight 8 ball figure. You turned him over for the answer to your question. I actually used it several times when asked to take on extra work. I'd flip it over and it said "not today" or some other phrase and the person asking me to do the extra work actually went away............... amazing! It soon became a conversation piece and when I transferred to an office closer to home they all said "hope your Jedi works for you there, too."

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