Pretend Office

February 6, 2010 9:10 AM

Phil Gyford (mefi's own!) realized last year that after he and his friends spent much of their professional lives freelancing, they were missing out on a key part of business life: Office Culture. So he invented his own, launching a synergizing solutioneering company site called Pretend Office complete with stock art. The key component that made the ruse complete was the inter-office @everyone mailing list, which is also online. Through the mailing list, they create the story of the most painful fictitious office on earth. A personal favorite of mine was the Christmas Dinner thread, do step through the conversation.
posted by mathowie (20 comments total)

I just discovered Pretend Office this week! Marvelous, marvelous, marvelous. I love people coming up with clever ways to tell a story.

Also, Mathowie: Conversation.
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:28 AM on February 6, 2010

Everyone was right, this is much better than the American Office!
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:30 AM on February 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

This is good...i came upon the mailing list earlier this year, but didn't have the whole back story. Love how this just grew organically and took a life of its own.
posted by rsanheim at 9:35 AM on February 6, 2010

...synergizing solutioneering...

aaaannnnnnnnnd...my brain exploded.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:35 AM on February 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

I just found the entire office staff have twitter accounts too.
posted by mathowie at 9:48 AM on February 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

This made me smile broadly, but I didn't literally laugh out loud until I saw some of them trying to fit their corporate email .sigs into their tweets.
posted by ardgedee at 10:13 AM on February 6, 2010

Their website needs more pictures of serious office workers.
posted by octothorpe at 11:09 AM on February 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

Okay, the text on that front page is *exactly right.*

We have to go through a procurement soon, and I can't tell you how much I look forward to reading real web sites just stuffed full of that sort of businessspeak.
posted by Zinger at 11:32 AM on February 6, 2010

"Who has the keys to this Twitter thing?" Brilliant. The sad, sordid story of the Flood is genius.
posted by jokeefe at 12:24 PM on February 6, 2010

Just in time! Lying on the couch sick watching movies was getting pretty old. Love it.
posted by hapax_legomenon at 12:41 PM on February 6, 2010

This looks like fun. (I'll take the occasion to remind everyone that we have Phil to thank for Pepys' Diary.)
posted by languagehat at 1:20 PM on February 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

The text on the front page is so perfect I'm sending it around to copywriters who write that sort of thing for a living. /evil
posted by dabitch at 2:08 PM on February 6, 2010

Very fun. I think I worked there in the 90's. Love the conference room names (Wannsee, Anthony Blunt etc).
posted by Sk4n at 2:14 PM on February 6, 2010

www.pretendoffice.co.uk -- Wank factor of 4.65
This level is classified as significant wank.

Not bad. Anytime I read "full-spectrum consumer-focused solutions provider", that shit goes straight into the Wankometer.
posted by crapmatic at 2:49 PM on February 6, 2010

"Confirmation of our new space should be coming into your intray inboxes this afternoon once wellness have signed off on the feng shui strategy document."
posted by moody cow at 9:52 PM on February 6, 2010

This is wonderful. I think I've worked somewhere like this as well.
posted by carter at 11:50 PM on February 6, 2010

I love how the Pretend "news web log" has only two entries and was last updated about 8 months ago. Totally authentic!
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 1:09 AM on February 7, 2010

Thanks, mathowie. But now my kids want to know why I'm laughing and crying at the same time.
posted by Ella Fynoe at 3:55 AM on February 7, 2010

Speaking as the VP of client-faced reversioning EMEA at Pretend Office PLC (Slough), I am aghast that our company's confidential and sensitive internal communications are visible to the webizens of the net, and must demand that, with regard to all links to Pretend Office, its website(s), its emails, its page on the Twitter, and any and all conversations pertaining thereto, you immediately:

1. Cease (whatever it is you've done or are doing in any part of the world).

2. Deliver all copies thereof by registered mail to our Slough Office no later than 15th October 2007.

3. Alongsidetherewith you send a full explanation of the 'hacks' and 'explots' you used to gain access to our confidential and commercially sensitive information digital site(s) on the internet, in digital format (Powerpoint preferred).

4. Furthermoreunto supply us your registered postal ('mail') address for our lawyers to send you notice of exactly what laws you have broken and whether you will go to jail for it/them.

We trust that this will not affect the high esteem in which you hold us, or our mutual organisations' regular channels of business.

(Additionally could the administrator send me a receipt for the $US$5 I was required to pay to post this legal message on the Blue Metafilter. Thank you.)

James Wallis
VP client-faced reversioning EMEA
Pretend Office PLC (Slough)

Sent using Blackberry® from Orange
posted by Hogshead at 6:49 AM on February 7, 2010 [9 favorites]

This is so much fun. I work outside of office land 2 days a week and I've been trying to get back into an office for ... longer than I care to admit.

Reading that Christmas Dinner thread made me kinda glad nobody will hire me.
posted by bilabial at 1:34 PM on February 7, 2010