The office disco party

Raymond Chen

One of the long-standing traditions at Microsoft is to play a prank on someone’s office while they’re away on vacation. You can imagine what most of these pranks are like, filling someone’s office with packing peanuts or other materials, or relocating their office to an unlikely part of the building (the bathroom, the cafeteria), or something more subtle like mirror-reversing all the furniture in the office. Redecorating an office is a common theme, such as turning their office into a French bistro or a golf course (with real grass).

One particularly memorable office redecoration was from 1996 or so. One of the managers, let’s call him “Bob”, had a bit of a reputation for being “cool” in a nightclubby sort of way. While Bob was away on vacation, his team set to work. They emptied his office completely, painted the walls black, removed the ceiling tiles to give it that “industrial” look, and installed a disco dance floor, disco lights, and a stereo with turntable.

It was Disco Bob’s Party Palace.

When Bob returned, there was quite a happenin’ disco party waiting for him.

Raymond Chen

Follow