Office Tower Defense

Your open plan is under attack. The meeting that could have been an email is rolling down the corridor. Behind it: a reply-all thread, a colleague on speakerphone, a manager doing the rounds, and an intern who has been lost since Tuesday. You have six defences, and every one of them is an object you already own. • Noise-cancelling headphones. Cheap, steady, no surprises. • Potted plant. Soaks up a whole corner and slows everyone in it. • Coffee machine. Everyone stops here, and loses their morning. • "In a meeting" sign. Slow, expensive, and final. • Slide deck. Death by presentation, for everyone in front of it at once. • Photocopier. It jams, and whoever is near stops to fix it. WHERE YOU PUT THEM IS THE GAME A coffee machine holds people in front of it, so whatever sits beside it hits a target that has stopped moving. A plant takes the edge off the noise, so its neighbours cut through patience. And two corridors is not twice one corridor: the crossings where they overlap are the only tiles worth fortifying. A CARD EVERY FEW WAVES Pick one of three. It lasts the rest of the day, and it is why two runs on the same floor never go the same way. FOUR WAYS TO LOSE A DAY Morning standup: six waves, one corridor. Sprint week: twelve waves, two corridors. Quarter close: twenty waves, three corridors. And Open plan forever, which has no last wave at all. Earn coffee, spend it on better chairs, a bigger budget and the last two defences, and start the next day a little less doomed. No account. No adverts. Nothing collected about you. Just a floor, and the people ruining it.