The war on fun continues

I don't know if it is because of complaints from tight-asses, or if the agency thinks we are wasting time on this kind of stuff (hint: we are), but a recent spate of NFL-related trash-talking has been brought to a screeching halt. On this project, we have fans of the Redskins, Packers, 49ers, Panthers, Colts, Broncos, and Patriots, among others. Obviously, the Redskins are pathetic, but the rest are (or were) playoff teams this season. Naturally, the partisans of these various teams have sought to tout their team's supremacy, sometimes even after their team was eliminated.

One way in which this touting took place was by changing the wallpaper on the three internet-access computers. These terminals are outside the work area and can be seen by pretty much anybody, which is part of what made what folks were doing hilarious, and also makes the agency banning the practice somewhat understandable, although not really. Seriously, who fucking cares?

It started, of course, with some digs at the utter shame that was the Redskins' season. Somebody -- hey, I'm not throwing anyone under the bus -- posted this picture as the wall paper on at least one of the internet terminals:

There were others, of course, but it really got into gear as the NFL entered the playoffs. As teams got knocked out, the wallpaper-changes got fast and furious with pictures intended to insult. Like this picture of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady when he suffered a season-ending knee injury several years ago:

Or this picture after the Panthers lost to the 49ers in the divisional round of the playoffs last week:

Yeah, that's Panthers quarterback Fig, er, Cam Newton. And then there was this vaguely creepy photoshop of Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers as Mr. Rogers, from the neighborhood:

Yeah, a little scary. Anyway, there were others, changing minute by minute. I guess the agency got tired of it, because they posted this warning on each of the three internet terminals:

Please do not download any type of file or change background, fonts, themes, or homepage settings. Thank you!

And thus ended what I thought was an amusing, harmless and creative activity. I imagine the agency wants to be seen as putting its foot down and getting the temps back to work. In reality, the law firm doesn't give a fuck about our progress, because they feel no pressure from the other side (why else would be we taking every single holiday off and more) so I really doubt they would care about this little insult duel. On the other hand, the easy-going project manager is gone, leaving us with Capt. Queeg, so maybe the agency isn't to blame. Who knows? But somebody shut down an amusing diversion. I guess they think it helps productivity to crack down on fun. Nah -- we just waste time looking for other ways to waste time.