Who needs a water cooler? Nothing fosters “community” like shared networked printers! Need proof?

First up, an anonymous submission from a cubicle farm in Rochester Hills, Michigan. (Not pictured, our submitter says: two additional copies of the same “Pomptly” note to the left and right of the original.)

And from Illinois…

From Omaha, Nebraska…

(And from Brooklyn…and just about everywhere else, from Glastonbury, Connecticut to Geneva, Switzerland.)

Meanwhile, Melissa from San Francisco was recently at the D.C. bureau of a news magazine for a press meeting, but being a devoted PAN-ista, she managed to sneak out of the conference room while the coast was clear to make sure she could capture this shot for us. (So please excuse the blurriness.)

related: this is not positive communication

Office lunch thieves: always despicable, and in this case — gullible, too.

The “helpful” (yet oh-so-devious) all-staff e-mail sent by the victim:

And — I shit you not — the response:

related: lean cuisine

Another sign of the times: Nick in Tampa, Florida says the sodas in his small office used to be free, but now they cost 50 cents. And yet, Nick says, “when they’re left out unguarded and unsecured, naturally, people steal them.”

Eventually, one coworker thought instilling the fear of god would make for a good theft-deterrent…which inspired another coworker to quote scripture in protest of the new drink policy.

related: no, He uses vaseline

Even more dangerous than friending your parents on Facebook?  Friending a) your boss and b) the cubicle-mate you kinda can’t stand.

Exhibit a)

Exhibit b)

Exhibit c)

And Exhibit d) (via “the Internet”)

related: Busted by facebook

extra credit: Study says Facebook is like, totally ruining your life …and gonna get you fired [mashable]

Our anonymous submitter, a college student in California, thought he was “flying under the radar” in his poetry class, but as later he discovered, the “stealth mode” setting on his iPod Touch was a little buggy.

We’ve received several copies of this instructive flowchart, which the helpful illustrators of Graph jam have made available to coffee watchdogs the world over.

Seeing people print their passive-aggressive flowcharts off the Internet makes our resident nerd, Eric, sentimental for simpler times. He quietly reflects on time spent wandering the halls of Brown University’s CS department back in 2007. In those days, tech-minded individuals still made patronizing flowcharts the old-fashioned way, using OpenOffice on Linux.

Though such documents are most commonly spotted in offices populated by engineers and other technically inclined folk, even Kerry — who is not earning her Ph.d in Computer Science — can appreciate the clarity of a flowchart like this one:

related: When Ph.ds get frustrated

extra credit: “Flow chart: is it fucked up?” [boingboing]

I hereby declare the writer of the second note in this exchange (from a college art studio in Texas) the winner of the season’s official “oh, snap!” award.

(Sure, the original note-writer might have a case — but just like those pesky BCS rankings, style points count, baby!)

related: i before e except after c ftw

Technically, Mike in Boston only has two roommates, but roomie #2′s ever-present girlfriend has become the apartment’s de facto fourth resident…the non-rent-or-utilities-paying kind.

Explains Mike: “We only have one thermostat for the whole apartment, but our rooms are so tiny that we can typically keep the heat off and the place stays at 68-70 degrees.” Once winter came, however, the girlfriend wasn’t too pleased with this arrangement…and took to surreptitiously cranking up the heat into the mid-80s.

After one too many nights of waking up in a sauna, Mike and his allied roommate decided to fight back —in true passive-aggressive style — by removing the (detachable) thermostat from the wall. Drama, of course, ensued.

Mike’s roomie then posted a counter-attack:

Grammar aside, that one pretty much did the trick.

related: kill hamster too?