A parable of the state of the “hot dot-com” workplace in 2009: The story goes, according to our anonymous submitter in California:

Some executive-level person decided to put a pinball machine into our break area. After several months, someone must have complained about the noise, because a note went up telling us it was not to be played. When some employees decided to play the machine at 7 AM (assuming nobody in the building was in), the note was replaced by a new (more specific) note.

After that, “the machine was unplugged and left to gather dust,” our submitter says…and to silently taunt all of the office’s embittered would-be pinball wizards. Until, one day…multiball!

related: “Popcorn Thursday”