The departmental meeting is going on just fine. You’re way ahead of a deadline and everything seems to falling into their right places. Your boss is finally talking about her staff’s salary increments and promotion. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Mr. Know-it-All and Ms. Kissbutt officemates open their mouths.

You suddenly found yourself on the hot seat. They commented on how you spend hours talking on the phone to your friends, how your cigarette and coffee breaks take away company minutes longer than necessary, how come you can leave by 6:01 and not render overtime, and how you’re responsibilities sometimes become the bottleneck of your whole departments operation. They ended their speech with a “We’re not saying that what you’re doing is not OK but we just want this department to be the best there is.”

You had to stop yourself from laughing out loud. You summoned all the saints and guardian angels just to stop you from succumbing to the temptation of divulging right in front of everybody how Mr. Know-it-All is calling personal clients half the day and how Ms. Kissbutt goody two shoes officemate spends hours on the washroom fixing herself and applying make-up to her immaculate, and pale as a whiteboard face.

Don’t even think of stooping down to these filthy earthlings’ pathetic level. You can certainly do better than that. There’s another way of getting even, and this time with style. Let go of your mean streak. Presenting…

Top ten ways to show your officemates/colleagues you hate them without telling them.

1. Forward your funniest and coolest emails to everyone except them.
   
2. Bombard their inboxes with chain emails.
   
3. Give their local to your friends and let them pose as prank callers.
   
4. Transfer calls of irate customers to their locals.
   
5. Do not reply to their queries through email and had these mails deleted immediately.
   
6. Smirk at their funniest jokes and laugh as hard as you can to their corniest ones.
   
7. Always have that blank face and monotonous, ho-hum voice when you have no choice but to talk to them.
   
8. Celebrate your birthday in advance or have it delayed and treat everybody when they’re on leave.
   
9. Put down the phone or close your drawers harder than usual or make unnecessary banging noises, as if by accident, when they’re in near proximity.
   
10. Be extra nice to them when you need them for something and they’re the only ones who can help you.
    

A word of caution: DISCREETNESS. The best way of execution of the list is to exercise utmost care and subtlety combined with your most cunning instincts. Do these as innocently as possible. You must be the only one who should know about this. Don’t even try telling a soul, and use this fact to your advantage. Get even and have fun!