You’ve drawn Bernard from accounts in the Secret Santa: now what?

You’ve drawn Bernard

The draw happens next to the coffee machine. You unfold the slip with the discretion of a secret agent and read: Bernard, accounts. You know three things about him: he hits Reply All, he guards the microwave like a hawk, and at three in the afternoon he is always standing up. The budget is twenty-five euros, and in another life you have already given him the candle and the mug.

An office gift obeys one law: it has to make the person receiving it laugh, and everyone walking past behind them, without making anyone uncomfortable. Chocolates and candles respect the second half. Never the first.

Laugh at what everyone goes through, not at the person who gets it

The rule of office humour fits on one line: you laugh at habits, never at people. The Reply All that sets off a chain of forty messages, the meeting that could have been an email, the microwave queue at ten past twelve: everybody has come out the worse for it, so no one feels singled out. The moment you aim at a colleague, a job or a flaw, it stops being funny.

That is the mechanism of the office survival manual poster: it tells the day in five moments, arrival, morning, lunch, afternoon, home time. Each has its title, its three tips and its energy gauge. Bernard’s name, or his whole team’s, signs the “special edition” at the top, and the poster ends with “approved by… (unofficially)”.

No wit required on your side: every moment arrives filled in, ten ideas per moment are waiting to be drawn with a roll of the dice, and “draw everything at random” fills all five at once. If a joke wouldn’t go down with your team, you pick another or write your own. Four styles: black and acid yellow, photocopied paper, hazard sign, and a deadly serious company presentation, which works wonders on an open-plan wall.

For a gift exchange, A4 is the lowest-priced of our prints. And if a department wants to give something to the whole team, several posters, each in its own name, fit in the same basket; a company can ask for the invoice in its name and pay by bank transfer.

And at friends who are moving in

Same mechanism, different room. A housewarming is the only time you can give something for the toilet without getting a funny look. The friends already have the salad bowl, the plant and the bottle. What they don’t have is something to read when they’re sitting down.

The first is an aeroplane safety card applied to the throne: the name of the airline (“The Martin Family”, “The Olive Grove Guest House”), flight WC-01, six illustrated instructions (the paper, the seat, the brush, the flush, hands, and nothing else down the bowl) and the box saying where the spare rolls are. Only two things to write, the airline name and “under the sink”; the text of the instructions doesn’t change, it’s the card that gets the laugh.

The second is for the house that argues over which way the roll goes. It presents toilet roll as a specimen from an old natural history treatise, “Papyrus domesticus”, with six labelled parts, a cross-section, and in large letters the household’s verdict: over or under. In the history of the roll, the American patent of 1891 draws the sheet hanging over, but its text never makes it a rule. The debate stays open.

The third is for the house that has people round a lot: the toilets as a business listing, like on a maps app. A rating out of five calculated from the stars of the reviews, up to four signed reviews, opening hours, the busy-times chart and the owner’s reply. It’s the only one you prepare as a group: each friend writes their review, and the rating moves with their stars.

Where to hang it, and which size

A4 or 30 × 40 cm: those are the sizes you read up close, sitting down, and both exist framed, in black, white or natural wood. In an office, they slip in beside the coffee machine; the three larger sizes travel rolled, ready to be framed, and make a proper open-plan poster.

One precaution for toilets: paper doesn’t like splashes. In a bathroom with a shower, take the framed poster, under acrylic glass, and hang it well away from the water; in a separate toilet, a poster without a frame holds up very well. It also suits a holiday let or a B&B, where it tells travellers where the paper is without their having to ask.

How long before the exchange

Everything is printed to order within two days; after that it is just transport. Don’t leave it until the night before: allow a week for France, ten days if the parcel is going abroad. If the exchange is tomorrow and you have nothing, the print file lands with you by download link the moment you pay, and a photo kiosk will do the rest.