Your guide to returning to the office after your team lost
You spent all week saying your team would waste the other team, and they lost.
And so now you're sat on the lounge floor among the empty cans, pistachio shells and a broken coffee table when it dawns on you that Dave, Stu and Mick the dick are going to give you untold grief when you get back to the office.
Luckily, I've put together a handy guide to your return, to minimise your pain, and even turn the tables.
Go to the office
Working from home is the cowards' way out. Besides, Skype For Business = Skype For Bullying Your Workmates. Front foot that shit.
Hot desk
Still, Sun Tzu probably said something like 'Your location is like a zen garden, move it around frequently.'' If you're not easy to find, you're not easy to take the hits. It's harder for losers to 'just so happen to walk by' your desk if they can't find you - take control, set the terms.
Take it online
Draw the sting with an email acknowledging the defeat, but backed up with some stats and talking points about how you'll bounce back. Then block everyone that's cc'd and go get a coffee and pastry.
Pretend to be on the phone a lot
Put some non-threatening whale sounds in your headphones and walk the office floor - if you meet an unpleasant colleague, just keep walking while doing pantomime talking / phone motions.
Time management
Turn up to the day's meetings ten minutes after they start, and leave 30 minutes before they end.
Stand beside the fire alarm
Should hallway conversation become strained, simply pull the alarm. Your colleagues are required by health and safety requirements to leave the building. Then - just go home.
Thanks for reading - Richard
The week's best NZ sport writing
Ben Stanley meets John Dahner, the New York-based Kiwi helping train top UFC fighters beat the crap out of each other by becoming a little zen [Vice]
Lucy Strack's rowing career ended with the yips, before performing a stunning sporting transformation - fantastic presentation with this Dana Johannsen story [stuff.co.nz]
Paul Thomas says the latest moves to fix international rugby might just work [noted.co.nz]
After her first round of matches, Noeline Taurua outlines her ideas for challenging the Silver Ferns to get better, and win the next world cup [Lockerroom]
Video nasty
Second best parrot sketch. NSFW-ish language!
Long read
Inside TMZ - how America's biggest tabloid website became a media empire [New Yorker]
Bonus link - Hilarious report on what it's like to play club cricket with David Warner. Spoiler alert: he's a dick. [Fox]
Selected weekend fixtures
Cricket's Burger King Super Smash started yesterday in Lincoln with six women's teams playing 15 games in four days. It's free to go see it, and all games are live-streamed at nzc.nz
The rugby - Waikato play Otago in Hamilton at 7.35pm tonight in the Mitre 10 Championship, while Auckland and Canterbury play the Premiership final at 4.05pm Saturday afternoon at Eden Park. Then it's the All Blacks v the Wallabies at 7.00pm from Japan
Bring back the gif
When you restart your phone and it's going super fast.
