No Spitting, No Claws, No Punching Walls: The Unofficial Workplace Rulebook Nobody Hands You

I’ve clocked a lot of hours in the high-tech world, and let me tell you, while we love a heated meeting, wild email thread, or dramatic exit interview, most of us manage to keep our hands to ourselves. Mostly.

There was that one time…

A colleague, sweet as tea on a normal day.. got asked by her boss, “You okay?”

Her response?
She stood up on her tiptoes like a villain rising out of smoke and slowly dragged all ten nails down his office door.

Not a chip. Not a crack. Not a broken nail.

It was art. Unsettling art, but art.

Then there was the guy who disagreed with a hiring decision. Instead of sending an email like a normal person, he decided drywall was the problem. One punch later, we were redecorating with a motivational poster to hide the hole. (“Teamwork Makes the Dream Work,” but make it structural damage.)

And don’t get me started on the client who, mid-meeting, snatched a junior PM’s notepad and flung the paper across the table like confetti in a villain montage. Susan was just trying to summarize next steps, y’all. Next. Steps.

So no — we’re not perfect. We hiss. We swipe. We occasionally accessorize with unplanned wall renovations.

But physical violence? Rare.

Which is why I watched the whole Terrell Owens-spit-gate saga like it was an episode of Days of Our Lives.

Because apparently — in the NFL of all places, where men collide at 200 mph for sport — the most offensive thing you can do is… spit.

Not tackling.
Not face masking.
Not throwing a man into third quarter concussion protocol.

No, ma’am.

Spitting.

According to DeAngelo Hall:

“That’s the No. 1 thing in the National Football League. You don’t spit in another grown man's face.”

And the league agreed — $35,000 fine. Which, let’s be honest, for TO is basically the cost of a nice weekend brunch.

Meanwhile, my workplace has zero official spitting policy. We have HR. We have guidelines. We have 13 slides about password security. But nothing on saliva warfare.

(Though I did once encounter a suspicious stairwell lugie at Wang Labs, and let me tell you — some policies are written by experience, not documentation.)

So here’s the moral, sisters:

Every workplace has rules — even the unwritten ones.
Some say don’t reply-all.
Some say don’t punch the wall.
And somewhere in the NFL handbook is Chapter 1, Section 1:

Thou shalt not expectorate upon thy coworker.

Noted.

Until next time — stay classy, stay boundary-respecting, and for the love of office carpet everywhere… keep the germs to yourselves.

💋