In our office, we've got a bunch of finger blasters:
And nothing beats shooting the hell out of QA who are just located meters away.
One of our developers can consistently get "head shots" within a 10 meter range ..
List other fun things that you guys do!
Every day at lunch (and most days after work) the whole dev team plays Team Fortress 2. There's something satisfying about blowing up your cow-orkers. (yes, misspelling intentional)
Our IT department is fairly conservative, so projectiles and video games are a little out of the question here.
The closest I've gotten to relieving stress at work is leaving for the day or crying in my car during lunch. :)
We got a bunch of packing materials from an appliance we ordered and discovered that one of the pieces of styrofoam looks a lot like a picture frame. To makes things even better, one of the pieces of cardboard fits as a perfect piece of backing. We tweak our "art installation" whenever we get something odd to display. Currently it has a giant plastic ear in it with the caption "app.ear". (Our app deploys as an ear file in weblogic, we just couldn't resist. It's awful, I know. :P)
We built a "Fab@Home" 3-d printer when we were not able to focus on our main project.
Doing the work that is causing the stress (not that there is much stress, we don't set strict timelines because we know that software development isn't like punching sheet metal into shapes). Indeed because stress doesn't happen often, when it does it is more of an adrenaline rush thing.
Otherwise I stare bleakly out of the window trying to forget that I have to do some JDBC coding, or I eat chocolate biscuits. Or both. Or I go home.
just chill and talk, sometimes play some fps (as was mentioned already) and just annihilate everyone else :D We also pull quite a few pranks on each other
Counter Strike. not just a stress reliever. its a regular feature in the evenings
Ah, the pranks...
At my previous job, my coworker and I kept pranking each other (kinda like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekdumRCjchc).
It started by throwing stuff at each other... or at other people from each other.
Missing mouse ball, removed cables... switched keys...
the one that sticks in my mind the most, was the hidden toothpicks - in my seat. Literally jumped up off the chair...
And of course, we had some Carlin playing nonstop, so we were laughing most of the day... :D
Seriously though, I don't work an a "cool" place, so games are a no-no for me.. I tend to stop working on what I am doing, maybe brainstorm some blog ideas and the like, just think about something else.. That tends to work for me..
I also wrote a blog post about keeping fresh..
I have a stressball that I squeeze or throw depending on the severity.
I also check my stocks on google finance, but recently, that has made things more stressful.
Gross people out when I clean the fridge (check out step 6 of this instructable...)
"And nothing beats shooting the hell out of QA who are just located meters away."
I like to invite the VP over to enjoy the view from QA.
...Why yes, Ms. VP, that does happen all the time. ...No, I don't know if he has anything better to do. ...Well, no - he hasn't fixed all the bugs assigned to him.
We fly those indoor R/C helicopters, or play billiards.
We have an awesome office!
...Check my non-work related email, and StackOverflow. Pretty conservative shop here. We've been known to fire a few mean rubber bands over the cubicles though :P
We got a table tennis table (ping-pong if you're American)! And play doubles games at lunch time. Brilliant. Even the people who resisted us getting one can be found playing.
One of those 3 usually cuts things cuts down the stress for me
We do sanity walks here to relieve stress. If someone is having a helluva time they'll ask who wants to go for a walk and we'll just stop whatever we're doing and tour the town for 15 minutes or so.
We also invested in some nerf guns for the days the boss is out. :-) He's OK with it, but he's always worried a client might do a walk-in.
Lately we added World of Warcraft and Combat Arms into the routine. Setting up a private Combat Arms server and doing elimination games of PM's vs Dev's is a lot of fun!
Our lunch breaks are also good ways to relieve stress. We tend to stick together and just have a good time.
Oh and finally, fishing breaks during lunch are great too.
We have a scattering of things to do: there's Guitar Hero in the break room, heading out for coffee, walking around the local park, and I've started getting some of my fellow workers into card games like Munchkin and San Juan.
For bonus points, another guy has an arcade machine of Excitebike in his office.
We used to have 4-6 people that would play a LAN game of Counterstrike during lunch every day. That was always a blast. My current job has a fooseball table. I've also seen people playing Magic cards during lunch.
Lots and Lots of projectiles, office networked jukebox (in-house designed of course), Zune videos, Zune Texas Hold-em, out to lunch, minor pranks, trips to the building's attic.
Office politics.
It isn't a good day unless someone in another department leaves in tears. Or resigns.
Our IT department has other ways to relieve stress. That had to stop when a client went to the bathroom and found our main IT guy deep into our lead tester.
Various uses of Gak Splats, such as sticking them to the ceiling. Get the large ones, though, they come back down in minutes or hours, sometimes the small ones will stay up for months. I kid you not.
We also have three networked Xboxes in the compnay, so some of us blow off steam at lunch or after work.
Also, we have a couple massage chairs that one of the teams bought, and they're great for my bad back.
I also like to pun. The best approach here is to find people that hate puns.
And from time to time, I'll remind my friend Zac that "The Bird Is The Word."
We have a fooseball table and a pool table - those get a fair amount of use. We also have monthly staff meetings with beer + food at the end, regular release parties, a great off-site summer staff party, and a great off-site winter staff party. We also have weekly lunchtime BBQs on the roof every sunny Friday in the summer.
I go bowling (center is right up the street)! Nothing like a good shot of vitamin B!
Sports
I know, we nerds shouldn't be able to play sports, but its pretty fun and a great way to switch gears from mental workload to a physical workload.
We play
If there's a nice court / field by your work, its a great way to spend your lunch.
Oh yeah, i guess its healthy too ; )