Practical Voodoo

Practical Voodoo Curses for the Modern Office Employee

Lesson one

Coffee Pot Booby Trap:

One of the most serious offenses in an office setting is failing to make a fresh pot of coffee when you finish off the previous pot. To weasel out of making a new pot of coffee there are people out there who will leave a thin puddle of coffee in the pot so that they can argue that they did not completely finish the coffee. Follow these easy steps to help your coworkers understand the importance of coffee etiquette.

Collect the following materials:
- A one pound bag of dark roast Starbucks coffee (whole bean, Sumatra)
- A rag soaked in low fat coffee cream
- A coffee mug with your company logo
- A vial of intern tears
- A blue ball point pen with a plastic cap taken from the supply room geographically closest to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti
- Your company’s mission statement

Place the mug on the burner of the coffee maker and turn it on.

Lay the unopened bag of Starbucks on the table next to the coffee maker with the Starbucks emblem facing up.

Drain the tears into the coffee cup.

Once the tears start to produce steam, stuff the rag into the cup.

Chant your company’s mission statement over and over while you lift the pen over your head and slowly remove the cap.

Continue chanting as you stab the pen forcefully into the bag of coffee through the Starbucks emblem. Keep stabbing until you can have created a 2-7cm hole in the bag.

Hold the torn bag over your head and let the beans cascade onto your head and shoulders until the bag is empty.

Seize the mug from the coffee maker and throw it at the floor so that it shatters. Once the cup shatters you may stop chanting the mission statement.

Clean up the area but leave one shard of the broken coffee cup in the water reservoir of the coffee machine.

Anyone who insults the spirits by failing to refill the coffee pot will be beset by sticky keyboard keys, phishing emails, and at least one paper cut every week until they appease the spirits by buying chocolate dipped doughnuts for the whole office.