So this has been going on for a while and I only just connected the dots this week.
There’s this guy at work let’s call him Rick. Rick’s like, late 40s, works in data entry, keeps mostly to himself, kind of a “bring his own lunch in a 1998 NASCAR thermos” kind of guy. Friendly, but not super chatty.
For the past few months, I noticed Rick would sneeze every single day around 3 PM. Not just a casual sneeze like, a full-body, “ACHOOO” followed by a dramatic sigh or muttered comment like “Whew, that one had velocity.” Every day. Same time.
I work near him, so at first I thought maybe it was allergies. But one day I jokingly said, “Man, your allergies really clock in right after lunch, huh?”
And he goes, totally straight-faced:
“Oh, I’m not really sneezing. It’s just my alert.”
I’m like, “…your what?”
Rick, still unfazed, tells me that back in January he started fake sneezing every day at 3 PM to make sure he didn’t fall asleep at his desk. Apparently he was nodding off during long spreadsheet sessions and one time even got caught drooling onto a printed report.
He said he tried alarms, but hated the sound. So instead, he started making himself fake sneeze to jolt his body awake. It worked so well, he just made it a daily ritual.
This man has conditioned himself Pavlov-style to sneeze on cue at 3 PM. Like a reverse allergy.
It gets better. He now has a backup sneeze at 3:05 in case the first one doesn’t snap him out of it. I asked if anyone else knows, and he shrugged and said “I don’t think they notice. I think they just assume I’m allergic to Excel.”
I honestly have so many questions but also... I kind of respect it?
So yeah, I share an office with a man who fakes sneezes daily as a self-made productivity hack. This might be the weirdest form of time management I’ve ever witnessed and somehow it’s also the most effective.