DarqByte

So I’ve decided to enlighten all of my countless readers with this tale of the escalating Nerf War here at my work. Yes, I’m well aware that other workplaces have their own Nerf wars, including some great YouTube videos.

In any case, I actually have the claim to fame here of having started our Nerf War. See, we’ve got different development groups here at work, and about a year ago, we used to be right next door to another development group. Really, it was a simple war back then. There were no Nerf guns involved. There were some foam objects that would inevitably get thrown back and forth to mess with the members of the opposing development team, but that was about it.

Sure, occasionally objects such as Starburst candy would get tossed, but nothing major. Combat was pretty limited and sporadic. Nothing big.

At some point, I get a Nerf gun for home use. Laura and I used to room with a couple people in a house in the way south of the Las Vegas valley, and one of our roommates and I would occasionally break out with a Nerf battle. Me with my six-shooter Maverick, he with his 8-shooter Firefly.

This went on for a short while, but it soon occurred to me that I could get another gun (another Maverick, actually) and bring it in to work. Thus, my team would have a tactical advantage over the other development team at work.

Well, obviously it worked. It didn’t get used very often, but when it did, it was the deciding factor in the battles. Unfortunately, the other development team was moved to another building as part of a restructuring of our company. We didn’t have any neighbors for awhile, and thus no battles ensued.

Soon, however, another development team moved in next to us. One of the members of this team in particular seemed to be edgy about the fact that we had a Nerf gun. Of course, it didn’t help that the lead developer of this team now next to us used to be a member of the one that left, so she was well aware of prior battles.

At some point, things started escalating. The edgy member of the now-opposing team eventually loaded up a Longshot, and soon modded it to shoot faster and longer than before. Thus, the Great Nerf War had begun.

Things held at status-quo for some time with my Maverick versus his Longshot. He would often win the accuracy battles, but I was no slouch either. The only problem was that he was well-shielded by natural work items such as computer monitors, whereas I had my entire left side available to shoot at.

Eventually, we degraded to stealth tactics. I would prep my gun well in advance for an onslaught of shots, waiting until the moment when he would not be expecting the barrage. He soon followed suit.

As our little skirmishes kept going, he was apparently plotting to expand his team’s arsenal of weaponry. A KB Toys store near my work was having a liquidation sale and he scooped up some guns to give to his cohorts. A Maverick for the team lead, as well as a couple of guns like the Secret Strike and a couple others I can’t find online.

Now my team was definitely outgunned. We had a slingshot that a member of my team occasionally used to fire off a dart, but it was slow and tough to pull off. I was vastly outgunned now.

At some point, one of the guns made its way over to our team and now resides with my lead. He and I would team up from time to time to barrage the other team, but we’d end up getting more shot at us as time went on. We came to get much better at dodging incoming darts.

A special event soon took place. Apparently, another development team that’s in the middle of our floor of the building had brought in a few of their own guns, and requested to commission all of the guns that my team and our neighbor team had in possession.

Now I must tangent off a bit. This other development team has been in a war of words, so-to-say, with one of our senior-level managers. A friendly war of words, I should clarify. See, they’ve been wanting their cubicle walls to come down, and the senior-level manager has been resisting, simply for the point of resisting.

Now that you have context… This other team assaulted the senior-level manager with all of the Nerf guns they could find. This came after a flurry of printouts between both sides saying things like “Tear these walls down,” haha.

A few days after that event, one of the members of the opposing development team acquired a Recon, which of course has made things tougher on my team to compete, as we have not been upping our arsenal.

Battles continued to happen sporadically, until the lead of the opposing team started enforcing a daily moratorium on shooting until 3pm, which is an hour before most of us are done for the day. We have mostly held to this cease-fire in my team as well, given that a full-scale war is more fun, rather than us just shooting at them and not being able to retrieve our darts or get any shot at us for us to shoot back.

That is basically where things stand right now. Almost every day both sides are prepared to pepper the other with darts when 3pm rolls around. I also just received word that the lead of a fourth development team has acquired a Nerf gun, although I’m not sure what.

I should also note that the senior-level manager that got shot at eventually acquiesced and let the walls come down. He did, however, arm himself with a battery-powered Nerf knockoff, but it’s mostly for show.

We’re somewhat considering getting a Vulcan, which would definitely help balance the war a little bit since we’re running with two of the six-shooter Nerf models compared to their current armament, which is two 1-shot guns, a Maverick, a Recon and a Longshot.

Ah, the joys of office warfare.