How I Secretly Taped the Office Hyena

About 15 years ago, I was miserably working in an office cubicle for a pretty large family business. Out of pity, they employed a hard-drinking, loud-laughing lady who sat at the front desk to greet people and answer phones. She had this gravelly laugh that bounced off the ceilings, walls, and my ears all day long, day after day.

Growing up, I always wanted to go on an African safari. Luckily for me, even though I worked in a cubicle world, I would get a small taste of that adventurous lifestyle for eight hours every day, five days a week.

I got to experience the haunting sounds of a hyena all day, but for free! Office Hyena reacts to any situation — stressful, humorous, mundane — with a wild cackle. It is the sound I think you hear when you go completely insane. It is the sound of death approaching.

What made it worse is that this lady would say insulting or offensive things to people but would get a pass for them because others thought she was generally not that smart. But I knew that she knew exactly what she was doing, passively sniping me from behind the protection of her hyena desk. It was just so maddening that whenever you spoke to her, no matter the topic, she just began to laugh like a hyena in response.

“Peggy, the toner in the printer seems to be gone, can you remind me where-”

“HUHAHHHAHAHUHAUHAHAHAHAH Oh so you can’t find the toner huh? HUHAHAHAHAHAHA”

So, at the very sure risk of being immediately fired, I placed my video camera in a FedEx box and put it near the hyena’s desk to film a documentary on this creature. I let it record for about two hours, saying to her “Don’t touch this package please — someone is coming for it.”

Here is the result, which I converted to audio and edited down to the pure Office Hyena. So close your eyes, picture the African savannah, or maybe an office building, and enjoy.

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