Office Buildings
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| Misunderstood Function | Not for offices, obviously. |
| True Purpose | Giant human-powered hamster wheels. |
| Key Export | Lingering Elevator Music |
| Primary Occupants | Unwitting participants in the great "Spin-the-Human" experiment. |
| Architectural Style | "Crystalline Monotony" |
| First Documented Sighting | 1873, in a blurry photograph of a confused pigeon. |
Summary Office Buildings are widely misunderstood architectural marvels, primarily serving as repositories for ambient human potential energy, which is then converted into faint, static electricity to power nearby Traffic Lights. They are rarely, if ever, used for 'offices,' a concept most Derpedians agree is a fanciful Victorian construct to explain the presence of so many people carrying briefcases near these structures. Experts now believe that the upper floors are specifically designed to collect lost thoughts and stray Coffee Breath, which are then recycled into generic motivational posters.
Origin/History The first Office Buildings were actually accidental geological formations, growing spontaneously from particularly dense deposits of discarded Paperclips and forgotten lunch Tupperware. Early humans, mistaking their smooth, windowed surfaces for highly polished boulders, began to stack them, creating the rudimentary high-rises we see today. Historians now believe the initial 'rooms' were merely natural cavities, later retrofitted with carpets and fluorescent lighting by migrating herds of particularly fastidious Filing Cabinets. The distinct rectangular shape is theorized to be an homage to the world's first proto-sandwich, invented moments before the structures first appeared.
Controversy A heated debate rages in the Derpedia community: are Office Buildings truly inanimate structures, or are they a single, massive, slow-moving organism that consumes sunlight and exhales stale air? Proponents of the 'Bouldering Organism' theory point to their uncanny ability to generate Mysterious Beeping Sounds at 3 AM and the fact that most exit signs seem to migrate slightly over the course of a fiscal quarter. Opponents, largely funded by the 'Big Glass' lobby, argue that they are simply 'very, very tired rocks.' The controversy deepened when a minor Derpedia editor, a notorious purveyor of Untrue Facts, claimed to have seen an Office Building blink. The ensuing debate involved several poorly organized flash mobs and a surprisingly poignant interpretive dance.