A coworker repeatedly ignored a person’s headphones and would interrupt them anyway. One day I put a bright post-it note on my headphones: “Joe, don’t bother me”. I was in middle of flow, making some huge changes, when I noticed Joe standing next to me, laughing. “Hahaha, someone put a post-it note on your headphones!” I coulda killed him.
I printed out the infamous quote "Go away, or I will replace you with a small shell script." It was primarily meant for one specific employee known to have the gift of gab. Seeing how my job was to automate the most mundane/error prone tasks, it seemed to be pretty effective. I heard murmurings about how some thought it was rather rude, but I never had to speak to HR about it.
“In startup land did CFO
A stately office plan decree:
Through EDM, the coders flow
Unless they were disturbed by Joe
Until we broke his knee.”