27 Office Trivia Questions and Answers for Work Teams

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Office trivia is a specific genre: not general knowledge, not pop culture, but the strange history of work itself. Why junk email is named after a Monty Python sketch. Which state invented the coffee break. What the computer mouse was called in its patent (it is so much worse than "mouse"). These 27 questions and answers all live in that lane — the trivia your team is surrounded by eight hours a day and has never once thought about.

Everything here is work-safe and answerable on reasoning alone — most questions are origin stories, so a good guess is always available even when the fact is obscure. The full answer key is on this page, which makes it equally usable as a read-through list for a quiz you're compiling yourself.

Or skip the compiling: this pack hosts as a live team quiz in about ten seconds. Share one link, your team answers on their own devices, and a live leaderboard keeps score — no player accounts, no app.

How to run this with your team

Twelve questions is the sweet spot. The defaults draw a shuffled 12 of 27 at 20 seconds each — about ten minutes including leaderboard drama. Save the rest for a second session; nobody remembers a fifteen-question gap.
Play up the origin stories. Almost every answer here has a one-line backstory (the first webcam existed so researchers could see the coffee pot without walking downstairs). Read the room: if a reveal gets a reaction, give it the extra fifteen seconds with Pause & Discuss, which re-shows the question and how everyone voted.
Watch the leaderboard for the dark horse. Office-history trivia flattens the usual quiz hierarchy — nobody studied this. The live standings reliably crown someone unexpected, which is half the point.
Pair it with the occasion. The Keynes question (he predicted a 15-hour work week) lands especially well at the end of a long sprint. Sequence the draw manually if you want it last — every question is editable before hosting.

The questions (27)

1.In which year was the first email sent?
- A.1961
- B.1971
- C.1981
- D.1991
Show answer
1971
2.Who picked the @ symbol for email addresses?
- A.Bill Gates
- B.Tim Berners-Lee
- C.Ray Tomlinson
- D.Vint Cerf
Show answer
Ray Tomlinson
3.According to the classic story, why were QWERTY keyboard keys arranged the way they are?
- A.To follow alphabetical order
- B.To group common letters together
- C.To favour right-handed typists
- D.To slow typists down and stop typewriter jams
Show answer
To slow typists down and stop typewriter jams
4.Post-it Notes exist because a 3M scientist accidentally invented what?
- A.Fluorescent paper
- B.A glue that barely sticks
- C.Tear-proof paper
- D.A reusable bookmark
Show answer
A glue that barely sticks
5.Casual Friday traces back to which tradition?
- A.Silicon Valley startup culture
- B.1980s Wall Street
- C.Hawaii's Aloha Friday
- D.A British dress-down campaign
Show answer
Hawaii's Aloha Friday
6.The American coffee break is widely credited to workers in which US state, around 1900?
- A.New York
- B.California
- C.Texas
- D.Wisconsin
Show answer
Wisconsin
7.What does CC in an email stand for?
- A.Carbon copy
- B.Courtesy copy
- C.Copy correspondence
- D.Confirmed copy
Show answer
Carbon copy
8.What was the first item ever sold on eBay?
- A.A Pez dispenser
- B.A baseball card
- C.A broken laser pointer
- D.A vinyl record
Show answer
A broken laser pointer
9.Hungarian journalist László Bíró gave the world which everyday office item?
- A.The stapler
- B.The ballpoint pen
- C.The paper clip
- D.The hole punch
Show answer
The ballpoint pen
10.The world's first webcam was set up at Cambridge University to keep an eye on what?
- A.A car park
- B.A fish tank
- C.A bird feeder
- D.A coffee pot
Show answer
A coffee pot
11.Bluetooth technology is named after what?
- A.Its inventor's dog
- B.A tenth-century Viking king
- C.The blue LED on the first prototype
- D.A project codename that stuck
Show answer
A tenth-century Viking king
12.Where was the :-) smiley emoticon invented in 1982?
- A.IBM's research lab
- B.Xerox PARC
- C.A Carnegie Mellon University message board
- D.MIT's AI lab
Show answer
A Carnegie Mellon University message board
13.The microwave oven was invented after a radar engineer noticed what?
- A.Popcorn popping on a workbench
- B.A chocolate bar melting in his pocket
- C.His coffee suddenly boiling
- D.A cheese sandwich warming up
Show answer
A chocolate bar melting in his pocket
14.What does PDF stand for?
- A.Portable Document Format
- B.Printed Document File
- C.Public Data Format
- D.Page Display Format
Show answer
Portable Document Format
15.In which decade did the cubicle office system launch?
- A.1960s
- B.1950s
- C.1970s
- D.1980s
Show answer
1960s
16.The word salary comes from the Latin word for which commodity?
- A.Silver
- B.Grain
- C.Wine
- D.Salt
Show answer
Salt
17.Which coffee chain is named after a character in Moby-Dick?
- A.Costa Coffee
- B.Starbucks
- C.Peet's
- D.Caffè Nero
Show answer
Starbucks
18.Junk email is called spam because of what?
- A.An acronym for "Sending Persistent Annoying Mail"
- B.The tinned meat's postal ad campaign
- C.A Monty Python sketch
- D.An early hacker's username
Show answer
A Monty Python sketch
19.The first recorded computer bug was literally what?
- A.A programmer's pun
- B.A moth stuck in a relay
- C.A beetle in the wiring
- D.A typo in a manual
Show answer
A moth stuck in a relay
20.Clippy, Microsoft's animated paperclip assistant, first appeared in which release?
- A.Office 97
- B.Office 95
- C.Office 2000
- D.Office XP
Show answer
Office 97
21.Where did Google set up its first office in 1998?
- A.A Stanford dorm basement
- B.A strip-mall unit
- C.A converted warehouse
- D.A rented garage
Show answer
A rented garage
22.What does OK most likely come from?
- A.A telegraph code
- B.A joke misspelling of "all correct"
- C.A Choctaw word
- D.A president's nickname
Show answer
A joke misspelling of "all correct"
23.In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by now we'd work how many hours a week?
- A.45
- B.35
- C.25
- D.15
Show answer
15
24.What was the computer mouse called in its original 1960s patent?
- A.Handheld cursor director
- B.Desk-top pointing wheel
- C.X-Y position indicator for a display system
- D.Graphical input rodent
Show answer
X-Y position indicator for a display system
25.Which company popularised the five-day work week in 1926?
- A.General Electric
- B.US Steel
- C.Ford Motor Company
- D.Sears, Roebuck and Co.
Show answer
Ford Motor Company
26.According to Steve Jobs at the 1998 iMac launch, what did the i originally stand for?
- A.Innovation
- B.Internet
- C.Intelligence
- D.Individual
Show answer
Internet
27.Velcro was invented after its creator took a close look at what?
- A.Barnacles on a boat hull
- B.Climbing ivy on a wall
- C.Seed pods in his garden
- D.Burrs stuck to his dog's fur
Show answer
Burrs stuck to his dog's fur

FAQ

How many questions come up in one game?

The pack holds 27; hosting draws a shuffled 12, so a game runs about ten minutes and you can host the pack again later with a mostly fresh draw.

Do players need accounts?

No — your team joins with a link in the browser. No signups and nothing to install.

Are the answers included?

Yes — every answer is on this page under its question, so you can fact-check the pack before you host it.