Pure Storage declares war on staff with Nerf gun battle

Storage newcomer insists 15-minute battle boosted staff morale

Pure Storage has unveiled its latest weapon in its assault on the storage market in the form of a Nerf gun.

The fledgling storage firm said its staff were working so hard towards the end of its last quarter that the "fun factor" at the firm had "completely disappeared", prompting it to shake things up with a 15-minute Nerf gun war.

In a recent blog post, Pure said the impromptu Nerf battle – which involves shooting foam bullets at opponents – helped spread a "culture of challenging convention, working hard to win and encouraging a people-focused industry-wide culture".

Its vice president of marketing, Luanne Dauber, who helped mastermind the assault, declared Pure's engineering team the winners.

"When the message ‘the eagle flies at dawn' went out, the members of the Nerf Gun Ambush Brigade met in the stairwell and donned bright orange ski masks, loaded our 20-plus Nerf guns with ammo and headed downstairs to engineering," she said.

"Someone must have tipped them off. They were very well armed. The firefight that ensued was not conducive to productive coding, but the engineering team managed to fend off the sales, general and administrative teams successfully."

She added that the weapons have come in handy since the ambush.

"Since that day, the Nerf gun has become a fixture of Pure culture," she said. "We use them to celebrate victories, punctuate jokes and get someone's attention. We're revolutionising the storage industry with more than just flash – but with a decidedly more people-friendly approach.

"After the melee ended, it was clear that the Nerf war had served its purpose: It brought laughter and fun back into the workplace and helped us regain perspective as to why we work so hard and what we're working towards."