Office Wars

We had a quiz night at work on Thursday. My team scored 51 as did another, effectively a tie for first place. The quizmaster, who was a solid 8 pints and counting into the night, didn't have any tiebreakers ready so he proclaimed the boys from Creative the winners since they won the last time. This was patently unfair. We did a bit of trash talking and told them they would pay. (Seriously, how ridiculous is that? Why would anyone think it is fair to arbitrarily decide a contest like that?)

The next day the "winners" were all agloat. On and on like a bad dream about how great they were. Rubbing their NOT-victory in. And then they went to lunch.

While they were out, a mysterious vigilante went down to their department and, in about two minutes, cleared out every trophy they've ever won. (We do lots of teambuildings and these guys are really competitive, so there were a lot of trophies.) Their go-karting trophies? Disappeared into thin air. Their bowling trophies? Missing. Oscars from last year's film fest? Nowhere to be found. If it was shiny and had a plastic name plaque, it was gone.

When they received their quiz night trophy during the drinks roundup that afternoon, they took it down to their trophy case (yes, their trophy case) and discovered the theft. Oh my, were they irate. Stormed up to my desk, assuming I was the ringleader. I showed them my outlook calendar...I'd been in meetings all day. No way I could have stolen anything. They searched my desk (like I'd hide them in plain view, duh) and then moved on to two of my teammates. Who knew nothing. Really.

About an hour later, the plot thickened. They received an email from someone named Steve Tate (second cousin to Brad Wyatt, who was a Luther student with financial difficulties. He had to sell his exquisite stereo at rock bottom prices to buy books one semester, but he accidentally listed our RA's phone number as his contact, Silly Brad.) Steve sent a dastardly photo of the Best Actor Oscar, hanging from a noose (made from a nametag lanyard, I believe) perilously close to the water of the toilet. The note said, "Give up the trophy or Oscar gets flushed."

Oh, the humanity.

Steve will not return the trophies until the boys acknowledge that they did not, in fact, win and must share first place with the women from Events. And if they don't? Word has it that Oscar is tied to a ficus and being held at gunpoint by Barbie. She's got a hairpin trigger, that one. Who knows what will happen?

Comments

Marni said…
Brilliant! I wish fun stuff like that happened around here...
I might try something like this with a few of my sales reps. Except I won't be kidding.
Melinda June said…
Just take it upon yourself to steal a co-workers treasure, Marni. It can be you, too.

I think that's a great idea, CP. You can ransom their belongings in exchange for never speaking to you again.

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