A Horse of a Different Colour

This morning, due to a lack of supervision, I was able to claim a small moment of happiness at work. For approximately 15 glorious minutes, I remembered what it used to feel like to enjoy work. At every job in my past I have had what they call Fun. Over the past year I have not had many occasions to use this word, but am told that it does still exist in the workplace.

It all started with a chocolate rum cake. I am convinced that this distracted Veronica long enough for us to have our bit of fun. Even though there has been a insane amount of cake in the office recently (I for one, am caked out), Veronica cannot stop shoving huge slices in her face. For once I'm not disgusted (I didn't watch her), and to be fair her gluttony did give us a reprieve from her eagle eyed supervision.

Shortly after Veronica settled into her cake eating glory (maybe it was a meeting that kept her occupied, I just think that it seems like a big coincidence that there is this chocolately cake in the lunchroom and she disappears for a half hour) the Fun began.

A few days ago, barn yard animal stress toys showed up on our desks. Well I say barnyard animals...there were horses and lobsters. Odd right? But they have provided minutes of fun. And today one went missing.

The distraught owner, hoping for a swift and safe return, sent out the following email:

Will the thief who buglarized my desk, return my horse immediately? [...] Questions will not be asked if it appears on my desk within the next hour or so.
Description: Brown horse, black hair, logo in its back, a few inches high and a widespread thirst for knowledge.
Last Seen: On my desk yesterday afternoon.

This email incited a storm of smarta** responses. Everyone was very concerned for the safety of the horse. Except me? Naturally I wanted to taunt the horse owner. So I took my own stress horse (I call him Dante, I'm reading George Eliot and she has a thing with Dante) and brought him to the photocopier. My original intent was to scan the horse with a mail opener against his neck...but the picture didn't turn out very well.

A couple of co-workers that sit near the scanner started getting involved. Although Anna will tell you that she had no part in it, that her hands are clean, she did in fact egg me on and came up with all sorts of twisted things to scan- a glue stick for example (the insinuation being that it was too late to save the horse, he had already been made into glue). Edna was the one that took charge though. With several elastics she managed to hog tie the horse. Then she took a post-it, coloured it black and created a hood for the horse's head. We scanned it and sent it to the owner.

Unfortunately the scanner took so long to scan it to my email that by the time it got sent out, the horse had already been restored to its owner.

But we did manage to waste a little time and have some Fun at work, which I think is the important part. Although by the time we had all settled back to work it was only 10.20 so I guess we didn't really accomplish that much after all.