Well, well, well, I actually had some fun handing out flowers. Now, before you all go thinking, “Hey, Contagion has a soft side.” Let me set you straight, there is no soft spot here.

It all started at 11:00 this morning. The employees could go into the break room and for a $1.00 buy a carnation for someone else. Then some poor sap would deliver the flower to the recipient. Yes, that poor sap was I. Come to find out; this whole thing was a fundraiser for some charity. AKA, my company was bilking the employees for free advertising. You donÂ’t believe me? Let me explain it to you.

When companies, especially large companies like what I work for, do fund raisers for charities it is so they can get their names in the papers. When that charity goes to various places they can list the XYZ Company as a benefactor. Since most of these companies either match their employeesÂ’ donation dollar for dollar or set a flat fee, they end up paying in most cases not more then 50% of the donation. Basically the employees foot the bill to spread the company name. Trust me, IÂ’ve sat in on the committees for these drives.

Anyway, IÂ’m way off topic here. Sorry about that, just a little side rant. At first delivering these flowers was annoying. I didnÂ’t know who 90% of the employees where nor where they sat, so it took me forever to deliver them at first. But after the first 30 minutes it started picking up, and I actually started enjoying myself.

I work with mainly females, I believe it’s about 90-95% female environment. When I would start to walk down the rows the females would look on in hope and anticipation. Their faces read, “Mr. Contagion, please stop here. Give me a flower. Confirm that people like me, give me some hope that I’m not an unwanted loser.” Then as I passed them by, as was more likely to happen, the look of rejection was priceless.

Their sagging heads and slumped posture just screamed out, “Nobody loves me, I have no friends. There isn’t even anyone that likes me enough to pretend.” Upon noticing this the first time, I started watching for it. Sure enough every row, every isle, every flower I delivered there was at least one person that would get the look of rejection! There were a handful of women that did the same thing every time I passed. Each time getting more and more dejected, at one point I thought one of them would implode from the stress.

Then to make things even better, whoever planned this did a horrible job. They only bought 400 flowers to sell. We have almost 700 people in our office. Some people where buying flowers by the dozen and giving them to one person. One girl I probably delivered close to 20 flowers to in the course of an hour. We had completely sold out by 11:45 AM and the sale was supposed to go on until 2:00 PM.

People who waited to buy flowers never got a chance. Some of those rejected individuals may actually have had a chance of getting a flower if there were enough to go around. When I noticed that we were starting to run out, I quickly bought a flower for Ktreva (Remember we work together) and delivered it to her. She didnÂ’t need that unloved feeling. As a bonus it denied someone else a flower!

All in all it was actually fun. I may even do it again next year.

Posted by: Contagion at 04:47 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 606 words, total size 3 kb.

By now you all know that I have a tiny, little mean streak with my sense of humor. Sometimes I like to play pranks that could be considered unfriendly. I.e. the mouse and monitor incidents. Today over a TammiÂ’s World, I read her post about people being cruel thinking itÂ’s funny. Personally, I think these people are going way too far. That is saying a lot coming from me. After reading TammiÂ’s heartfelt post I started feeling a bit of an arse myself, because it hit close to home.

At work, all my peers are doing this “Biggest Loser” competition. They are all trying to see who can lose the most weight over the next three months. All of them are female, and not a one of them is by any shape or form fat or even what I would consider overweight. If one of them is overweight, it can’t be by more then a few pounds.

They started this at the beginning of January. ItÂ’s been a month and they are all comparing to see where they where at and what methods they are using. Now insert the big arse factor. ItÂ’s been a month with no chocolate for them, and they are all chocolate fanatics. What do I do? Yes, I bought a couple of bags of candy, ReeseÂ’s peanut butter cups and Hershey kisses. I put it in a tin that I use to distribute candy and left it on the edge of my desk. ItÂ’s not uncommon for me to put candy out for people, I do it when my inventory looks good or when the minions do something exceptional. This time it was different.

My desk is right by the two most used conference rooms in the building. With all the meetings we have, my peers have to walk past my desk at least 3 times a day. They also have to come over when they want something from me or another peer that sits in the next cubicle. If they want to see the manager, they walk right past me. After a month of depriving themselves of chocolate, the pull is too great for them. They have been snagging pieces every time they walk by. IÂ’ve gone through all of my candy.

I was going to buy more to keep it up, but IÂ’m not thinking itÂ’s so funny anymore.

Posted by: Contagion at 12:51 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 At least you are man enough to admit that! I'm willing to bet those working with Tammi are not.

Posted by: oddybobo at February 02, 2006 11:40 AM (6Gm0j)

2 The things you do are generally "shenanigans". Shenanagains are funny. What they are doing to Tammi is pretty heartless, and downright cruel.

As for your tin of candy, it's different because you haven't put any of it on THEIR desks, or outright taunted them with it. You know "neener, neener, who has chocolate?!?" kind of thing.

I hate to say it, but you are a gentleman when it comes to crossing lines with people. (Cripes, why did I just write that?!)

Keep up the shenanigans. They are funny.

Posted by: Sarah at February 02, 2006 12:43 PM (uoj25)

3 I'm with Sarah. Since it's on your desk, it's not active taunting so much as passive tempting.

I don't think you're over the line with that, although the malicious intent IS there :-)

Posted by: Harvey at February 02, 2006 12:57 PM (ubhj8)

4 I agree with the sentiments above.

Where those jerks that Tammi has to work sith crossed the line was the strategic placement of the temptation *just* for Tammi.

Not just putting donuts in the break room -- but all over, and on *her things*. Your dish of candy is in good fun, on your desk.

(And FWIW, it takes balls to admit that you may have made a mistake....)

Posted by: Richmond at February 02, 2006 03:10 PM (e8QFP)

5 I agree with everyone with an added... not only are you not putting on their desks, but you aren't aiming it at one person. You aren't taunting anyone, you're playing with the group. I can so see the guys at work doing what you're doing if a group of us women were doing a biggest loser contest. Absolutely. And it wouldn't piss me off. What would piss me off is if someone was intentionally trying to sabotage me, and me alone, but leaving crap on my desk.

Posted by: Bou at February 02, 2006 07:22 PM (iHxT3)

6 Big difference my friend. You aren't invading their space with it. You aren't teasing them verbally, you aren't judging them.

It's different. You're different. That's why you're my friend and they are NOT. ;-)

Posted by: Tammi at February 03, 2006 09:08 PM (lfQya)

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