Office Shenanigans: The Kudos Board

I want to start out by emphasizing that when reading these posts it helps if you watch The Office.  If you don't, no worries, but certain references will make more sense if you do.  Actually, if you don't watch The Office I'm worried, it's pretty much one of my favorite shows and you're missing out.

Now let's get started... I've caught a lot of grief for yesterday's post being just a preview and not having a story.

Awhile back my office decided to start our own mini-version of the dundies with a kudos boards.  I don't remember when this board originated and it's even less clear the time of its demise, but it was short lived to say the least.  Basically, we had a white board up in the office with everyone's name and space to "anonymously" write kudos about one another.  Then we would share these in department meetings and they would also get emailed to the kudos committee.  The kudos committee was made up of some ladies from another department, who once a month would walk around the office shaking pom poms & other random noisemakers as they passed out goody bags to that month's kudos recipients.  This is not a joke.

While their committee was awesome, the best part of this whole office episode is the types of kudos submitted amongst our team.  They started out genuine and professional, but as people lost interest in giving praise and slackers started feeling left out of the spotlight, the weirdest efforts started being acknowledged.  For example, someone was given a kudos for cleaning and organizing a spare cube.  While this was a nice thing to do- one, it did it not seem kudo-worthy and two, it begged the question of people's workload.  I suppose we've all had days where we take a break from one thing to do something more mindless, but who wants that highlighted?  What make this particular kudo extra awesome is that is was given in the same month we drew randomly from the submissions for a half day off.  Yep, you guessed it, that person's accomplishment was drawn and they got to a paid half day off... for cleaning a cube... out of boredom.

Needless to say, the kudos committee didn't come into our department too much after that.  Honestly, they must have decided that our team's "accomplishments" didn't merit a full bag of candy and a huge applause from their committee.  I'd have to agree, but don't tell anyone.

Oh, and before I forget... Happy Birthday Dani!!!  Sort of random, I know, but it's my sister's birthday and it should be definitely be mentioned on my blog!

Office Shenanigans

I've probably mentioned before (at least to Scott) that sometimes when I watch The Office it makes me think of where I work. For the record, we do NOT have our own version of Micheal, but we do take department Christmas photos, debate over the temperature, and chit chat at the water cooler.

This upcoming Friday marks my three year anniversary at my job and to celebrate that occasion I'm going to share some of my favorite stories from my office.

If you don't work in a cubicle I invite you to read these stories later this week and take a peek into our world. If you do work in one, I still want to invite you to sit back, read, and laugh at the things our offices have in common.

This is my cube at work. Awesome, I know.

week one: mid-week laughs

E, Myself, and I has started a new blog series and as a friend of hers and fellow blogger I decided to participate! As you can see, "mid-week laughs" will be happening each Wednesday and this week's topic is:

_________ makes me laugh about WEDDINGS!

I'll go ahead and fill in the blank with...

The re-purpose shuffle makes me laugh about WEDDINGS!

You know how you see certain items at the ceremony magically appear for display at the reception? That's what I mean when I say re-purpose. I'm not making fun of this effort because I appointed someone to conduct the shuffle at my wedding (thank you Sallie Ray), but it never ceases to amaze me .

I mean really think about it. How often do you show up to a reception and see the altar flowers on the entry table and the guest book already neatly displayed? Let's give the shuffler of said items some credit because in the time it took you to mosey from the ceremony to the reception the shuffler discretely grabbed all items on the bride's move list, somehow beat you to the party, set everything in place, and has a drink in one hand and a hors' dourve in the other! Amazing.

As a matter of fact, the wedding I went to this past weekend was no exception to this magic act. Upon arrival I was first greeted by wreaths on the country club doors, striking a strong resemblance to the ones hung on the church's doors 20 minutes beforehand. Next, I saw the the mantle adorned with an arrangement that I know I saw on the altar. On top of that, I assume the guest book was moved too (but that I can't confirm). The crazy thing is that I was hanging outside of the church and never noticed the wreaths being grabbed or a flower arrangement of any type being shuffled out... that's how good these people are! Its insane and I love it. It is just a tiny bit of insight into all the behind the scenes planning and work that goes into

Of course I noticed the new home for all these items because I requested the exact same things make it from the church to my reception site as well!

Wreaths on the church doors at my wedding.

Wreath at my reception. Enough said.