The great newspaper experiment
Albert sent me some pictures of workplace practical jokes a few days ago, and though I think he sent them to me solely for entertainment purposes (as noted by his comment: “overkill, but hilarious!”), they ended up providing inspiration for my biggest and boldest workplace caper yet. Today is conveniently the birthday of that girl from work, so I figured that was as good as an excuse as any to implement the newspaper covered cubicle.
Essentially this entailed wrapping her entire desk and everything on it and around it in newspaper. Originally, I was planning on wrapping everything in her entire cubicle area in newspaper, but little did I initially know how long it takes to wrap oddly shaped objects in newspaper. I went into work last night around 7:30 pm, figuring that absolutely no one would be working at that hour on a Sunday evening. As it turns out, there were like 15 other cars there, but thankfully no one in my general vicinity appeared to be there (or potentially on my entire floor for that matter). I was nervous about what I was doing at first, and had trouble getting started. Once I actually arrived and looked at what I was dealing with, I became overwhelmed with the task. Good lord there was a lot of stuff to wrap in newspaper. I seriously contemplated just leaving without doing anything, but decided instead to just start working and hopefully I would get into a groove.
First, I decided to remove some objects from the desk that I anticipated would be extremely time consuming or stupid to wrap, and moved them somewhere else. Then, I removed all the items from her desk and wrapped the entire top of the desk in newspaper as well as her computer, which was on the floor. Next, I hit up the monitor, and then the keyboard and mouse, and moved the objects back onto the desk as I completed them. I wanted the end result to be classy, so I made sure to wrap the keyboard and mouse cords in newspaper as well, though that ended up being a huge pain. Then, I started work on all the smaller random objects on her desk, like the stapler, some pens, a bottle of vitamins, and a stack of notebooks/papers. I also wrapped a box of tissues, and in what a thought was an elegant touch I cut a thin slit in the newspaper for the tissues to emerge, retaining the functionality of the tissue box while otherwise completely wrapped in newspaper.
After completing the objects on the desk, I went on to finishing off the exposed sides and front of the desk. After that, I was pretty well complete with the initial effort, and I contemplated continuing on to the rest of her cubicle (another table top, some cabinets and the walls) but getting to that point had already taken a good deal of time and I was getting bored and my back was hurting. So I decided to just finish it off with a wrapping of her chair, which ended up taking me forever because the chair is so large and unwieldy. Yet once I had started I was determined to finish it no matter how lame it got, so I pushed through and finally finished it off. I was satisfied, but then had the inspiration to remove a carpet square, wrap it, and then replace it on the ground. I must say I am most proud of that little addition.
The final little touch was putting a bow on her wrapped keyboard that had “happy birthday” written all over it, which I had bought at Walmart just before heading over there (along with a few rolls of masking tape). All told, I think I did a pretty good job, and though it took two and a half hours and I missed the Simpsons, Family Guy, and the first half of Grey’s Anatomy as a result, I was still quite pleased with myself and the end result. I took a bunch of pictures to forever preserve the prank, but my Stanford webspace expired so I know of no means to post them here.
I wasn’t really sure how this whole thing was going to go over, and though I strongly did not think I would get in any trouble for doing it (which was why I did it in the first place), I still couldn’t shake the possibility that there could be repercussions. I actually didn’t sleep very well last night because I kept thinking about it, but as it turns out, there was absolutely nothing that I needed to be worried about.
I got in this morning around 9:30, and coincidentally she arrived about ten minutes after and saw what I had done. As I expected, she burst into laughter and continued laughing as she fully came to appreciate how everything on and around her desk was wrapped in newspaper. That scene alone would have validated the whole effort, but I decided to play it cool to see what else might transpire. Though I expected that everyone would obviously know it was my doing, I only slightly got fingered, and easily deflected the suspicions. With no one knowing for sure that I had done it, I got people’s real reactions, which included awed responses to my three most notable wrappings.
One dude noted that wrapping the mouse and keyboard cords was hard-core dedication; two other people commented that the usability of the tissues was sweet, and one guy said that the wrapping of one of the carpet squares was the perfect touch. Absolutely no one had any negative comments, including my managers. Everyone loved it. Excellent.
What was perhaps the best part though was that she expressed reluctance to remove any of the newspaper at first because she said it was so cool and didn’t want to wreck it. She ended up just removing the bare minimum (keyboard, monitor, work notes, etc.) to get work done and kept everything else wrapped. She actually even kept the chair completely wrapped in newspaper and used it like that throughout the day. That was sweet, as was her constant questioning of people trying to figure out who did it. She was talking about it all day long with anyone and everyone, and I overheard most of the conversations because I sit so close to her.
Near the end of the day, she said something to a friend over the phone that was both gratifying and insulting all in one: “I don’t think it was Ryan because everything was wrapped so perfectly. It was so well done that it must have taken a long time, and Ryan would never spend that long doing something like this.” Wait, maybe that isn’t insulting. Maybe she has just picked up on the intense slacker vibe I give off at work. Little does she know that that doesn’t apply to playing pranks on people!
Dang, how am I going to top this?
Week 10: a loss of 0.6 lbs to 180.8 lbs
Total for the first ten weeks of my program: a gain of 10.4 lbs to 180.8 lbs
Essentially this entailed wrapping her entire desk and everything on it and around it in newspaper. Originally, I was planning on wrapping everything in her entire cubicle area in newspaper, but little did I initially know how long it takes to wrap oddly shaped objects in newspaper. I went into work last night around 7:30 pm, figuring that absolutely no one would be working at that hour on a Sunday evening. As it turns out, there were like 15 other cars there, but thankfully no one in my general vicinity appeared to be there (or potentially on my entire floor for that matter). I was nervous about what I was doing at first, and had trouble getting started. Once I actually arrived and looked at what I was dealing with, I became overwhelmed with the task. Good lord there was a lot of stuff to wrap in newspaper. I seriously contemplated just leaving without doing anything, but decided instead to just start working and hopefully I would get into a groove.
First, I decided to remove some objects from the desk that I anticipated would be extremely time consuming or stupid to wrap, and moved them somewhere else. Then, I removed all the items from her desk and wrapped the entire top of the desk in newspaper as well as her computer, which was on the floor. Next, I hit up the monitor, and then the keyboard and mouse, and moved the objects back onto the desk as I completed them. I wanted the end result to be classy, so I made sure to wrap the keyboard and mouse cords in newspaper as well, though that ended up being a huge pain. Then, I started work on all the smaller random objects on her desk, like the stapler, some pens, a bottle of vitamins, and a stack of notebooks/papers. I also wrapped a box of tissues, and in what a thought was an elegant touch I cut a thin slit in the newspaper for the tissues to emerge, retaining the functionality of the tissue box while otherwise completely wrapped in newspaper.
After completing the objects on the desk, I went on to finishing off the exposed sides and front of the desk. After that, I was pretty well complete with the initial effort, and I contemplated continuing on to the rest of her cubicle (another table top, some cabinets and the walls) but getting to that point had already taken a good deal of time and I was getting bored and my back was hurting. So I decided to just finish it off with a wrapping of her chair, which ended up taking me forever because the chair is so large and unwieldy. Yet once I had started I was determined to finish it no matter how lame it got, so I pushed through and finally finished it off. I was satisfied, but then had the inspiration to remove a carpet square, wrap it, and then replace it on the ground. I must say I am most proud of that little addition.
The final little touch was putting a bow on her wrapped keyboard that had “happy birthday” written all over it, which I had bought at Walmart just before heading over there (along with a few rolls of masking tape). All told, I think I did a pretty good job, and though it took two and a half hours and I missed the Simpsons, Family Guy, and the first half of Grey’s Anatomy as a result, I was still quite pleased with myself and the end result. I took a bunch of pictures to forever preserve the prank, but my Stanford webspace expired so I know of no means to post them here.
I wasn’t really sure how this whole thing was going to go over, and though I strongly did not think I would get in any trouble for doing it (which was why I did it in the first place), I still couldn’t shake the possibility that there could be repercussions. I actually didn’t sleep very well last night because I kept thinking about it, but as it turns out, there was absolutely nothing that I needed to be worried about.
I got in this morning around 9:30, and coincidentally she arrived about ten minutes after and saw what I had done. As I expected, she burst into laughter and continued laughing as she fully came to appreciate how everything on and around her desk was wrapped in newspaper. That scene alone would have validated the whole effort, but I decided to play it cool to see what else might transpire. Though I expected that everyone would obviously know it was my doing, I only slightly got fingered, and easily deflected the suspicions. With no one knowing for sure that I had done it, I got people’s real reactions, which included awed responses to my three most notable wrappings.
One dude noted that wrapping the mouse and keyboard cords was hard-core dedication; two other people commented that the usability of the tissues was sweet, and one guy said that the wrapping of one of the carpet squares was the perfect touch. Absolutely no one had any negative comments, including my managers. Everyone loved it. Excellent.
What was perhaps the best part though was that she expressed reluctance to remove any of the newspaper at first because she said it was so cool and didn’t want to wreck it. She ended up just removing the bare minimum (keyboard, monitor, work notes, etc.) to get work done and kept everything else wrapped. She actually even kept the chair completely wrapped in newspaper and used it like that throughout the day. That was sweet, as was her constant questioning of people trying to figure out who did it. She was talking about it all day long with anyone and everyone, and I overheard most of the conversations because I sit so close to her.
Near the end of the day, she said something to a friend over the phone that was both gratifying and insulting all in one: “I don’t think it was Ryan because everything was wrapped so perfectly. It was so well done that it must have taken a long time, and Ryan would never spend that long doing something like this.” Wait, maybe that isn’t insulting. Maybe she has just picked up on the intense slacker vibe I give off at work. Little does she know that that doesn’t apply to playing pranks on people!
Dang, how am I going to top this?
Week 10: a loss of 0.6 lbs to 180.8 lbs
Total for the first ten weeks of my program: a gain of 10.4 lbs to 180.8 lbs