Where have all the bloody teaspoons gone?
'Where have all the bloody teaspoons gone?': Science tries and fails to solve the eternal lunchroom mystery
The Ottawa Citizen
Jan 2, 2006
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Byline: Tom Spears
A high-flying AIDS research institute in Australia has published new findings -- not about disease, but about what happens to all the spoons in the world's office lunch rooms.
It's an old, and evidently worldwide, phenomenon. Spoons in the workplace disappear at an enormous rate, says the Burnet Institute in Melbourne.
Like this:
- "The half life of the teaspoons was 81 days (that is, half had disappeared permanently after that time)."
- If an office wants to keep a supply of 70 spoons always on hand, it will need to buy 250 spoons over the course of a year.
Putting it differently, the rate of disappearance is 360.62 per 100 teaspoon years, meaning that 360.62 spoons disappear over one year in a lunch room that stocks a steady supply of 100 spoons at any given time. That's almost one a day, including weekends and holidays.
- Higher-quality teaspoons don't disappear any faster than standard quality teaspoons.
- Spoons disappear faster in lunch rooms shared by everyone than in lunch rooms used by small groups.
"If the annual rate of teaspoon loss per employee can be applied to the entire workforce of the city of Melbourne (about 2.5 million), an estimated 18 million teaspoons are going missing in Melbourne each year," the study says.
"Laid end to end, these lost teaspoons would cover over 2,700 kilometres ... and weigh over 360 metric tons -- the approximate weight of four adult blue whales."
The British Medical Journal, not known for its sense of humour, has just published the study under the title The case of the disappearing teaspoons: Longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute.
When they're not counting spoons, Burnet scientists work on vaccine development, virology, pathogenesis and epidemiology.
But in early 2004, they ran out of spoons.
"We set out to answer the age-old question 'Where have all the bloody teaspoons gone?' " they write in their study.
They bought and discreetly numbered 70 stainless steel teaspoons (54 plain spoons and 16 of higher quality). The teaspoons were placed in "tearooms" (lunch rooms in Canadian parlance) around their own building and were counted weekly over five months. The centre has 140 employees.
During the study, 56 (80 per cent) of the 70 teaspoons disappeared.
After five months, staff were told about the research project and asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire about their attitudes toward, and knowledge of, teaspoons and teaspoon theft. Five spoons suddenly reappeared from hoarders, and a couple more surfaced in places far from the lunch area.
But no one admitted filching.
"People have no control over teaspoon migration," the scientists conclude.
They float the theory that somewhere in the universe is a planet populated by spoons missing from Earth. Failing that, they say, it's possible that spoons just don't like people, and try to avoid us.
The article is drawing world-wide comment on the medical journal's website, with scientists blaming everything from an expanding universe to the force that makes socks disappear in the dryer.
The Ottawa Citizen
Jan 2, 2006
----------------------------------------
Byline: Tom Spears
A high-flying AIDS research institute in Australia has published new findings -- not about disease, but about what happens to all the spoons in the world's office lunch rooms.
It's an old, and evidently worldwide, phenomenon. Spoons in the workplace disappear at an enormous rate, says the Burnet Institute in Melbourne.
Like this:
- "The half life of the teaspoons was 81 days (that is, half had disappeared permanently after that time)."
- If an office wants to keep a supply of 70 spoons always on hand, it will need to buy 250 spoons over the course of a year.
Putting it differently, the rate of disappearance is 360.62 per 100 teaspoon years, meaning that 360.62 spoons disappear over one year in a lunch room that stocks a steady supply of 100 spoons at any given time. That's almost one a day, including weekends and holidays.
- Higher-quality teaspoons don't disappear any faster than standard quality teaspoons.
- Spoons disappear faster in lunch rooms shared by everyone than in lunch rooms used by small groups.
"If the annual rate of teaspoon loss per employee can be applied to the entire workforce of the city of Melbourne (about 2.5 million), an estimated 18 million teaspoons are going missing in Melbourne each year," the study says.
"Laid end to end, these lost teaspoons would cover over 2,700 kilometres ... and weigh over 360 metric tons -- the approximate weight of four adult blue whales."
The British Medical Journal, not known for its sense of humour, has just published the study under the title The case of the disappearing teaspoons: Longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute.
When they're not counting spoons, Burnet scientists work on vaccine development, virology, pathogenesis and epidemiology.
But in early 2004, they ran out of spoons.
"We set out to answer the age-old question 'Where have all the bloody teaspoons gone?' " they write in their study.
They bought and discreetly numbered 70 stainless steel teaspoons (54 plain spoons and 16 of higher quality). The teaspoons were placed in "tearooms" (lunch rooms in Canadian parlance) around their own building and were counted weekly over five months. The centre has 140 employees.
During the study, 56 (80 per cent) of the 70 teaspoons disappeared.
After five months, staff were told about the research project and asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire about their attitudes toward, and knowledge of, teaspoons and teaspoon theft. Five spoons suddenly reappeared from hoarders, and a couple more surfaced in places far from the lunch area.
But no one admitted filching.
"People have no control over teaspoon migration," the scientists conclude.
They float the theory that somewhere in the universe is a planet populated by spoons missing from Earth. Failing that, they say, it's possible that spoons just don't like people, and try to avoid us.
The article is drawing world-wide comment on the medical journal's website, with scientists blaming everything from an expanding universe to the force that makes socks disappear in the dryer.