Monday, May 17, 2010

Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler

Milton alert! I feel privileged to report that we've got a veritable Office Space-inspired drama ensuing at my very own office. It started off innocuously enough. Our coworker came a knockin', asking if his interns could borrow staplers to do lit reviews. Why, who could turn down those cute little interns? And they needed those staplers for such a noble task (that much ennobled by our dislike of it).

Enter scene right: intern #1, with a penchant for walking in all circumstances upon his tiptoes and pasting a perpetually perplexed look upon his face. Also to be noted, a high-toned, low-volume manner of speaking.

Intern #1 walks to Big Intern Boss' office, perplexed at not finding him there. In his bewilderment, he happens to fortuitously turn around and lo... what does his eye fall on? A shiny (not red) stapler.

Complication: Said stapler is currently cohabiting with another coworker, who will certainly lay claim to the stapler.

Intern's solution: Lurk and maneuver body to size up the stapler from every angle until the owner of the stapler turns around to find him there.

Intern: "Um, I think that's my stapler."
Coworker #1: "Well, let's see... I'm pretty sure this is my stapler."
Intern: "No, see, I know that's my stapler."
Coworker #1: "When I started here, this stapler was in my office, so I think it's mine."

Coworker #2 intervenes: "Hi, Intern #1. Were you looking for a stapler? Because I put my stapler in your cube so that you could use it."
Intern: "Oh, really? I didn't see anything."
Coworker #2: "Yeah, I did. Do you want me to come and show you where I put it?"

*Intern and coworker #2 enter Intern's cube. Intern takes one look at the stapler and instantly responds, "Oh, no. See, that's not my stapler. My stapler had a sticker on the top. That's why I know Coworker #1 has my stapler. See, it's the sticker."
Coworker #2: "Well, this is a stapler and it works just fine, so how about you use this?"
Intern: "But she has my stapler."

7 comments:

Becky said...

Could this be just the surface of deeper issues. Yikes!

Becky said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Micah E. said...

I can't wait for our intern to show up next week!

Adriana said...

you are totally co-worker #2, huh?

Heather Sanders said...

Actually, I'm not coworker#2. Good thing, too because I probably could not have contained my laughter. Instead, I got to just sit within earshot of the whole thing and chuckle in my office uncompromised.

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