Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Have you been BOOED yet?

Here it is halfway through the month and each morning I watch as my fellow employees, the ones who have yet to be booed, approach the entrance to their cubicles, cautiously look arounde and then either smile with gleeful anticipation, or shrug their shoulders, hang up their coats, boot up their computers, and go about work as usual. The latter hoping that tomorrow will be their turn. The former proudly posting their Boo sign on the outside of their cube, a badge of honour, to let others know they are off the Boo market, and then tearing into the hidden wonders of their Boo bag.

Boo bags are an interesting concept. Like Christmas in October, but of a haunting flavour, they magically and anonymously appear, filled with edible treasures and silliness. They give us, the average working person, a reason to break from the monotonous rituals of our day, to giggle and to play without having to find an excuse. The excuse is provided, and it doesn't cost our employer more than a few pennies of wasted time--time we would have wasted doing something else not work related anyway. Let's face it, how often do you actually put in a full 7 or 8 hours of work during the day?

I was Booed two days ago, very much to my surprise. The Boo bags only began to appear late last week. Quite honestly, I'm usually somewhere in the tail end of the receiving line, but not this year. This year the bags have been more elaborate than in the past. For starters, there are no bags. I've seen flower pots, tea pots, candle holders and all manner of seasonal container that is not made out of paper. Every one of these has had at least one toy, and all have a few pieces of candy. I remember when it was simply a paper cupcake liner filled with inexpensive Halloween treats.

I walked into my office to find a large ghoulish ghost hanging from my monitor, a 6 inch floppy plastic skeleton sitting on the keyboard, surrounded by spiders and rats, and a ceramic bag light (put a candle in it) filled with candy and fancy holiday suckers. Oh and there was a large wind up black spider strolling across my desk. Somebody out there likes me a lot, well me and two other people in my group. I have a feeling it was my manager, but it's anonymous, so I'll never know. I gave the candy away and kept the toys.

Tonight I went shopping for the supplies for my Boo bags. Mine will actually be bags--BooBags to be exact. Yep, there are actually paper gift bags out there complete with candy corn and tissue paper that say You Have Been Booed on them. Heck, they even have the same instructions for the recipient that I'm supposed to copy and include with the gift. It basically says go out and boo two more people within two days. Oh, and of course, there will be more in the bags I give out than candy corn. I'm not that cheap. Sheesh.

Tomorrow evening, I will leave the gifts behind before I walk out the door.

Happy Booing to all of you.

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