Christmas Crackers

Just before Christmas this year, it hit me that I needed to get something for my office staff & my students. Many of them were fairly new but I wanted to show my appreciation. I finally decided to give them each a collection of small items so they all got the same bundle, which seemed fair to me. Along with some candy & nick-nacks they each got a shiny colored Christmas cracker. Because it's not really Christmas without the traditional, Hugely Disappointing, Christmas Cracker. 2 of my co-workers (the eldest)set their's aside until a few days ago, then they brought them over to my desk and asked if it was safe to pull them inside. I nearly wet myself laughing because I have never had an Xmas Cracker that actually "Cracked" These cheap things carried on that tradition by barely having 1/2 a match head which went "Phtttt" and made a farty smell. They giggled over the crappy toys and put on the tissue paper hats, his purple, her's red. They kept them on for most of the afternoon, where they were seen and interacted with several other engineers. Not one word, in fact there was barely even a 2nd glance from any of them. We marveled about that and wondered what it said about our office when they just accepted whatever we were up to with out question or concern. Baseball game on, confusing and ever changing pointless instructions, rotating door signs, Rogue's gallery of call cartoons, inflatable Palm tree, crackling fireplace, "Star Wars" Lego sets, now paper hats. As I thought about it that way, we have conditioned them to accept the unexpected. And the crappy hats were pretty tame compared to some of the other hijinx. We've rotated selected Bad products, Bad puns and cartoons, on a cabinet door for years now. During an important audit of the facility by NASA, I explained to the auditor that I had started doing it in our old office to distract the engineers so we could get some work done. "Oh, so it's a productivity enhancement" she said with a straight face but a twinkle in her eye. When I went for a cup of coffee a little later, she was telling the rest of her team about our solution, and they were all laughing because they understood what it's like to have some body staring over your shoulder. That wasn't the first or last time I was reminded that our reputation has, for better or worse, spread through the communications of pretty important people. Several visiting VIP's have made a point to swing by, and lingered to take in the BS we line the office with. Grade schooler's and Senior NASA engineer's love the LEGOs. We has NASA engineers in the office eating the candy that a walking toy penguin had crapped out onto the desk, or the pig that poops pink candy when you press it down. Disturbing to say the least, funny as hell most of the time, but it's a very surreal existence.