If you’re lucky enough to work at a good place, you develop a sort of short-hand with your colleagues based on your experiences. You might also get involved in some silly things, that make sense to you but look ridiculous to someone else.
Derek has some great stories about moving a colleague’s car inside a building (he was not amused!) and filling another car with popcorn. I’m not quite that ambitious. I do things like notice that someone has left an orange in the kitchen for nearly a week and turn it into a newsroom mascot.
Orange man wasn’t my best work, by far. But he lasted quite a while.
Reporter Avery Moore was the real talent when it came to the absurd. One year, she took city council’s massive binder containing budget documents and gave it eyes and a mouth. Occasionally a post-it beside the binder would tell us what the budget was saying: I’m bloated! Things like that.
You have to find your own fun. These days, I have on my desk a Silver Sow award, in honour of my news hero Les Nessman from WKRP. It’s a little thing that sometimes makes me deliriously happy. And that’s what it’s all about.