Balloons to the rescue.

Sometimes my office has the grumpiest bunch of people you have ever seen. I always feel like Pippi Long Stocking (is coooomin' into your town!) when I'm at work because I'm miss little chipper and cheerful. I'm usually a pretty peppy person anyway so I'm not complaining and I'm happy to do what I can to spread the wealth....but sometimes it can be exhausting.

So for the past two weeks I have been helping out another department that was short staffed. Because of my two weeks in Denver, I had a pretty good understanding of that department and was able to actually help instead of just ask questions and annoy people. Only problem is...they are so busy and so short staffed that everyone is WAY stressed. F bombs fly around the office more than smiles and papers/phones/pens/white outs are constantly being thrown against our little cubicle partitions. DEPRESSING! GUYS! We just ship stuff! I'm not saying I don't take my job seriously, I do...but we aren't doing open heart surgery on children. Don't be so damn down all the time. It's FREIGHT!

So I was joking around with people about it (because that's how I handle uncomfortable situations) and said, "Do you need a balloon? Would that make you smile?" just totally screwing around. But then it dawned on me that this could actually be a good idea. Stupid? Yes. Immature? Duh. But possibly a cheap way to get everyone out of their poopy little diapers and act like happy adults. And it worked! I literally tied a balloon on everyone's chair that had been grumpy. In retrospect it was probably a little embarrassing for them but everyone seemed to be a good sport. And it actually worked! People were talking about it for days!

My boss called me in to his office in the morning and is totally serious (which he never is) and is like, "is this to cheer everyone up? balloons? That's your answer?" and I'm thinking...oh damn...is this inappropriate? I know we have a casual office but maybe i took it too far or it's not "professional" or something. But then his "I'm trying to be serious face" broke and he grinned and he goes, "I'm just screwing with you. Great. Thank you very much. Keep up the good work...I really appreciate it". I was like, SERIOUSLY? GREAT!

And that is how Lizzi saved the day.