Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The Chocolate Run

The Chocolate Run is an unusual occurance that happens quite frequently in my office.
I call it unusual, because I have not heard of similar things happening in any friend's office.

Once in every few days , we get a mail from our Resource manager / HR generalists about a bag or sometimes 2 bags of chocolates/sweets lying on their desk. We are to come grab as many as we can ASAP..

He He that's not exactly how these kind, well meaning ladies put it.
It's a practice to get chocolates when one comes back from onsite. Bringing chocolates back from onsite marks your entry into the upper echelons of the complicated and much misunderstood office social structure. Now you're known to be at least ankle deep in dollars.. while your contemporaries are neck deep in work and bull&*@%.
Well, in order to become socially accepted, the chocolates must be distributed.

So.. the normal course of events - Mail from resource manager , a mad rush to her desk, a barely dignified scuffle to grab as many as you can in both your hands, running back the desk, stocking the loot in the workstation and then run back again for a second round before they all run out. If you're lucky or extremely quick, by the time you reach your desk, you would still have a couple of chocolates left for yourself. Mostly , they are snatched away by the waiting and watching bystanders.

There are two kinds of people who participate in a chocolate run - Runners and Sitters. Sitters are the ones who are on the lookout - an email , or the crackle of packaging, or an unusually fruity smell - the sitters note them all. They then nudge the Runners into action. The Runner may run for various reasons, philanthropy and love for chocolates being the main ones. Some may simply be prompted by the fact that the sitter nudging them is their immediate reporting manager :P

There is also a third category - the ones who can't reach / don't care. They are the people sitting on the other extremity of the floor, or on a different floor altogether , or people who don't care to run the saccharine mile.

As I write this , I can see another run happening. The mail has come, the chairs are being pushed back.. and I must nudge the guy sitting next to me :) Cya