Previously, on Fodder Blog: I mailed a package that was purposely unexpected to see whether someone would open it, thinking that nobody would open suspicious mail. The sender's name was fake, the address was fake, and the package was purposely weirdly shaped. He opened it without even hesitating.
Part of my attempt to conceal who it was from involved having someone else mail the package from near their home, so that the postmark would have a different suburb, and it would be harder to trace it back to me. As I was giving the package to my mule, I explained the whole idea behind the package. We are told as part of our building safety training not to open suspicious packages, and some signs that it's suspicious include:
- excessive packaging
- addressed to the wrong person, misspelled name - or nobody specific at all (e.g. "Security Manager")
- protruding wires
- oil seeping through the packaging
- strange sounds
- the package is unexpected
I didn't want to get arrested, so the closest I could get was to send an unexpected package. My mule said that if he received a package, he would open it, too (after maybe giving it a bit of a shake to see if he could guess what was inside). I told him that I didn't believe him, and said that I'd mail him a package in a few months when he had forgotten the conversation.
As with all of my little projects, this one sat in the back of my mind as I thought about what to give him. Inspiration struck when I remembered that he liked board games, and there's a game called Bang!, and even better than that, there's a dice version of it. Commissioner Gordon was overseas at the time, and I asked him if he would be able to find a copy of the game and mail it to the office. Unfortunately, he wasn't near any board games stores, and by the time I thought to ask him, he was at the end of his big holiday, so he wouldn't have time to get to one. But he did suggest just putting the parcel in the mail holes we have in the office.
That would have saved me in postage, and I could have put whatever ridiculous name / address on the package that I wanted, but because it bypassed the proper office package process, there wouldn't be an official record of it in the parcel log, and my mule would know that it was an inside job (at least I would have thought that if I had received a package internally and there was no log in the mail room of it arriving).
Most of the plan was coming together, I just had to solve the last obstacle - how to get the package to look like it arrived through a proper channel without having to send it through the proper channel? I could have just mailed it like the first one, but I had another brainstorm, and asked one of my co-workers, who receives a lot of packages, if I could re-use the packaging. He gave me a plastic one that had the orange "Fragile" sticker all over it, and in order to cover up his name, I printed out a large dodgy looking sticker and stuck sticky tape all over it.
My last brainstorm was had on the way to the office. There are Christmas decorations everywhere. And what do people do during Christmas? They exchange gifts. So I wrapped the board game up in wrapping paper (but before this, I did a big board game gift no-no and opened it up. I wanted the dice to make a lot of noise when the box was shaken, so I moved them into the main compartment, and stacked the cards on top of each other so the lid didn't sit on it properly. Now, in addition to the weird sound from the dice, the box was also a weird shape, and somewhat unstable, because of the stack of cards holding the lid up.
Wrapped gift in tow, I headed to the mail room, and said that I wanted to give someone a Christmas gift, but I wanted it to be a surprise. I asked if they would pretend this parcel came from a courier. The Spirit of Christmas must have been with me, because I didn't even have to bribe them with cookies - they happily took my package.
Then came the nerve-racking part - the wait. I dropped off the parcel in the morning (after checking that the mule was at his desk, and wouldn't accidentally stumble upon me talking to the mail people). By afternoon, he hadn't said anything. I left a note inside the game, so if he opened it, he would have seen it and known it was from me. I was back from lunch. Still nothing.
Then I receive an email.
Hi Fodder!
There's a parcel for you in the mail room. Please come and pick it up ASAP. We will hold it for 5 days before returning it to the sender.
If you are unable to collect it yourself, please organise for one of your colleagues to pick it up for you.
Cheers,
The mail team
I hadn't ordered anything, and even if I had, I wouldn't get it sent to the office.
Side note: Aust Post has a parcel locker service: it's free, and they're 24/7, so you don't even have to pick up your parcel during business hours. You get an SMS and an email when it arrives. You go to your designated locker location (there are heaps around the city), enter the provided code, and the locker opens for you to collect your parcel. Easy peasy. I 100% recommend it.
I realised the mule had probably seen the package, the memory of our conversation about suspicious packages was triggered, so he said something to the mail room to convince them that it was for me instead.
I messaged him:
Me: you're funny(I had meant to ask "what did you say to the mail room staff?", but just in case he hadn't received the package yet, I was trying to be vague. I guess I was too vague.)
Mule: ?
Me: what did you say?
Mule:
Me: you're funnyMe: ....
Mule: ?
Not wanting the game to be shipped back to the fake sender that I wrote on the back (which was a badly disguised Niklaus Pyhimys, from 25 Pohjoisnapa St, Tampere, NSW), I went to the mail room to collect it. Except instead of receiving the small plastic parcel I had dropped off in the morning, I received a large brown box.
It looked like a real parcel. It had tracking stickers on it, and even an invoice taped to the side in a plastic pocket thing (though I couldn't see who it was addressed to, that part was covered by a sticker, but I could see that it was from Saks Fifth Avenue). I could see the items listed, and I looked them up online. They were a couple of dresses worth about $1000. Not something I would order, and not something anybody I know would send to me.
I asked Jal if he sent it and he said no. I said I wasn't sure what to do with it. Jal re-iterated his stance that the chance of receiving a bomb was so low that it wasn't even worth considering. He even offered to open it for me. I remained unconvinced. Saks Fifth Avenue also didn't seem to be the kind of place the mule would shop at, but maybe he got the box from someone on his team who happened to receive a package that day. Then I looked closer at the name. It was almost my name, but it actually wasn't. There was one letter different. Misspelled name? Very tricky. Very suspicious.
I stormed over to the mule's desk and set the package down.
Mule: Hi.I looked around for the wrapping from my parcel, but didn't see anything. I also didn't see Bang! anywhere. Jal messaged me to say that there was someone in the company who had the name on the package, and because of her middle name, it makes it look like my name. I returned the package unopened to the mail room and explained that it was probably for the other Fodder.
Me: Hi.
Mule: (looks at me confused)
Me: So. I got an email saying there was a package for me today.
(No reaction from the mule.)
Me: I wasn't expecting this package.
(Still no reaction.)
Mule: So are you going to open it?
Me: No!... Well, I'm curious what's inside.
Mule: So open it. (He seems to have remembered the other package) Or are you afraid this is from that guy you sent the other parcel to?
Me: I asked him already, it's not.
(Still no reaction.)
Me: Did you send it?
Mule: (holds his hand to his chest) I swear it wasn't me who sent this.
I still didn't find out whether the mule got the package or not.
The next day, I ended up confessing the whole story about the package, because I explained everything to another co-worker, who said I should confess just in case the police do get called. I spent most of the night thinking about all the horrible things that could have happened. What if someone in the mail room did want to plant a bomb, and thought this would be the perfect way to do it, as I was caught on camera handing over the parcel? What if he was randomly searched on the way home while carrying the parcel, and they thought he was a terrorist (he really does look like one)? What if someone thought it was valuable, because it was weirdly shaped and covered in lots of wrapping and they mugged him?
As soon as I saw him online I asked the mule if he opened the package, and he said:
It was really suspicious looking, he didn't know the sender, it had an abnormal amount of wrapping, and once he removed all the stickers, he saw it was addressed to someone else. He wasn't expecting anything so he chucked it in the bin.I experienced the weird feeling of horror and relief. Horief? I was relieved that nothing bad happened to him (or me), but horrified that the game was going to rot away in a bin somewhere.
After a few minutes of me staring at my computer screen in stunned silence, he added:
Thank you for the gift. My daughter enjoyed playing with the dice.I barraged him with a heap of questions, trying to find out how he knew, when he knew, etc. I feel like the experiment backfired entirely. I was more stressed by the entire situation than he was - mostly because of the coincidental package that was wrongly assigned to me.
Today, I found the above pictured package on my desk, left my the mule. Treachery, Corporate, Missing. It looked suspicious to me. He said he wanted to get me a gift in return, and Robinson's bookshop has a "book blind date". I guess the three words on the package hint at what kind of book is inside. Now I'm wondering what made him pick that book out of all the others. Was it because it's something a paranoid person would pick?
I feel kinda bad now, as Bang! wasn't really a gift for him, it was more a gift for me, to prove him wrong (which failed dismally). Also, I'm still suspicious, so it's currently sitting there unopened. I need to see someone for my problems.
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