Follow-Up Girl

(Sorry, work stuff has been censored.)

I keep a to-do list at work of the tasks that I've been asked to do, but aren't urgent, or things that are too small to be worth raising a card for in our issue tracking system. Whenever I get a spare moment, I'll check the list to see if there's anything that's easy to pick off.

I haven't had one of those moments in a while, until Tuesday, when I checked the list and saw that someone had added a task "Chocolates for the_boss". Seeing as it was on my list, I ran to the nearest store and bought a box of chocolates to put on his desk before he got to work.

When he did arrive, he started asking around, wondering who had put the chocolates on his desk. When he finally got to me, I showed him my to-do list, and asked if he was the one who wrote that task. He replied that it was a joke, and he hadn't expected me to follow through with it. I said that it was on my list, so it had to get done.

The chocolates ended up sitting on his desk for most of the morning, until he came over while I was sitting with Jal, and said, "Fodder, I can't accept these chocolates. I'll have one of you decide to open it, but it doesn't feel right. It was just a joke!" Nev burst out laughing and said that it seems the joke backfired on him.

I ended up opening the box and sharing it with the team, but I honestly don't understand why he didn't want the chocolates. It was a joke, we all had a laugh, and I figured he'd open them himself and share them with the team. What difference did it make that I did it instead of him?

Anyway, laughs were had, and I got to go around the team explaining that they were "the_boss guilt chocolates", which was a great way to break the ice with some of the people that I hadn't really met yet. Slowly integrating myself into my new team, one chocolate at a time! I am trying to tone down the weirdness, I really am. :(

As a sidenote, in an act of "revenge", I picked out three Boost bars from the box of chocolates, and left them on D's desk. They're even smaller than the fun-sized ones that he gave me for winning the Dota 2 game.