Winning the Candy War

My boss keeps a modest sized dish of candy on her desk. A few weeks ago, a member of another team moved into the empty office in our area. He too, keeps candy on his desk, though not a modest sized dish. It is a fish bowl. A loyal member of my team marched into the newcomer's office to say that she thought he was trying to make our boss look bad, and that we wouldn't put up with it. He said, "Bring it." It didn't help that my boss's candy dish happened to have one piece of candy in it that day. The newcomer walked into my boss's office and had the audacity to give her a bag of Dum Dums and say, "Looks like you could use some help."

It was on.

At our next staff meeting, our top priority was to brainstorm solutions and develop action items. By the end of the week, I had come through on my action item. What follows is the email to my team informing them of the good news.

"I hope this email finds you well.

To follow up on our vital initiative of regaining ground in the area of sweet tooth satisfaction on the 2nd floor, I put aside my less pressing assignments this Friday afternoon to do some research into this matter.

A simple Google search for "airplane M&M dispenser" proved to be quite fruitful. So fruitful, in fact, that I located the exact airplane M&M dispenser that rocketed my former coworker to the leader in attracting candy-seeking visitors.

Do view the link to this opportunity. Perhaps we could perform a cost-benefit analysis of purchasing the dispenser.

I appreciate your time and attention to this important, even crucial, matter.

My boss's response:

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. I have had a team of highly qualified financial analysts conduct a cost-benefit analysis on the purchase of said airplane dispenser. Their study proved that the purchasing the dispenser would yield a positive NPV of approximately $2 Million. Let's proceed with the purchase. At our next 1x1, I will release the funds.

I like my team :-)