Fools R Us

As much as I was perfectly aware of today's date when I arrived at work, I made no connection to it being April Fool's Day. I'm sort of clueless about obvious things that way. In my head I was hunkering down to the intricacies of closing the month's reports and how that was going to alter my daily tasks and responsibilities. I had my eye on the goals. I was focused.

We were about an hour and a half into the work day when our Accounting colleague hatched a plan to "fool" our Controller, he of the office next to mine. He always comes in late in the morning because he stays late in the evening, so we had plenty of time to work out the details and get the word out on the floor.

He was to come in the front lobby door as he always does, only to be met by the Receptionist and a bullpen full of empty cubicles, and no light coming from my office. A brief exchange would have him believing that no one had shown up, and she was alone in the office, fielding calls. Maybe it sounds outlandish, but you should know that our particular section of the building is populated by a small number of us, each overseeing a particular department.

Add to that the attention to detail that we gave it, and it started to really sound like he'd be thrown. First, our Head of Accounting is usually the first in so she has a prime parking spot. She usually proceeds to turn on lights and unlock side doors and connecting hall doors, as well as pull front lobby window blinds. So she moved her car behind our receptionist's SUV so it would be noticeable that she wasn't there, but not clear where she was. Then she closed all blinds and locked all doors but the main entrance. We had to turn off my office lights because my office window oversees the parking area, so for the last few minutes as we waited for him, I was working in the dark. I was given instructions to keep an eye on the parking lot so I could yelp when he pulled in, but I was summarily scolded when I was discovered with my back to the window in an honest effort to get some work done. We were all under strict instructions to shut off our monitors and make a mad dash for the filing room as soon as we got the alert from Accounting Lady who had parked herself in the corner office, having lost all hope of relying on me and my lookout abilities.

We'd covered all the possibilites of him not falling for it by remembering that since both our receptionist and our next immediate supervisor are new, they haven't had the need for exchanging personal cell phone numbers and so he shouldn't have to wonder why no one called him to ask what to do.

So there we were, discussing the intricacies of it all. I was marginally involved, overhearing it from my office as I continued to work, when I heard his voice and then the Head of Sales starts guffawing.

He had chosen this one day to park behind the building on the off chance that our personal car washer would come by and he could have his car washed. Because he had parked behind the building, he came up another driveway and Accounting Lady didn't get a heads up. And because he parked behind the building, he came up the side door just as someone walked out of it so he didn't even notice that it had been re-locked. And because he came up the side door, he walked in from behind us instead of from the receptionist's desk, and everyone just stood around in the bullpen just staring at him and completely deflating.

There was a lot of laughing after that.