I started working at a new company back in March. It’s one of those businesses where the needs of clients are constantly in opposition with the capacity of the employees and rarely is everyone on the same page. A reorganization was also happening right as I got there, and tensions were high. I decided to do something about it.

I schemed and planned, and when the crowd strike IT blackout knocked out all of our inventory systems and instrument computers, I knew it was time to strike. I got to work cutting out little paper ponds from blue paper I found in the copy room. I outfitted eighteen of these ponds with little paper lily pads and reed grass, waited for everyone to go home, and scattered them around the offices of Building 1.

And then I placed 180 tiny multicolored plastic ducks all over the office. In the ponds, in the breakrooms, on the marker trays of the whiteboards, the water fountains, the copiers. I came into work the next day like nothing had happened, and watched everyone slowly become aware that they were absolutely surrounded by tiny glittery ducks. There are still people in the office who don’t know the source of the duck ponds, but I came clean by the end of the day to my direct colleagues, because everyone was unsure if they were allowed to take the ducks and I needed to tell them YES!

Over the next few weeks the ducks migrated from the ponds to people’s desks and cubicles. Many people started collecting color sets and arranging their ducks in a pattern. A few of the empty ponds were relocated to people’s desks to house their duck families. One coworker told me she has a duck to represent each of her family members. Another came to me looking for a red duck because it was the only color they were missing from their lineup. People from other buildings started making the trek over to ours to see the ponds and take a duck. Like tourists.

But it didn’t end there.

Soon other animals started showing up in the ponds, and it absolutely wasn’t me that was doing it. There were rabbits one week and dinosaurs the next. Dogs, fish, turtles, frogs, butterflies - there was a new wave of tiny animals every few days, seemingly all from different sources. My new boss has a bag of tiny marine animals at her desk now, and she gives them out to whoever wants them. At this point it is almost impossible to find a desk that doesn’t have at least one tiny animal on it, if not a menagerie.

altariasong