The One with the Props

I hope I don’t get dooced for this, but I’m going to share something about the office in which I work.

This post will be about how things are not put away after they’re used. Now, I’m not talking about how some people choose not to clean up after themselves. So I won’t mention the knife covered in peanut butter that has been sitting on the counter since last week or how aiming the contents of a sugar packet into a cup is near impossible.

Instead I’m going to tell you about the props we have lying around, and what a kick I get out of taking inventory of the situation.

I work at an animation studio, and sometimes we hire actors (and sometimes we are forced against our wills to be the actors) in order to create the actions for the artists to later use as reference. Our directors are good at being totally resourceful when it comes to the props needed because it’s not like we have a prop house at our disposal.

I’m afraid knowing that is not going to help you understand what has been scattered around our studio for the past week. Because I don’t understand it myself. It’s impressive that people are so resourceful and creative in putting together props but frustrating that they just walk away from them, thinking that someone will come along behind them to put everything back in its place. But then, I can’t help but laugh as I imagine some outsider coming to our office for the first time, wondering what in the heck all this stuff is for:

1. A grocery cart with a hard hat in it smack dab in the middle of the main room.
2. A dinner plate resting on the pool table.
3. Two cans of chicken stacked next to a giant jar of protein powder on our conference table.
4. A patio chair with bath towels wrapped around the arms.
5. A coat hanger next to the aforementioned peanut butter-crusted knife.
6. A paper towel folded and cut to look like a toaster pastry with a bite taken out of it.

It’s just all so odd, yet it's become amusing to me. And I guarantee that none of this will get moved until one of two things happen. Either someone is going to take a bath and need one of the towels after having a plate of canned chicken. They will use the paper towel pastry to dry off their face and then fix themselves a protein shake. When they go to fix the shake, they’ll have to move the coat hanger out of their way. And before they take the chair outside to sit on the balcony and enjoy their protein shake, they will answer the door to find a construction worker needing the grocery cart to haul scraps downstairs. Or someone besides an employee will be on their way to the studio and one of us will be embarrassed enough to straighten up.