Candy-dish Adventures



As some of you may already know, I've recently placed a bowl of candy in my office. It serves two main purposes: 1) to keep a supply of candy no more than 3 feet away from me, and 2) to be nice and share candy with people.. because that's just the kind of guy I am.

I've made a few observations over the last few days, and now I'm going to share them with you – whether you like it or not. 😛

  • Given the choice between a Snickers bar or a PayDay bar, most people will choose the Snickers.. but when left alone in a bowl, the PayDay's disappear much more quickly.
  • People are afraid to take the last candy bar. If I leave one bar in the bowl, it'll stay there. If I add another to keep it company, one of them is very likely to disappear.
  • Traffic to my office doesn't seem to have changed much, and not many people come in to get candy when I'm in here. It seems as if they prefer to snatch a bar or two when no one is around to see them do it.
  • There is a janitor (named Robert) that apparently takes candy. Robert is not afraid to take the last piece. Robert is also not afraid to go through someone's desk drawers and take even more candy out of them. I've left post-it notes addressed to Robert under the candy, and in my desk – I pray he doesn't force me to escalate matters.

My phone isn't ringing nearly enough. Sometimes that's really hard to cope with.



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9 Comments »

  1. Julia Roberts said,

    It's not that I WANT Roberto to take more candy from you…but it would entertain me for matters to have to "escalate." I wanna watch. 🙂

    Maybe Robert had a bad childhood where he was forced to eat broccoli and that's all….never chocolate. Maybe you're making all his dreams come true….

    I'm on team Robert.

    October 9, 2007 @ 10:30 am


  2. Kate said,

    if i see the last piece of anything, i refuse to take it. for some reason, i just feel guilty if i take the last piece, especially if i already had a piece…someone could be missing out on their piece.

    i like the note you left Robert the janitor. hopefully, the message and the cute smiley face will deter him from taking any more of our precious candy. i just might need a snickers one of these days…and of course, to visit you in your office 🙂

    October 9, 2007 @ 3:58 pm


  3. Kelly (KH) said,

    I still have a few peanut butter cups in my drawer, but no one can be sure they'll be there tomorrow…. Better eat them today, just in case.

    October 9, 2007 @ 4:04 pm


  4. spudart said,

    Taking candy out of your drawing is certainly a bad issue, but…

    Robert should be able to eat candy out of the bowl. Do any of your coworkers vacuum your floor? Robert does that for you, he should have some candy. Plus, if you know anyone by first name, they should be allowed to have candy.

    October 9, 2007 @ 4:40 pm


  5. sparx said,

    1) Robert does not vacuum the floor.
    2) I don't think Robert is even supposed to clean our area of the building.
    3) There's a woman that empties out the trash and recycle bins (that's the extent of the custodian's nightly duty in our area) – she is not named Robert.
    4) I only learned his name yesterday when I was talking about the candy thing with another coworker – to which he responded "Oh, that's Robert. Money, candy, and all kinds of stuff disappears when he works."

    October 9, 2007 @ 7:51 pm


  6. unlikelymoose said,

    Your Snickers-Pay Day study is interesting. Snickers are more popular than Pay Day when presented together and Pay Day goes faster than Snickers when Pay Day is the only option.

    If there's Snickers next to the Pay Day, they won't go to the effort to pull out a Pay Day because they know they really want a Snickers instead. They know if they take the Pay Day, they will eat it just dreaming of what could have been with the Snickers. So they either indulge and eat the Snickers or they avoid the candy dish all together.

    When people just see Pay Day in the dish, they go hog wild cuz they think that peanut-base of Pay Day is less fattening than other candy bars and there's no other options for them to try to avoid.

    October 12, 2007 @ 4:42 pm


  7. sparx said,

    Nono.. when ASKED, people were more likely to choose the Snickers. When left alone, the pay days went faster. I tried equal ratios of PD to S, more PD to S, and more S to PD.. the PD went faster each time. It's like there's a desire for pay day that no one is willing to admit to having.

    October 12, 2007 @ 4:46 pm


  8. unlikelymoose said,

    Well, if you asked me which I like better, I'd say Snickers. But if there's a bowl of candy with PD and S, I'll take the PD because I know it's ever so slightly less fattening or at least PD has the rep for that.

    October 12, 2007 @ 4:50 pm


  9. unlikelymoose said,

    It's weird to think that an average person would get super fat if all they had to eat on a deserted island was Pay Day bars. I don't picture people on deserted islands getting fat, but if they only had Pay Day bars, then they'd be doomed for fatness.

    October 12, 2007 @ 4:52 pm


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