Then it happened. Mitch called in sick one morning with the sniffles, and then again the next morning. I'm not sure exactly how it started that afternoon, but the picture of Uncle Vernon was attached to Mitch's chair as if he were sitting in it. Next, there was a tshirt that Mitch got from a vendor event in one of his desk drawers, so we put it over the back the chair with the picture sticking out the top like a head. From there a phone headset was put on the picture. We actually had a good week and got the ticket count lower than it had been in some time (with Mitch still out sick), so we jokingly attributed it to the hard work of Box Mitch. It was probably a bit much and appeared as goofing off, but it really was just 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there across an entire week.
Now here's where the trouble started. At least one of our clients got wind of this. This particular client has a great sense of humor coupled with an inability to let a joke go. I'll just say that I've been onsite at his office and listened to him call back to my office frantically screaming that everything is down, we're way behind schedule, and he not seen me all day. So after referencing Box Mitch a time or two over the phone, he put into a ticket that he wanted Box Mitch to handle this issue due to his success with other recent issues.
That's when management became aware of Box Mitch. Did I mention that we awarded Box Mitch Employee of the Month and hung a plaque on the wall too? Arts and Crafts time has hereby been eliminated from our office. It's a shame, because the ticket count shot right back up as soon as Mitch took his seat back from Box Mitch. I could have created a box army.
