Friday
morning we trudged into the office, in the gloomy chill of a Post-Christmas
January hangover, ready to get the last bits of work done on our first week
back. Heads forward, eyes focused. Then Jo (see: Business Development / Party
Starting) bounded in!
"Dan!
You have to plank and I have to get a picture of it because you can beat
everyone on ITV and look at this woman who sent in a picture of her doing it in
her pyjamas you can definitely beat her you plank for like 9 minutes and we can
all be on TV if we send a picture of a company plankoff!" Jo said, or
something like it, with minimal interrupting breaths.
That
morning Jo had seen the Plank-Off Challenge on ITV's Good
Morning Britain, in support of their "Eat More, Lose More" diet plan.
Informatiq/ERS folks regularly take advantage of their subsidized gym
memberships and longer "gym lunch" breaks, so she expected a bunch of
us to pounce on the plank idea.
But
again, it was Friday morning, so after some humming and hawing, a few brave
volunteers decided to get involved and immediately discussed strategy:
And then they were off! I started shaking in the first 10 seconds, as I jealously side-eyed our Commercial Director Dan, cool as a cucumber, planking to my right. Stealing glances every couple seconds to see if Jo had gotten the shot yet, I breathed against gravity trying to humiliate me in front of my colleagues.
Suddenly I heard giggling/cackling to my right. In dove Gary (see: Head of Engineering / Head of Snark), shouting something about sabotage, to throw his plank in the ring!
The giggling now too much for us to stay up, we all
collapsed, leaving Dan to continue the challenge by himself. With a planking record of 7min 20seconds, the rest of us sheepishly went back to our desks to catch our breath.
Happy Friday!
Happy Friday!