I’m tired of all the bad news — wars, disasters, and now AI. So today I’m choosing something lighter.
The South African teaspoon crisis
I spent many years consulting to companies as a project manager. I’ve also presented courses on site at different companies. I noticed one consistent theme: the absence of decent teaspoons.
Sometimes there were plastic teaspoons. Sometimes there were those silly wooden sticks. Have you ever tried to take a soggy tea bag out of your mug with a thin stick? It works about as well as you’d expect.
There were usually real mugs and cups. Sometimes even personal mugs. Often there were real knives and forks. But never real teaspoons.
(I am proud to say that, at our training venue, we always have real teaspoons.)
Serious teaspoon data
I assumed this was a South African thing. But I was wrong.
In 2005, some research officers at the Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health in Melbourne, Australia, published a paper. This research paper is titled: “The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute”.
The researchers were puzzled by this phenomenon of disappearing teaspoons. So they did some fascinating research. They observed teaspoons for a total of 5668 teaspoon days. I still don’t know what a teaspoon day is, but it sounds like a holiday for cutlery.
- After five months, 80% of the teaspoons had disappeared.
- The quality of teaspoons did not make much difference to the rate of loss.
- The high level of dissatisfaction with teaspoon coverage shows that teaspoons are an essential part of office life.
They then applied the rate of teaspoon loss per employee to the workforce of Melbourne. According to this calculation, 18 million teaspoons went missing in the city each year.
The disappearing chocolate phenomenon
I am shocked by the fact that chocolate slabs, while getting more expensive, have shrunk from 100g to 80g. I even saw some the other day that were only 70g. If I were cynical, I’d say the missing 20 grams are now living in the pockets of shareholders.
I’ve also noticed the regular disappearance of chocolate from my fridge. But I admit that I know where those slabs go. It’s the same mysterious place that shrinks my clothes.
AI and the spoon dimension
I had to add AI to the title to pretend that this is a technology-related article. But I asked Co-Pilot what happens to the teaspoons. This was its answer:
“They disappear into the same mysterious dimension that eats single socks from the laundry — but unlike socks, teaspoons have multiple, competing predators.”
It seems that Co-pilot was familiar with the Australian study. The researchers wondered if, somewhere in the universe, there is a planet inhabited by spoon life-forms. Lost spoons make their way to this planet, where they lead the spoon equivalent of the good life.
Five years ago, no one could have predicted where AI would be today. So who knows — maybe there is a parallel universe filled with teaspoons, socks, and the last square of chocolate.
I’d love to hear what you think about missing teaspoons.