Move Over Great Pumpkin, It’s a Spooky Halloween Spectacular at Strathcom

Generally speaking, Mondays are the scariest day of the week. The thought of the upcoming week is bone-chilling, reports and emails and Susan from accounting who won’t stop talking about her cats—I mean, every day working at Strathcom is a dream! (*mutters to self* Yes, that’ll do). But sometimes, the scariest day falls somewhere else in the week. Like when the Christmas party is on a weekday and the boss asks to see you the next morning. Or, when it’s staff pizza day on a Thursday and Taylor in Content ran out of Lactaid®. The most terrifying day of the year though, especially when it falls on a Wednesday, is Halloween.

I know what you’re thinking, “Isn’t Halloween just a modified pagan holiday put in place by those fiends at Hallmark to support their friends in Big Candy?” Well, have you ever tried typing with tiny arms in a hulking T-Rex costume? Have you ever tried not falling asleep at your desk wearing pyjamas? Have you ever looked up from your monitor to see the horrifying visage of The Conjuring franchise’s dead Nun? Yeah. Try getting your TPS reports done with that staring you in the face. I’ll tell you what’s terrifying: lost productivity.

The potentially terrifying lack of production didn’t stop the spooky working-stiffs at Strathcom from participating in a costume contest. What? You thought the original Bananas in Pyjamas, B1 and B2, fell on hard times after their series was cancelled? And are now keeping busy planning online advertising budgets until they make their way into that great banana bread in the sky? No, no. A brave few ignored all the mores and social cues that our normally professional office operates under, and dressed up for the occasion. We even had a trick-or-treater!

Thankfully, no one from HR had to intervene and send a staff member home for a costume that would’ve been more at home in Michael Scott’s office. A memo went out about a week before alerting the staff that there would be prizes for the scariest costume, the best costume, and the most topical costume. Most topical quickly morphed into best group costume, since it appears that very few in the office know the definition of topical, as there were only two costumes that referenced something later than the 90s).

Now, due to some horrific planning regarding the write-in nature of the ballot —I don’t know what clown was in charge of that)— there were more recounts than the 2000 US election (to be fair, the whole day was as terrifying as a more recent election). But, after working through the seemingly innumerable variations of all of the participants’ names, we came up with a set of winners:

Best Group Costume

Winning the prize for the best group costume was the tag team duo of Hulk Hogan and “The Macho Man” Randy Savage, who performed a proverbial leg drop on the competition, and turned their closest competition (the Bananas in Pyjamas) into mush.

Scariest Costume

Scariest costume was an easy choice, with 29 of the 31 votes cast going to The Nun. Special shout out to the runner-up Boris, written in on two of the ballots, for his terrifying Boris costume.

Best Costume/Instance of Voter Fraud

In an instance of potential voter fraud, but more realistically a lack of planning from the person behind the contest (seriously, what was he thinking?), The Nun won for best costume as well. Hulk Hogan, who came in second (I bet Gawker wishes they were able to write that headline) for best costume voting, was awarded the prize instead. This prevented Hulk and Macho Man from having to compete in a winner-takes-all, life-or-death cage-match that would have left Strathcom without an employee—until both the grieving and hiring process was over, that is.

Luckily we were still able to get our work done, all while gorging ourselves on candy from the snack wall, saving us from the truly horrifying possibility of having to work overtime. What do you think, did we pick the right costumes? Which one was your favourite? Did you get to dress up for work too, or did you squeeze yourself into a cheap, poorly-fitting polyester Buzz Lightyear costume for the seventh year in a row to follow your child as they collected candy for you? Just me? Okay. Well, on behalf of the entire Strathcom crew, happy Halloween!