Decorating with the Olympics

At the Day Job, I work at a standing desk, in a cube that only has walls that go up to my chest. As I face my computer screen, I face the opposite side of a hallway, which goes past my cube. In all these months at this desk, this means I face a vast expanse of bright red wall paint, which is occasionally punctuated by an occasional bright red door.

Today, a man came by and nailed a brace to the wall. After this happened, I visited the bathroom. By the time I came back, my vast expanse of red wall looked like this:

And then, one of the 2012 Summer Olympics torches appeared in my cube.

According to the plaque, that’s one of the torches from the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. All morning, coworkers who normally walk down the hall at high speed have been doing double-takes, because an Olympic torch just suddenly appeared on the wall. As one coworker just said to me, “Please tell me that hasn’t always been there.”

According to this BBC article about the 2012 torch design, 8,000 of these things were cast out of aluminum alloy. There is one perforation in the torch for each of the 8,000 torch bearers.

There are actually several Olympic torches here on campus, because, if I remember right, the Day Job is one of the big Olympic sponsors. Each torch bearer has the option to buy their torch after they carried it, and I think the big sponsors each get to have a torch bearer.

And that, as far as I can tell, is how I suddenly wound up with an Olympic torch in my cube.

5 Comments:

  1. Well…”in” is a relative term…also, why all the holes?

    • I had to step back from my computer to get far away enough from the torch to get it all into the photograph. If I can touch it from my cube, I figure it’s in my cube.

      Also, as for the holes, I quote from the post: “There is one perforation in the torch for each of the 8,000 torch bearers.”

  2. I still think Lollygirlie’s question is valid. Assuming that at no point do all 8,000 torch bearers get inserted into their individual hole on the torch at the same time (or even consecutively), what are the holes’ purpose.

    Hypothetical Olympic Official: We would like you to carry a torch for the Olympic Comity.

    Runner: My personal feelings aside, will you pay me for my time and effort?

    HOO: No.

    Runner: Then what do I get?

    HOO: We will dedicate a torch hole to you.

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