It’s the fourth Monday of the month. That means it’s time once again for one of my extraordinary tales of employment.

When I was in my late 20s, I was working as a writer for a seminar company. We were in a large two-story building with mazes of cubicles separated by wide isles and open reception areas.

The lower quarter of the building where the writers were could have accommodated at least 40 people, but there were only about ten of us. I guess they were thinking we needed space to avoid distractions.

Writers are funny animals. We are very focused – unless we’re not. And when we’re not focused, it’s hard to allow anyone else to be focused either.

For the life of me, I can’t imagine why each of us needed a giant box of wide rubber bands, but it seems like we all had one.

I guess I should also mention, I know how to wrap an elastic around my hand to achieve maximum velocity and utmost snappage when I shoot it. I’ll leave a red welt on you.

When you have a group of distracted creative people, armed with rubber bands, working in a practically abandoned corner of an office building, a war is bound to break out.

At some point in one of our rubber band fights, we realized that our eyes were valuable assets, and sniping at each other’s faces could jeopardize our productivity.

Not wanting to create any productivity issues, we acquired clear plastic sheet protectors, placed them over our faces, and secured them with rubber bands wrapped around our heads.

Please take a moment to develop a mental picture.

We were a group of 7-10 twenty-somethings, dressed in business casual, with sheet protectors rubber banded to our heads.

Yes, that picture is ridiculous. But it’s not complete.

Now picture us dodging in and out of the cubicles, army-crawling to the security of a side-office, then performing diving rolls across the open reception area to another bank of cubicles.

That’s what was happening the day we were mounting what quite possibly could have been the biggest rubber band offensive in the history of the company.

Our department reception area had big double doors that led to the building’s main reception area. For tactical purposes, I needed to make my way from the bank of cubicles where I was hiding, to the front side of our reception cube.

I ran, dodging a hail of rubber bands coming from within the small reception cube (okay, it was probably only two or three, but still.) Just as I was executing a perfect diving roll, the double doors from main reception opened.

The vice-president of the company and two investors walked through the doors in time to see me dive, roll, and tuck myself under the reception counter.

What does one do when one is discovered rolling on the floor under the reception counter by the vice-president?

Everyone else was IN a cubicle. They were all in a position to put their butt in a chair and pretend to be doing something productive.

They all had time to REMOVE THE SHEET PROTECTORS FROM THEIR FACES. Me? Not so much.

All I could do was look up and smile.

“Hi Heidi,” the vice-president said casually, and kept walking as if this were an everyday occurrence in our office.

I took my cue from him. “Hi Kirby,” I said, equally nonchalant.

No one ever said anything to me about the incident, but I know my department manager was asked to explain why I was rolling around on the floor with a sheet protector on my face.

I’m not sure what he said, but the writers department lost all rubber band privileges that day.