An adaptation by Charles C. Carpenter, CFM
Every Who up in WhoOffice liked Christmas a lot…
But the Grinch, the facility manager of WhoOffice, did NOT!
The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be her head wasn’t screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, that her shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all,
May have been that her discretionary electricity budget was two sizes too small.
Whatever the reason, she had a Grinchy frown,
At the over-lit cubicles, that could short circuit the town.
For she knew every Who up in WhoOffice above
Was busy now, decorating all they could shove.
“And they’re hanging their lightings!” she snarled with a sneer,
“Weeks before Thanksgiving! Christmas not near!”
Then she growled, with her Grinch fingers nervously drumming,
“I MUST find some way to stop electronics from coming!”
For tomorrow, she knew, all the Who guff,
Would arrive bright and early. They’d plug in their stuff!
And then! Oh, the light! Oh, the light!
How it drove up her electricity bill overnight!!
Which was something the Grinch couldn’t stand in the least!
What’s wrong with that free stuff that comes out of the East?
And THEN they’d do something she liked least of all!
Every Who up in WhoOffice, the tall and the small,
Would amass every electronic they could bring.
The more the Grinch thought, “I must stop this whole thing!”
“Why, for twenty-five years I’ve put up with it now!”
“I MUST stop these electronics from coming! But HOW?”
“I know just what to do; I’ll e-mail a memo”
No Christmas electronics, not even a demo!
The next day the workers came into WhoOffice.
Immediately, the Grinch noticed something amiss.
The lights on everywhere threw her off kilter.
She did not know her memo hit the spam filter.
Why what kind of fool do these Whos take her?
She marched to the 120-volt box and threw the breaker,
And returned to her cube, stubborn as a mule;
Saying “That will cut down on so much fossil fuel.”
All their windows were dark. Quiet now filled the air.
All the Whos were all simply sitting without care.
Turns out one thing the Whos need in their tower
Is for WhoOffice to have 120-volt power.
Power restored, she got an idea!
THE GRINCH GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!
“I know just what to do!” The Grinch laughed in her chair.
A week before Christmas, she grabbed just the pair.
And she chuckled, and clucked, “What a great Grinchy plan!”
“With this cart and these boxes, I’ll institute a ban!”
“This is stop number one,” the old Grinchy facility manager hissed,
And she entered the cube, empty box in her fist.
Then she reached behind the desk. A rather tight pinch.
But, if Whos could do it, then so could the Grinch.
She got stuck only once, for a moment or two.
Then she pulled out the plugs, whether green, white, or blue.
Where the little Who lights all hung in a row.
“These lights,” she grinned, “are the first things to go!”
Then she slithered and slunk, with a smile most unright,
Around the whole room, and she took every light!
Singing dogs, Dancing Trees, a Jiggling Snowman
If it consumed just a single watt, it was part of her plan.
And she stuffed them in boxes. Then the Grinch, with a zoom,
Stacked all the boxes, and headed for the mailroom!
She turned around fast, and she saw a very large Who!
Gus, the security guard, whose shift started at two.
The Grinch had forgot not to make a sound,
And awoke his slumber to make his round.
He stared at the Grinch and said, “Facility Manager, why?”
“Why are you taking our Christmas lights? WHY?”
But, you know, that old Grinch was so smart and so slick,
She thought up a lie, and she thought it up quick!
“Why, my good guard,” the facility manager lied,
“None of the things are LEED-certified!”
“So I’m taking them out of the office, my dear.”
“I’ll find some certified. Then I’ll bring them back here.”
And her fib fooled the guard. She moved cross the floor,
And then got him to hold open the elevator door.
Next, she went down to the mailroom, herself, the old liar.
On their cubes she left nothing but hooks and some wire.
Not one speck of Christmas lighting was left in a cube,
She thought wait till they get a load of this on YouTube.
It was quarter past dawn… All the Whos, still a-bed,
All the Whos, still a snooze, when she stacked up her dread,
“Pooh pooh to the Whos!” she was grinchishly opining.
“They’ll find out now that no Christmas lights are shining!”
“When they’re just showing up! I know just what they’ll do!”
“Their mouths will hang open a minute or two,
Then the Whos up in WhoOffice will all cry ‘boo hoo!'”
“That’s a noise,” grinned the Grinch, “That I simply MUST hear!”
So she paused, and the Grinch put her hand to her ear.
But the sound wasn’t sad. Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn’t be so! But it WAS merry! VERY!
She stared up at WhoOffice! The Grinch popped her eyes!
Then she shook—what she saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Who up in WhoOffice, the tall and the small,
Was decorating without electricity at all!
From the recycling bin came a paper chain.
They turned used toner cartridges into a train.
Someone made a wreath of popcorn and potato chips.
Once they made garland, you could not find paper clips.
They turned a coffee filter into a snowflake.
They used what they found and for all they could make.
Candy canes, macaroni art, so all the better.
Scott in WhoSales wore an ugly sweater.
And what happened then? Well…in WhoOffice they say,
That the Grinch’s small discretionary electricity budget grew three sizes that day!
And the minute her budget didn’t feel quite so tight,
She whizzed with her boxes to bring back the light.
Having seen WhoOffice, she was really quite moved
And returned all the lights, as long as they were UL Approved.
Charles Carpenter is the magazine’s FM Frequency Columnist. Whether explaining how facility managers are expected to be the sound police or pointing out that tortilla chips are the facility manager’s greatest enemy, you can find all his columns in the archive. Come back next week for another Funny Friday holiday adaptation.
