Smiles and Waves

Something strange happened in the office this week. First a child's bicycle bell was taped onto the wall, below the hundreds of story cards. Then we started to ring it when finishing a story. Finishing a story is good news, so a few people started to clap when the bell was rung. After a day, and about five rings of the bell, most people were clapping. Then a whisper went round, "Next time the bell rings, we're going to do a Mexican wave." And we did. Now it seems we will be ringing a bell and doing Mexican waves every day for the next few months

What happened here? How did my British cynicism fail to resist this onslaught of enthusiasm? I've shared an office with a sales team before and pitied them for their cheesy whistle-blowing, but I feel that the teams around us don't pity us, they might even be a little jealous. There's a lot of smiling going on and some giggling. Like the best humour, we're laughing at ourselves, but we're also smiling because we're doing a good job, and we've found a way to celebrate.