Question: When does crunch time become Krunch time?

Answer: When the temperature starts to drop, lights start to flicker, strange sounds of footsteps are heard from an empty room, and you start having goosebumps. That’s when crunch time turns into Krrunch Time!

Last Thursday, five colleagues and I decided to spend the rest of the night at the office. It was a pretty stressful night since everyone was trying to meet the deadline set in the morning of the next day. Since the entire team was desperate to make it but still had tons of codes to fix and paperwork to do, staying in the office overnight was a completely wise decision.

Working for a mobile multimedia company, we are used to late-night working hours. A number of us choose to finish a project before going home every once in a while. Some of them have sworn to have heard strange noises from the control room. Oh yeah, the Control Room — where the light switches, Internet servers, and most of the stored documents are located. It is also the first room from the front door. You see, you’re gonna have to pass by this room to reach the work stations.

We were all dead bored. We were all dead tired. We were all dead stressed out. Everyone wanted to go home and have a good night’s sleep but we’d be dead if we didn’t finish it before the deadline. Our bosses would kill us. It was really a toxic midnight. If it weren’t for some Pringles chips, we would have died of frustration. When we ran out of Pringles chips, Carlo and I decided to just call it a night and said our goodbyes to fellow workers left in the office, all of which were female.

An hour later, the office had a completely different atmosphere. The office that used to be filled with work-related stress was now filled with fear. Four of my female officemates were now scooting onto one corner, all of them scared out of their wits.

Why, you ask?

Because they were hearing quiet yet eerily audible sounds of footsteps that seemed to be coming from the Control Room. Not just that, they were also hearing a child’s cold moan. As the sounds grew louder, the lights started to flicker. It even turned very cold inside the office that its mixture with terror made them shiver. One of them, Anne, even recited a prayer. (And now, I’m rhyming!)

What my four gullible colleagues failed to realize was that Carlo and I never went home. In fact, we didn’t even make it past the front door. It was the other door we passed through — the Control Room’s.

While they were busy building websites, Carlo and I were busy planning to scare the stress out of them. We thought it could break the rather toxic ice. Our colleagues needed to rest even for a moment, refresh and have some Krrunch time!

First, we reset the temperature. It had to be very gradually so no one would notice.

Second, we mimicked the sound of footsteps using the empty Pringles cylinders. We started very quietly but made it louder by the second. Carlo even moaned so realistically it actually sounded like a little child’s.

And then all that was left to do was play with the light switches. Easy, huh?

Of course, my officemates almost killed us when we finally got out of the room and revealed everything. But they had to admit that what we did shook all the stress, tension, and boredom off of them.

We did not just have fun time, we had a Krrunch time! Not only did we enjoy, we also finished our tasks earlier. A renewed spirit and a rebooted system are always more efficient than an overworked zombie. We all need to take some time to rest, recharge, and refresh at one point.

That’s how you turn stressful boredom into surprising laughter. That’s when crunch time become Krrunch Time!

You should do that, too. It’s Krrunch Time, Get Playful!

If you liked this post, you might want to check out: