A couple of views of what Lisa walked into.

The Northside team surprised branch manager AVP Lisa Brooks for her 15th anniversary with North Shore Bank last month — filling her office with 320 balloons. She discovered the prank when she arrived in the morning.

Teller supervisor Kelly Elliott masterminded the joke, which was inspired by a comment Lisa had made months ago about such a prank.

“I didn’t want it to be filled with anything that would make a mess or be hard to clean up before it got in the way of business,” Kelly noted. “With the walls being glass, I thought some North Shore Bank–colored balloons would look nice.” An electric pump made filling the balloons (relatively) quick.”We chose a day when Lisa would be in later than the rest of the staff, and I stopped in early to get it arranged. The other ladies in the branch pitched in with banners, cake, flowers, and of course helping to tie all the balloons.”

Lisa laughing amidst the (mild) chaos.

Lisa’s reaction was perfect, Kelly said. “She barely got through the door and started laughing. She said, ‘I don’t even want to work today — I just want to jump in there!'”

“They took hours to fill the balloons as a team, and it just touched my heart they would put so much effort into showing me so much thanks and making me laugh,” Lisa said. “Cleanup was just as many laughs before customers came in. I am so lucky to work with such an amazing team.”

“Lisa is a very special manager,” Kelly said. “She works hard to make everyone in the branch feel like a family, and she deserves to know how much we appreciate her and everything she does to make our team successful.”