It began as a lark. Or more accurately: It began with a seagull.
Then things got strange.
“Nancy [Adamski] and I put a couple of our Seymours up there, and then other people just kept adding to the wall,” says Linda Heinrich of the “Wall of Seymour” she inadvertently started with her fellow Reconciliation Specialist. “I don’t know who they’re all from. I think now we’ve got like 12 of them up there.”
But these dozen or so innocent-looking aquatic fowl don’t just sit there hoping for stray breadcrumbs. Most mornings for the last couple weeks, Heinrich, Adamski and their co-workers in the Customer Support Center have come in to work and discovered the stuffed toys engaged in all sorts of atypical avian behavior.
“When I got in one day, somebody had been fooling with them,” Linda says, chuckling.
Among other things, the Seymours have been found wielding (drink) umbrellas and fishing for goldfish (crackers) with No. 2 pencils. They also received Easter baskets this year.
Who’s behind these monkeyshines? After a lengthy investigation, the evidence pointed in one direction: Special Applications Rep Stacey Sabel.
“I can’t admit to all of it. But most of it, yes,” Stacey said when confronted by a reporter from this publication.
“What else can you do when there’s a whole row of seagulls sitting up there?” she says. “You kind of have to mess with them.”
Stacey has arranged the vignettes before going home in the evening or in the mornings just after arriving, since she usually gets in early.
But she can’t cop to the whole job: She wasn’t the one who left the Easter baskets.
“So there is another culprit out there, but I don’t know who it is,” Stacey says.
We’ll keep you updated as this story develops.