Wednesdays are our deadline days at The Economist. This means that correspondents have filed their copy to editors, who are subbing the pieces and going back and forth with correspondents and fact-checkers.
Every now and then it gets hairy, but most of the time it just means lots of overeducated people sitting around doing the same thing and needing relief.
And then these grown men and women–senior editors, book authors, award winners among them–will descend into activities such as the email trail below, which is unfolding right now, in real time, and which I reproduce here without further comment:
Email 1: … A quick request from the kitchen…if you have a fork from upstairs (the stainless steel ones with beading) please could you return it….
Reply 1: Forking hell.
Reply 2: As Yogi Berra once said: when you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Reply 3: It’s a tiney problem in the big scheme of things.
Reply 4: May the forks be with you, always.
Reply 5: Just a reminder: Guy Forks night tomorrow.
Reply 6: Well, the fork is strong with this one.
Reply 7: Saw one of these acting suspiciously outside the building [attaches picture of fork lift]
Reply 8: There both is and is not a fork in my office, depending on which path we are on in the garden of forking paths
Reply 9: Oh, fork crying out loud, everyone…
Reply 10: No more! You’re driving me forking crazy!
Reply 11: fork give us
Reply 12: Stick a fork in it. It’s done.
Reply 13: These jokes just don’t cut it.
Hannibal and Me: life lessons from history 
All diners must be on alert
A fork is prone to desert
If it turns up return it upstairs
For we do not have any spares
And his knife cuts a figure of hurt
Sounds like my kind of work place!
you guys have too many forks to give 🙂
Is there a correlation between this and the quality of work resulted?
Sounds like deadline day is 90% endurance, the other half mental.
I used to be againstk, but now I’m all fork.
Fork Luth, forsooth?
Ift forkl, then forkloot, not -ooth.
Not to be lacist, but how many folks in China?
Abouth one pointh vourk billion?
Who knows? According to far-Eastern forklore, the Chinese have always been notorious forkutlery miscounts. Doesn’t take much forkorrupt party officials to look the other way when it comes to China’s one-fork policy.
Vorfeddaboudid! Forked toungueth are for tzschopschdikth.
To whom it may concern: If you have chopsticks from upstairs, please could you return them!
Forkeddaboudit