Literally Taking Things And Taking Things Literally

At my workplace, we had a team-building exercise running over a few days with exercises, presentations, and other activities. At the end of the last session, we were all given a piece of paper, a pen, and an envelope.

Organiser: “I want you to take something from this team building that you think you’ll find useful later and put it in the envelope.”

Everybody around me began scribbling on their pieces of paper, putting them in their envelopes, and sealing them. The organiser then collected all the envelopes in a box, and we left the room.

A couple of weeks later, we met again, and the organiser started handing out the envelopes to everybody.

Organiser: “I want you to open your envelopes and read aloud what you wrote.”

When he took out my envelope, he looked confused.

Organiser: “There’s something hard in the envelope.”

I took the envelope from him.

Me: “You told us to take something that we would find useful later. I took this.”

I pulled out the pen they had given us.