Good Job, Brain! - 33: Have You Seen My Stapler?

Episode Date: October 15, 2012

Let's spend a day at the office! We find out how the modern office cubicle came into being, the shockingly old history behind the vending machine, office movie trivia, coffee breaks, and the not-so-nice origin of the Scotch tape. ALSO: secrets to identifying major African nations, science quiz, the world's fastest clown, and a very special listener challenge! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, Panamonium of positively peppy and prancing podcast patrons, puffer fish and ponies. This is Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and off-beet trivia podcast. Today's show is episode 33, and of course, I'm your... humble host, Karen, and we are your team of two times two of tenacious tutors. I'm Colin. I'm Dana. And I'm Chris.

So I got an email recently from listener Vincent. He wrote in. He is not a Nigerian prince. No, he is not. Send him your money. Karen, stop talking about it. Don't do this to yourself again. And his email was titled, please help, exclamation, or exclamation.

Again, Karen, what did I say? And here, he said, Dear Mr. Karen Chu. Dear my friend, Mr. Karen Chu. My friend. He said, I was speaking to my Scottish co-worker and told her I just got a Charlie horse,

to which she looked at me with a very confused face. Any idea why it's called a Charlie horse? She thinks he's a brony now. I mean, I know what it is. I don't know where it got its name. What is it? Well, it's like when you get like a really bad muscle. cramp in her leg, right?

I typically got them, like, I wake up in the morning, and I'm like, oh, and I stretch all my muscles out, and I stretch them all out after the period of that activity, and I get a bad, that is when I'll get a Charlie horse. It's an operation piece, right, from the game operation? Yeah, that's how I know. A little picture of a horse. Exactly. So I was like, well, I know it's shaped like a horse, but I have no idea why it's a

doctor named Charles Horse. There's a little horse in your body. So here is actually one theory, and I researched a little bit, like a lot of colloquial terms. you really can't pinpoint where it's from, you know, made popular by, there's so many theories, and this is probably the most popular and maybe accurate theory. I mean, there are other theories like, there was a horse and a race, got a leg cramp. The name was Charlie. Yeah, exactly, yeah.

So, who knows? But this is actually kind of based on a real person. So Charles Gardner Radborn, he was an American professional baseball pitcher, and this dude was a stud. This is like, you know, in the 18, late 1800s. So he could, like, throw, like, a 35-mile-an-hour fast. And his nickname was Old Haas. And he also suffered at that time, suffered a lot of leg cramps. And so a theory is old-timey sportscasters would, or sports fan would refer to him as that old Charlie Haas.

And whenever he got leg cramps, maybe that kind of came into Charlie Horse from Charlie Haas. So that is one theory. That sounds like us. Good an explanation is we're ever going to go. Yeah, exactly. All right, and let's do our general trivia segment. Pop Quiz, Hot Shot. Got a good random trivia pursuit card here.

Get your buzzers ready. Let's start with Blue Wedge Geography. What London Street was synonymous with British newspapers? Chris. Fleet Street. Correct. Fleet Street. Pink Wedge for pop culture.

What is a seating assistant? an R&B singer and a family written by Poe Usher? Correct, Usher. Yellow Wedge, what food item

was Roman poet Virgil talking about when he used the phrase E pluribus unum which is out of many one. No, pass. I was going to say like a pomegranate but then it just doesn't make any sense.

It's really random and weird. I mean, I know the saying. I didn't know. It was inspired by a piece of food. Salad dressing. Okay, I do not. Yeah. You know it or you don't, but now you know.

Salad dressing. Interesting. I feel like we got the answer to a different question, maybe. Yeah, maybe. Miss print. Purple Wedge. What's the name of Garfield's teddy bear? Pookie.

Yes. Nice. Not normal. No, normal. No. His nemesis. His nemesis. The little cute cat.

Yes. Green Wedge for Science. What is the common term for pharyngitis a sore throat correct orange wedge last question

oh god what video game designer created the sims and spore chris coler will write correct

good job so this week like our previous episode about bathrooms where we took a tour around the bathroom we're going to

take a tour around the office. things around the office and maybe inventions and cool factoids, things that you don't really think about. Well, I imagine that a lot of our listeners out there enjoy our podcast while they're at work. You may... Not else you do. Can't actually do work. I may as well listen to these nerds giggle.

A good many of you are sitting in a cubicle right now listening to our podcast. If you're like me, you revile that cubicle. It is a little square prison. The fabric covered prison, and I have definitely had jobs where I sat in a cubicle. I'm sure we all have. What I like about the cubicle is this is another one of those things that really started with good, high intentions and has just become, as I say, reviled. Yeah, I mean, it was a very carefully considered invention. The cubicle, as we know it, was invented by Herman Miller, who we all probably recognize whether we know the name or not.

If you've ever seen an Aaron chair or office furniture, an Eames chair or a Noguchi table, a lot of very modernist, very well-known pieces of furniture were all designed by the Herman Miller Corporation. And among the things that they, for better or for worse, invented, was the modern office cubicle. So in the 60s, the Herman Miller Corporation, they were really concerned with how offices worked, like how people interacted and how work gets done on a very philosophical level. So they were studying offices with the help of psychologists. and anthropologists and behaviorists

and really trying to see what are people doing when they're in an office? They came up with a basic conclusion that in the 20th century, the amount of information and the kind of information that workers were dealing with was so much more

and so much more varied than it was at any time in the past, but that the typical office layout hadn't really changed much. And they really felt that if you could change the way the office was set up, you could make work better and make work more efficient.

In 1964, they introduced a series of office furnished called the action office. Oh. And the idea behind the action office was that it had furniture of different heights and different functions, and you could sort of move around the office. And they were trying to sort of encourage interaction with people and really give workers privacy when needed, room to talk to other coworkers when needed. And it didn't sell very well.

So they kind of went back to the drawing board and came up with the very imaginatively titled Action Office 2. The actioning. Now, the key element of the action office, too, was the cubicle, was the basic, you know, three- or four-wall cubicle, and it had all these things going for it. Wait, hold on. What was the office like before? So, let's back up. So, you know, I mean, the office before, for example, if you watch Mad Men, you know, rows of desks out in the open and then closed offices all along the ring was a very common layout.

And so, you know, the Herman Miller researchers looked at this and, like, they kind of saw two problems. One is that all the people behind the closed doors and the offices weren't interacting with anybody. And then all the people in the open desks kind of felt inhibited from doing work that was maybe private. There were a lot of distractions. So their idea with cubicles in Action Office 2 was you had privacy when you needed it. You could reduce distractions. And you can have different cubes for different purposes. And most importantly, they hit on the idea of personalizable space.

This was a really big thing. Wait, they didn't want that? They did want that. That, you know, they really wanted the selling points of the cubicle was workers can put up pictures of their fans. family and their calendars and things that really make it feel more homie and make it personalized. You know what's funny is the things that I hung up in my cubicle when I had a cubicle were pictures that I grew to hate.

I can't look at those pictures anymore. Because you were forced to look at them. There was a little bit of a philosophical clash in the designers at Herman Miller because one of the designers really started feeling like, I can see where this is going. This is going to be dehumanizing because, and he was right, that a lot of very cynical employers look at as well, this is just a way to cram a lot of bodies into a very small space. And so they would embrace the idea of the cubicle, but not really the philosophy of the cubicle. It is like a little mini-prisoned. It was. And, you know, if you don't enhance it

with these other free workstations and a way to move around. So it really took off. I mean, it sold just millions and millions of units and all of the offices were moving to cubicles. It was the wave of the future, you know, and they have stories of Intel, the Intel Corporation very famously was a proud adopter of cubicles. And there was sort of this attitude of like, well, look at these hip technological companies. Look at what they're getting done. We should move to cubicles too.

And, you know, over time, the philosophy part of it fell out. And it just became a way to get bodies onto a floor. And I've been there. I've been in that maze of intel cubicles. It's so crazy to me because, like, everything has to be labeled. So like all the zones are labeled with letters and then everything is labeled with numbers. And like on the big poles, the support poles in the rooms, like, you know, the numbers are written there. So it's like, you tell people like, oh, yeah, well, I work at C-58, you know,

so they'll go down to C-58 to find your desk because otherwise it's just completely, it's not navigable. That's not. It's these just mazes, mazes of cubes stretching as far as the I can see. So George Nelson, who was one of the original designers, kind of got really disillusioned, and, you know, he pointed out this works well for smaller offices. It works well where you have a manageable number of people, and he did not think that it scaled well to companies with hundreds and hundreds of employees. And, you know, in the 70s, writing about the development of the cubicles, he was just this scathing critique, he said that it had become ideal for the employer who wants, and this

is a quote, corporate zombies, the walking dead, the silent majority. Wow. So. Tell us how you really know. Yeah. So thanks and no thanks to Herman Miller for bringing the cubicle possibly to your world. Thanks, I guess. So I don't know about you guys, but one of my very frequent office activities is getting a snack or a soda from a vending machine.

That is like one of the highlights of my day. Are you working hard or hardly working, Karen? Man, the joy of like scrounging for change, you know, you're like, wow, I got a dime here and a dime here. Like, it's like, I have enough change to buy a back of corn nuts. And on really good days, you're like, oh, I can get a bag of sun chips today. And it's, to me, I don't know why, but maybe because I love food. But it's kind of like a little break. It's a ritual.

I mean, it's, you know, being in an office especially. Treat yourself. Yeah. And boy, these modern vending machines we have today are, you know, especially in the office or corporation setting, are awesome. They accept credit cards now. Like, it is crazy. And I remember back of the day when vending machines just like physically dropped your can of soda.

I remember that Yeah And you have Good chunk You're like Point it away from your face As you're opening it It's like

Explodes in your face And now These bottles or cans are like Being carried by a little vehicle in the vending machine Gingerly and smoothly Down to the slot Where you can get them out

Would you guys venture a guess On about when The first vending machine appeared? You mean in an office Or just anywhere? Anywhere. The invention of one. I'm going to guess the 40s.

I'm going to guess early. I'm going to guess early, too. I'm going to guess like the 1800s, which I know is a big window. But I think it's prior to when you think it is. Right. I think it's going to be China and 1,000 BC. Right, yeah, of course. In the pyramid, there was a bit.

30 AD, plus or minus a few decades. Okay, sorry. So maybe even in the BCs, the first reference to a vending machine was found in the works of Hero of Alexandria. Hero may sound familiar. He was a prolific mathematician. So if you're a math nerd, you're probably familiar with him. Credited with the square roots and calculating area of the triangle and imaginary numbers.

But he was also a tinker or an inventor. And one of his contraptions was a very basic vending machine. And obviously, it was not used in the office to vent sun chips. It was actually for temples. It dispensed holy water. Oh. Oh, interesting. So a person would put a, like, a coin in a slot at the top, and through, like, levers

and counterweights, a little bit of the holy water would come out. And it really kind of messes with your mind to think, like, now you can go get almost anything from a vending machine. But back then, it was holy water. Wow. And, of course, when we talk about vending machines, we got to talk about the accidents that vending machines or the anger or the rage involved in vending machines. You know, sometimes it eats your money.

sometimes if you're getting a snack through the little spiral when you get stuck and you're like, I see it, it's right there, you're tapping it and you're like, okay, I'm going to shake the machine just a little bit, but not like as much as like in the sticker warning with the guy like that. Yeah, I don't want it falling over on me. Sunships are being crushed to death by a menu.

But at the same time, yeah, you can't stand the thought of the next person getting too bad. In a version of the 1988 Journal of American Medical association, it actually documented 15 cases in which men trying to get a can out of a machine were crushed. And the thing is with vending machines

is the center, especially with soda machines, is that the center of gravity is abnormally high because all the sodas are stacked on top. Yeah. And so because of the high center of gravity, a typical machine will fall over once it has been tipped over like

only 20 degrees, like a little small angle and the whole whole thing just falls on you. And a large, fully loaded soda machine can weigh over 800 pounds or 400 kilograms. So, yeah, here's our official good job brain warning. If your vending machine eats your money or worse, your sun chips are stuck, don't mess with it. It's not worth it. Don't tip it over.

Leave it alone. Buy another bag. Yeah, just buy another bag. And just give the other bag to a friend or eat yourself. Buy like a pack of gum from the bottom row. They're heavier. I decided to look at popular culture or I'm going to ask you guys questions

about plot devices and movies that take place in offices and I also want to know what year these movies came out. That is our Achillesquist. Can we do that as a team? Yes. Oh, okay. Let's do this guys. We do get

asked these movie and year all the time. We're always one year off. So first movie, first movie that came to mind for me, Office Space. Of course. All right. In Office Space, Ron Living, And his co-workers smash what piece of office equipment? Karen. The printer.

Yes. Yeah. PC load letter. So while they were doing that, there was a rap song playing in the background. Do you know what rap artists? Oh, the artist. Was it the ghetto boys? Yes.

So what year did office space come out? Oh, man. My judge. Okay, this was after Beavis and Butter. Yeah, that's right. So like 99 or 2000 or something like that? I want to say, like, 96. I'm feeling 96 maybe.

I'm thinking, okay, this is also on the rise of Jennifer Aniston, too. Yes, that's right. Yep. Yeah, 95? Maybe, well, when did friends start? Because it's probably either the first or second year of friends. All right, let's go with 95. I think it's a little bit later, but okay.

99. Oh. Wow. Wow. In the movie 9 to 5, Lily Tomlin's character accidentally spikes her boss's coffee with what substance. I used to watch that. movie as a kid. I don't remember what she spiked it with.

Rat poison. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What country singer is in the movie 9 to 5? Dolly Party. I thought we're buzzing. I know. Yeah, we should buzzing.

Karen gets the point. Yeah. What year did it come out? Late 80s. I don't think it was late. I want to say like 83, 84. No. Yeah.

Yeah. I think early 80s. I trust Chris this time. It's early 80s. 84. 80. 80. Yeah.

Early, early. We suck. This is good practice. This is good practice. You guys are, this is what it's like at trivia. In the Matrix, Neo receives a package at his desk when he's working in the office. And inside the package, there's a cell phone. What company delivers the cell phone?

FedEx. Yes. FedEx, huh? Do you know what kind of phone it is? It was a Nokia. Nokia. Yes. Yeah. 533.

Oh, I wasn't even going to ask that. 512. I don't know. And what year did the Matrix come out? Pretty soon that was 99. 98. Well, let's see. I got the, it was either 98 and the DVD came out 99.

98. I think here might be right. I think it might be 98. I'm going to go with 99. It's 99. Oh. Yeah, I knew it was 98 or 99. Don't listen to me.

What movie takes place in the Merton Flemer building, which was built by a series. captain who fell in love with a little person it's not is it is it from hudsucker no Glenn Gary Glenn Ross nope it's the Merton Flemer building which was built by a sea captain who fell in love with a little person and this is relevant it just sounds relevant to the building Cohen brothers or uh Wes Anderson yeah is it elf it's being John Malkovich oh okay okay That's weird enough. Well, the reason why it was significant that there was a little person because they had the floor that was a half floor.

Do you know what floor number that was? No. Seven and a half? Yes. And what year did that come out? Oh, man. 97? 98.

I'm going to say 97 and a half. Good guess. 99. All right. So what's the name of Christian Bale's character in American Psycho? Patrick Bateman Patrick Batman You mean

I was like no it's Bainman's Bainment What year did American Psycho I'm gonna say 97 That early I think it was

I'm gonna say 2001 2002 2000 2000 You guys are right in the neighborhood Always when you're on Yep All right

And the last one Now you know In what movie Does Alec Baldwin's character Explain the ABCs of real estate We'll like Karen Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross And what are the ABCs?

I don't know I was a kid Always be closing Yes What year Oh that's I'm gonna say No I didn't be earlier than that

90 I'm gonna say 90 92 Just like trivia Yeah like trivia Talk ourselves out of the right answer I don't know why But my mom took me

To watch that movie Because she wanted to watch it But I was like a little kid And all I remember It's a room full of angry men swearing. Saying the F word.

And it was so boring. So they were just literally in a room saying the F word. I was like, what is going on? It's been boring and explicit. Good quiz. Yeah, that was good. That's good.

Good job, you guys. We'll keep working on the years thing. We'll come up a lot. So we're going to have a mnemonic break today. We haven't had one for a while. And I have to confess that I am somewhat of an African geography whiz kid. She absolutely is, yes.

I made it my personal goal a few years ago because I figured most people are probably the least familiar with African geography compared to other continents. And I thought that that would give our pub trivia team like an extra edge. Oh, it absolutely has. I'm not going to spill all of my secrets, but some general tips on recognizing some of the more famous countries in Africa. So first off, let's do the row of African nations on the northern edge, starting where Africa kind of touches Europe, where the Mediterranean Sea starts from left to right.

And here's a very, very easy mnemonic. It is most African tourists like elephants. That's M-A-T-L-E, most African tourists like elephants, which I would say is true. and that is Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. Oh, that's good. That is a good one. And the most western and leftmost nation of the continent is Senegal. And an easy way to remember that is left, in the olden days, referenced as sinister.

Sinister kind of sounds like Senegal. That is good. I like that. And the most eastern nation is Somalia, which has been on the news recently. and it's shaped like a weird boomerang on its side. So you have Senegal and they have Somalia on the other side. And pretty much in the exact center of the continent, Apley is the Central African Republic.

Right in the middle is Central African Republic. And do you guys know what is the southernmost nation in Africa? This must be a trick, right? No, it's not. All of us are like, oh, it can't be South Africa. I was made a fool of myself again. It is South Africa. And so there you go.

You have the northern edge, which is most African tourists like elephants, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. We got Senegal on the west, and then we got Somalia on the east. In the south, we have South Africa, and right in the middle is Central African Republic. So there's a couple countries. I have a lot of weird internal mnemonics. Yeah, they're not fit for public consumption. No, they're just so. completely ridiculous and they live in my head. I mean, things like, I recognize Cameroon

because it looks like a macaroon. Oh, I think it looks like an elf hat. There's a big lake by Kenya, which is Lake Victoria, and there are three little nations next to it. And from top down, it spells herb, URB, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi. I have some of those that spell, like I over on the western portion, there's Ghana, Togo, and Benin, right? And I remember a teacher told me that to remember as go to bed, GTV, and they're right in a row, so that one has stuck with me. And then Cameroon on the other side, yeah, go to bed and eat a macaroon. Anyways, maybe one day I'll make a video of all how this plays out in my head. That's very strange. It'd be really trippy. There are really many reasons to listen to our podcast, Big Picture Science.

It's kind of a challenge to summarize them all, Molly. Okay, here's a reason to listen to our show, Big Picture Science, because you love to be surprised by science news. We love to be surprised by science news. So, for instance, I learned on our own show that I had been driving around with precious metals in my truck before it was stolen. That was brought up in our show about precious metals and also rare metals like most of the things in your catalytic converter. I was surprised to learn that we may begin naming heat waves like we do hurricanes. You know, prepare yourself for heatwave Lucifer. I don't think I can prepare myself for that. Look, we like surprising our listeners. We like surprising ourselves by reporting

new developments in science, and while asking the big picture questions about why they matter and how they will affect our lives today and in the future. Well, we can't affect lives in the past, right? No, I guess that's a point. So the podcast is called big picture science, and you can hear it wherever you get your podcasts. We are the host. Seth is a scientist. I'm a science journalist, and we talk to people smarter than us. We hope you'll take a listen. Hello, this is Matt from the Explorers podcast. I want to invite you to join me on the voyages and journeys of the most famous explorers in

the history of the world. At the Explorers podcast, we plunge into jungles and deserts, across mighty oceans and frigid ice caps, over and to the top of Great Mountains, and even into outer space. These are the thrilling and captivating stories of Magellan, Shackleton, Lewis, and Clark and so many other famous and not so famous adventures from throughout history. So come give us a listen we'd love to have you. Go to

Explorerspodcast.com or just look us up on your podcast app. That's the Explorers Podcast. All right, and let's jump back into our day at the office. So we've talked about where we do our work in the offices and famous movies around offices and I

thought we could focus on some of the things that we... The finer things in life. Some of the things that we use in offices, like desk, and so I was looking around my own desk and saw the ubiquitous role of scotch tape. Yeah. That is probably in your desk drawer right now, a staple of every office everywhere. I read recently, it was voted in a consumer survey, the number one most indispensable household object or tool. I bet. And I can believe it. And it's one of those things. I mean, I think we can all agree. You know, everyone knows like Scotch tape

is one of those things that has so successful it's become the generic. Like, although we know it is a brand, it is a brand of the 3M corporation. Wait, what? So Scotch tape is a brand name. Yes. No. Yes. If you go to, you know... I thought it was just like kind of

translucent tape with the, with a nice mat on one side. Right. Yeah. Or Kleenex. Right. Anybody can make that, but... Right. Or Q-tip or right. It's become a generic. So everyone No one says, hey, can you hand me that roll of transparent tape? Yes. Sello tape, especially in England.

Right, right. So, right, it's Scotch brand cellophane tape. You may not know it actually has nothing to do with Scotland. It wasn't invented in Scotland or by Scottish inventor. The name actually... Because you know Scotland makes awesome tape. They're known for it. Yeah, whiskey and tape.

The Scotch and Scotch tape actually comes from a slur. A pejorative term for... Scottish people. And the connotation that Scottish people are notoriously cheap, in fact. So let's go back a little bit because you don't get this bit of mystery when you go to... And that might be why they don't say it in the UK. So, you know, it's similar to terms like you've heard, don't Welsh on a deal, right? Which is a pejorative that Welsh people might make a deal and they're not honor it. Right. Or don't jit me. Right. It's another one of these kind of cultural slurs, basically. So we're going to go back to the 1920.

And so there was an engineer Can we not? The battle days. When even your tape insults you. The roaring 20s. Flappers. Flappers. Racist tape.

Well, you know, culturally insensitive. Oh, yeah. At best. Yeah, sure. So there was an engineer named Richard Drew, and he worked for 3M. And in the 1920s, one of the things that he was responsible for... I'm like... I'm imagining what could go wrong in this story.

What is going to go wrong? Yeah, what is going to happen? What bar fight ends up in this? Yeah, and he was their chief of ethnic slurs. And they were all like, oh, yeah, sure, that makes sense. You know this product that we have called Indian tape, guys, I think, a better name. So one of the things that he was responsible for was sandpapers. And 3M to this day, they do, in fact, do make a lot of sandpapers and grits and things like that.

So in the mid-20s, he was at an automobile. shop testing out one of their new types of sandpaper and the auto body shop was using it and he noticed that some of the guys there who were painting a car had a really kind of cumbersome method for doing either two-tone paint jobs or for protecting the fine detail on a car like when you spray paint and so they basically had like heavy-duty craft paper and heavy-duty adhesive tape that they were taping up and painting over and sometimes it would pull the paint off when they were peeling off because it wasn't purpose designed. So Richard Drew, he decided there's got to be a better way to do this. There's got to be a better way. And in pretty short order, he invented masking tape. So something that we all

take for granted now. He's like the tape king. He is. He is the grandfather of our tapes. One of my heroes, yeah. So he's like, all right, I'm going to come up with some masking tape, which is pretty much what he did, and brought it back. Very weak adhesive. He brought it back to the auto body shop. And Exactly right. Chris is kind of cluing in a little bit where we're going. So the first batch of it that he tested, he gave to the guys, and they tried it out. And there wasn't, basically there wasn't enough adhesive on there to work really well. The auto body painter said to Richard Drew, take this tape back to those scotch bosses of yours and tell them to put more adhesive on it. The implication being they're stingy and they're chinting and not putting enough adhesive on the tape. Even though... Even though it was the first round. Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, it's debatable how angry the man actually was. Oh, yeah. But it was a pejorative term, that implying that Scotch were cheap. And so they kind of, you know, in a tongue-in-cheek way, turned that around and made that the brand name and called it Scotch tape. That's a ballsy move on their marketing. But that's the weaker glue tape. Well, so masking tape even now still has lighter adhesive, which was the whole point. So it doesn't stick.

And they did. They did. They did refine the formula and got it. So they did invent proper working masking tape. Those cheap bastards figured it out. So then a few years later, when they invented cellophane tape, originally introduced as a scotch cellulose tape, then they later changed it to scotch cellophane tape. And it was marketed almost exclusively to bakeries and grocery stores.

Oh, to close boxes and stuff. And the appeal of it was, you know, largely that it was water resistant and, like, really quickly it kind of just caught on in households. And so again, this is 1930, you know, right in the middle of the Great Depression. And historians say, like, one of the reasons it really caught on in households was it was a really effective way of repairing things. You could repair books or toys or household objects and not need to go buy a new one and it's clear. More or less fade resistant. It doesn't yellow. Hands down the market leader in transparent tape world. But some of the things that we really associate with it. It's funny, you know, like that classic, uh, snail

shape dispenser. They call it the snail dispenser. Oh, that's cute. That didn't come out until, uh, almost 10 years later. The plaid, the tartan design. That didn't come out until, uh, it debuted in 1945. All this. All of that came from a not so good word. Yes, a slur on an entire nation of people. In the course of doing some research for this, I did come across, uh, this level of detail. Apparently, the plaid tartan design, if you are interested, is based on... Very specific. It is based on a tartan from Clan Wallace. So, there you go.

Wow. They have colored... There is a red version. There's a green version. That's right. Yellow version is my jam. That is my favorite. Because that's double-sided.

That's right. And you're absolutely right, Karen. They do. They use the different tartans for the different tapes. You're right. The double-sided is the yellow tartan. You're right. You mentioned the ritual of the...

The break of taking a break during the workday, and of course what that brings to mind is the coffee break. So at this point, we pretty much expect our workplace to provide us with coffee. I mean, whether that is a, if you are on a job site and you have a certain break, you know, of 10 to 15 minutes between morning and lunch or after lunch, or whether or not the coffee is just sort of available constantly, you can go get it. We pretty much assume at this point that whatever the job is from blue collar all the way on up, you know, that there's going to be coffee in the workplace. And one poll that I found online actually says that I couldn't find any corroborating evidence for this article, but one poll that I found online says 80% of U.S. workers feel more valued when their employer provides free coffee. At a cost-to-benefit ratio, it is said that it is one of the most effective ways to motivate workers and make them feel more valued. Just to have coffee.

Just to have coffee there for them. I'll buy that. I'm about that. Better than any worker reward scheme you could think of. Just recently, Dunkin' Donuts, just this past September, announced the results of a study that had commissioned about coffee in the workplace. This is some pretty good trivia. They surveyed people in all different jobs. They figured out which group said that they needed coffee the most to get through the day. And so this year's winners are the number one group that says they need coffee the most to get through the day is food service.

The second group is scientists say that more than almost anybody else, they need coffee to get them through their workday. Coming in third place was sales reps. We got to get their brains energized. Yep. So according, of course, to the National Coffee Association, of course, there is such a thing, we aren't exactly sure how the coffee break or the idea of giving your employees free coffee got started. But we're pretty sure it was located in Buffalo, New York. So there's a little bit, as there always is, a little bit of a fight over competing interests who both lay claim to being,

the first coffee break, the Barcollo Manufacturing Company in Buffalo says that in 1902, it officially introduced the first mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks in which the company would prepare coffee and then the employees could take a break and

pay for the coffee themselves and drink it. Oh, pay for it. So the Barclolo manufacturing company has, they maintain that to this day, like this is when we started this. Does anybody know what the Barclow Manufacturing Company makes? Do they make Barco Loungeers? They do. They make Barclow loungers.

So there's also a defunct Buffalo-based company called Larkin, and a historian, reported by National Public Radio a few years ago, searched through its ledgers and found an entry on the books for, quote, free coffee for employees. This was in 1901. Wow. A year before. Now, they don't necessarily know if Larkin had instituted the coffee break specifically, as Barclos said that he did, or whether they had just gotten free coffee.

but we do know that Larkin and Barclow had actually done business together, so there may have been some inspiration there. Also, whenever I talk about Buffalo, New York, I always think about the sentence. Wings. Oh, no. Well, you know, the common English language sentence, Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo. So I love this sentence, which basically means it is a grammatically correct English language sentence, the word Buffalo eight times.

And it basically means it's three meanings of the word Buffalo, which is Buffalo, as in the city in New York, Buffalo. as in bison and buffalo, which is a verb that means to bully. Right. And the sentence means bison from buffalo who are bullied from bison from buffalo or who are bullied by bison from buffalo, bully bison from buffalo. Oh. I know.

It's so sad. The circle of violence. It is the circle of violence. It's what happens. You're bullied and then you bully right back. So buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo. Moving right along, that is nothing to do with anything. I should also throw this in.

There is a town called Stoughton, Wisconsin, and this is from the official web page of the city town of Stoughton, Wisconsin. Many Norwegian immigrants came to America to work at the wagon factory. Along with these hardworking men came their hardworking wives who began working in the tobacco warehouses. Though these women were working outside the home, they still had to tend to their domestic responsibilities, so they requested an afternoon break to check on the children. start dinner and have a cup of coffee. These, quote, coffee breaks made Stoughton the birthplace of today's coffee break,

an honor that is celebrated each year at the Coffee Break Festival. Whoa! This sounds like a stretch to me. This sounds like a big old stretch. I just want to know what they do at the Coffee Break Festival. It's a coffee festival. It only lasts 15 minutes. But yes, they do have the annual Coffee Break Festival,

and if you ask them, they invented the coffee break. If you ask people at Barclow, they invented the coffee break. This is Jen and Jenny from Ancient History Fan Girl, and we're here to tell you about Jenny's scorching historical romanticcy based on Alaric of the Biscogh's enemy of my dreams. Amanda Boucher, best-selling author of The Kingmaker Chronicle, says, quote, This book has everything, high-stakes action, grit, ferocity, and blazing passion. Julia and Alaric are colliding storms against a backdrop of the brutal dangers of ancient Rome. They'll do anything to carve their peace out of this treacherous world and not just survive, but rule.

Enemy of my dreams is available wherever books are sold. Man, I want to go for a coffee break now. Lots of office talk. And Colin, you got one last quiz for us? I do. So now we've kind of wrapped up the office here, we will close back with a general interest, science quiz. So the name of this quiz appropriately is science! Science! All right, so this will be some general interest, science, astronomy, biology, you know. Get your buzzers ready and buzz in if you think you know it.

What are the four precious stones? There are only four? Chris. All right, let's see. Diamond. Diamond. Ruby. Yes. Emerald. Yes. And sapphire. Correct. Two of these stones are actually. actually the same mineral. Does anyone know which two stone, which two those are? I'm going to say that, I think that Ruby and Sapphire are. Absolutely correct. Yes.

You are some kind of precious stone wizard. The stone sorcerer. Ruby and Sapphire are both forms of curundum. And what makes them different is the impurities in them. And if there's, that gives them the color. That's right. That's right. So carundum that has a high concentration of chromium is red. and those are called rubies. And basically every other color of gemstone quality corundum is a sapphire. There's one really, really rare one called a pod paracha, which is a pinkish orange. But yeah, sapphires and rubies are the same mineral.

All right. How fast does the earth rotate? So in other words, if you were floating above the equator, how fast is the earth moving by? And you can round it off. Oh, okay. Well, once every 24 hours. Yeah, do you want it in like miles per hour? In miles per hour?

Yes, yes. I should know. I'm dealing with three professional smartasses. In miles per hour, how fast is the earth rotating? You can round it off. I would have to say it's like 23 hours in a bit because that's where we have a leap year. So you can figure it out if you knew the circumference of the earth because as Chris said, it goes by once every 24 hours. That's true, yep.

I don't know. But I don't want to. Take a guess. It's a nice round number. Is it Colin? It's basically a thousand miles an hour. Oh, okay. Yeah, so Earth is about 25,000 miles roughly in circumference, goes by roughly once every 24 hours.

What's funny is, you don't feel it. Yeah. No, now that you've mentioned it, yeah. Don't feel it at all. Well, I like to sit so I'm facing the direction it's rotating. I find it much more comfortable. It's a really smooth, right. A little bit over a thousand miles an hour, yes.

What is the difference between magma and lava? Magma, magma. Magma is when it's inside the earth, and lava is once it's come out of. of a volcano. Correct again. You are like a geologist. I did not know that. I took geo one.

Yeah. If it's underground, it's magma. If it's above ground or coming out of a volcano, it's lava. I would have guessed, like, magma's like hotter. Like, I don't know. Different chemical conversation. Right, right, right. Oh.

What were the first words spoken over the telephone? Oh, right. Is it, uh, it's like, come here I need you or. So close, yes, yes. It's, uh, the first words were Mr. Watson come here. Watson come here. I want to see you. I want to see you. Which was Alexander Graham Bell talking on one end to Mr. Watson in the other room, basically.

Yeah. All right. Now I've given each of you guys a token here, uh, representing one of three possible answers. Gold. Okay. Okay. One represents lead and one represents platinum. Sure. All right. Now, so you guys each hold up what you think the correct answer is. Which of these metals is the most. Dense, gold, lead, or platinum. Get your answers ready.

And Karen says lead. Chris says lead. Dana says platinum. Dana is correct. Platinum is. Platinum is just a little bit denser than gold, even. And they're both a good bit denser than lead. All three of them, all three of them super heavy.

Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of planetary rotation, what is the only planet in our solar system that rotates clockwise? And other planets don't? They all don't. If you were looking sort of top down from the north pole of the sun, in other words. Only one planet rotates clockwise. Yeah, I mean, I've heard this trivia before, but I forgot the answer, of course.

Is it Neptune? No, it is not Neptune. No, okay. Jupiter. Not Jupiter. We're getting close, though. I'm saying because it's Saturn. No, it is Venus.

Which one is it? It's Venus. I was thinking maybe the size kind of played a part. No. I think this is a really good. Pub Quiz one, yeah. It rotates clockwise? It rotates clockwise. And every other planet rotates

counterclockwise. That's right. Why? That's a good question. That would be a question for the astronomers in our listening audience. For a scientist. A quick tweet, Neil Request Tyson. Yeah, exactly. All right, we'll close it out with this one. Long before we had airplanes and bullets,

what simple item is accepted as the first human invention to break the sound barrier? Before, so no planes Not an airplane, not a bullet This Chris

Slingshot Not a slingshot Would that count as a bullet? Also, it would have to go so fast This is an item High lie This is an item that you might see In a circus

Oh, I know Do it's, okay Chris It is a whip It is a whip Oh, yes Of course It is the crack of the whip

When you crack the bullwhip, the very end of the tip of it is moving faster than the speed of sound. And that's that crack sound is a little sonic boom. Sorry, what was it? Cercrack. I was like, trapeze doesn't make sense. The trapeze. I wish I can share what you could, like what was going on in my head, like the imagery. I had like a bear on a ball.

A really false elephant. I had a dog. A lady on a horse. I was thinking about clowns. The world's sparse. Fastest clown. The world's fastest clown. I don't know.

That's just what popped into my head. I like how you may see this at a circus that the answer is the world's fastest clown. It's like where else would you ever see that? You should have said you might have seen this in an Indiana Jones movie. The fedora. Too easy. Yeah, fedora.

That's the hat. His hands shooting out to grab the fedora. All right. Thanks, Colin. That was an awesome quiz. even though I totally bombed it. But it's okay. I'm not going to let it get to me.

And we have a new listener challenge. And this is the special Bonobo's listener challenge. Randomly selected winners will get a good job brain swag prize pack. And also a Bonobo's prize for $50 off your order. So it is a big deal. That's worth $50. Yeah. 50 real dollars.

I did some math and that's 50 off. So I'm going to tell you. tell you about our crazy adventure this past weekend. Guys, it was pretty nuts, huh? Mm-hmm. Totally. So we all had to travel for a wedding because Dana was a bridesmaid again. She's been so many weddings.

She has so many outfits. It's completely ridiculous. But when we got to Ohio, we actually ended up witnessing a crazy accident where a train got derailed and found out the train was carrying an alien that landed on Earth. That was messed up. You know, we were freaked out, so we decided to leave. and ended up in nearby Detroit, where Chris, you need to make some extra money

and you were engaging in some underground rap battles. I'm not very good at it. Against the odds. Against odds. We won some extra money and we decided to splurge and made our way to London, where we had a run-in with a zombie attack, and we had to hide out in the London underground.

We made our heroic escape and ended up in a plane for Japan. And when we landed, a trouble ensued, as a village asked us to find a group of heroes to help them defend their village against bandits. It was a tough battle, but the village was safe, so we tried to get back home to America. Since we have depleted all of our funds,

Colin here had to resort to using his big brain to count cards and play blackjack in Las Vegas. You guys were lucky I was along. I know. I'm telling you, it was crazy. So the question for you guys, listeners, is how would you sum up our adventure? You can email us at

GJB.com and your deadline is October 22, 2012. So that's our show. Thank you guys for joining me. Thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. Hope you guys learn a lot about coffee breaks, scotch tape vending machines, and movies that take place in offices.

And you can find us on Zoom Marketplace, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on our website, which is good job, braiden.com, and check out our sponsor. at bonobos.com and we'll see you guys next week. Bye. Queen Victoria's nine children got up to. On the History Tea Time podcast, I profile remarkable queens and LGBTQ plus royals, explore royal family trees, and delve into women's medical history

and other fascinating topics. Join me every Tuesday for History Tea Time, wherever fine podcasts are enjoyed.