So, there's a wild dog outside...

I gotta love my job. I get to interact with business executives from all over the word who are pretty cool (generally) and share a lot about their cultures and experiences. It's also fun to share a little of my culture and experience with them. Like when some of the individuals from India comment that they've never seen snow before. Who would have thought someone would actually be excited to visit Boston in the dead of winter?

But this past month offered the best of my cultural differences stories. Due to migratory patterns, Boston (and Massachusetts in general) sees a lot of geese. Like many institutions, I work for an organization that is trying to reclaim our lawns from the goose poop which is a) disgusting and b) plentiful. One means of retaliation against the geese is the use of a coyote decoy placed in the middle of the lawn. It really doesn't work, but nonetheless, there he sits.

So one morning during my last program, I came downstairs to the classroom with my colleague only to come face to snout with the coyote decoy, standing on a table that had been intended for bagged lunches the day before. Next to the table is one of my flipcharts that I use to convey announcements to my participants. The message, presumably from the decoy, read, "Good luck today on your negotiations. It's a jungle out there. XOXO The Dingo (that ate your baby)"

(By the way, do you know what happens when you get a bunch of people together from all over the world who own their own companies and don't know the meaning of expense report? They drink...a LOT.)

So imagine my surprise when I walked into the classroom to find one of the Australians already there. He was the group's unofficial photographer, so I had to inquire:

Me: Have you taken a picture of that little display outside?

Aussie: Oh, I have pictures. I have pictures from the whole debacle of how it happened. Want to see?

Me: Um, I don't know. Do I really want to see the incriminating evidence?

Aussie (walking toward me with his camera): Oh, they aren't that bad...Well, um, I guess that one's a bit crude...um, let me see...

Me: I will not be offended if you do not want to show me. I promise.

Aussie: Well, maybe...yeah. No, I can't show you.

So I actually am still perplexed as to how this all happened, but am absolutely convinced the Australians were involved. But then, another participant (American) came in to distribute St. Patrick's Day beads (did I mention this was St. Patrick's Day? It was.) to all the desks and eventually ended up putting beads on the dingo.
So here's what else I learned that day. One of the other guys from the United Arab Emirates had a room facing the lawn where the dingo previously lived. For the first 3 days he was here, he was very concerned that this wild dog was outside on the lawn and no one was doing anything about it. By the 4th day, he'd had enough and stormed downstairs and outside to take matters into his own hands. He was going to scare that sucker away. Luckily, one of his classmates caught him and explained to him that it was fake. To his credit, he has a great sense of humor and every time he walked by the dingo next to the classroom, he had a full belly laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation.

Oh, but it gets better. The coup de grace was the next day, when the dingo was returned to it's loving home on the lawn outside our building. There is a walking path from the side near the lawn that many people use when coming from public transportation onto campus. I'd just walked into the office and was going over something with my director when a woman comes to the front desk with a concerned look on her face.

Me: Good morning. Can I help you?

Woman: Hi, I work here on campus and I was just coming off the footbridge and I don't know if you're the right person to tell, but I'm really concerned. (She looks fervently out the window toward the lawn.) There's a wild dog out there on the lawn and there's nobody, no owner or anything, nearby and I'm afraid it's going to hurt someone. It's looks really mean.

Me (I promise you, I did not laugh in her face, really, I didn't): Oh, that's the decoy to keep the geese away. It's not real.

Woman: Oh. (pause) You must get that all the time. I'm sorry. (pause) It looks so real!

Me (smiling and nodding my head): Yeah. Thanks for checking. Have a great day!

So, the geese know that it isn't real, but at least 2 people thought it was real. And I come to find out, when the woman came in with here concern, the dingo was still wearing his St. Patrick's Day beads.