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The case of the disappearing teaspoons:
longitudinal cohort study of the displacement
of teaspoons in an Australian research institute
Megan S C Lim, Margaret E Hellard and Campbell K Aitken
BMJ 2005;331;1498-1500
doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7531.1498
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Onthecase
The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal
cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an
Australian research institute
MeganSCLim,MargaretEHellard,CampbellKAitken
Centre for Abstract Methods
Epidemiology and
Population Health Objectives To determine the overall rate of loss of TheMacfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research
Research, workplace teaspoons and whether attrition and and Public Health (Burnet Institute) based in
Macfarlane Burnet
Institute for Medical displacement are correlated with the relative value of Melbourne, employs about 140 people. The institute
Research and the teaspoons or type of tearoom. haseighttearooms;fourare“programmelinked”that
Public Health,
GPObox2284, Design Longitudinal cohort study. is, predominantly used by the staff of a single
Melbourne, Setting Research institute employing about 140 programmeandfourarecommunal:twoareattached
Victoria, 3001, people.
Australia to formal meeting rooms, one is a large multipurpose
MeganSCLim Subjects 70 discreetly numbered teaspoons placed in staff room, and one is a rather barren corridor with
research assistant tearooms around the institute and observed weekly kitchen facilities.
Margaret E Hellard over five months.
director MainoutcomemeasuresIncidenceofteaspoonloss
CampbellKAitken
senior research officer per 100 teaspoon years and teaspoon half life. Pilot study
Correspondence to: Results 56 (80%) of the 70 teaspoons disappeared Between 5 February 2004 and 18 June 2004 we
CKAitken during the study. The half life of the teaspoons was 81 carried out a pilot study to gain an initial impression
aitken@burnet.edu.au days. The half life of teaspoons in communal of the manner of teaspoon loss at the institute and to
BMJ 2005;331:1498–500 tearooms (42 days) was significantly shorter than for refine our methodsforthefullstudy.Wepurchased32
those in rooms associated with particular research plain stainless steel teaspoons, discreetly numbered
groups (77 days). The rate of loss was not influenced with red nail polish on the undersides of the handles,
by the teaspoons value. The incidence of teaspoon anddistributed into a subset of the eight tearooms:16
loss over the period of observation was 360.62 per in the programme linked tearooms and 16 in the
100teaspoonyears.At this rate,an estimated 250 communal tearooms. We carried out a weekly audit
teaspoons would need to be purchased annually to over five months to assess any changes in the distribu-
maintain a practical institute-wide population of 70 tion of the teaspoons throughout the institute.
teaspoons.
Conclusions The loss of workplace teaspoons was
rapid, showing that their availability, and hence office Mainstudy
culture in general, is constantly threatened. At the completion of the pilot study we carried out a
longitudinal cohort study. We purchased and num-
beredafurther54stainlesssteelteaspoons.Inaddition
Introduction we purchased and discreetly numbered 16 teaspoons
In January 2004 the authors found their tearoom of higher quality. The teaspoons were distributed
bereft of teaspoons. Although a flunky (MSCL) was (stratified by spoon type) throughout the eight
rapidly dispatched to purchase a new batch, these tearooms, with a higher proportion allocated to those
replacementsinturndisappearedwithinafewmonths. tearooms with the highest teaspoon losses in the pilot
Exasperated by our consequent inability to stir in our study.
sugar and to accurately dispense instant coffee, we Wecarried out counts of the teaspoons weekly for
decided to respond in time honoured epidemiologists two months then fortnightly for a further three
fashion and measure the phenomenon. months. Desktops and other immediately visible
A search of the medical and other scientific surfaces were scanned for errant spoons.
literature through Google, Google Scholar, and After five months we revealed our previously cov-
Medline using the keywords “teaspoon”, “spoon”, ert research project to the institutes staff. They were
“workplace”, “loss” and “attrition” revealed nothing asked to return or anonymously report any marked
about the phenomenon of teaspoon loss. Lacking any teaspoons that had made their way into desk drawers
guidance from previous researchers, we set out to or homes. Two days after the revelation, staff were
answer the age old question “Where have all the asked to complete a brief anonymous questionnaire,
bloody teaspoons gone?” We aimed to determine the which dealt with their attitudes towards and
overall rate of loss of teaspoons and the half life of tea- knowledgeofteaspoonsandteaspoontheft.
spoons in our institute, whether teaspoons placed in
communal tearooms were lost at a different rate from
teaspoons placed in individual tearooms, and whether
better quality teaspoons would be more attractive to
spoonshifters or be more highly valued and respected Details of the statistical analysis and study limitations are on
andtherefore move and disappear more slowly. bmj.com
1498 BMJ VOLUME331 24-31DECEMBER2005 bmj.com
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Onthecase
1.00 Results of follow-up teaspoon questionnaire
Programme linked tearoom
Communal tearoom No (%) of responses
0.75 Questions and possible answers (n=94)
Have you ever stolen a teaspoon?
Yes 36 (38)
0.50 No 58 (62)
If yes, from where?*
0.25 Work 22 (61)
Proportion of spoons remaining School or university 11 (31)
Home of a friend or relative 13 (36)
0 Shop or store 6 (17)
7 14 21 28 42 49 56 77 84 91 95 98
105 123 126 140 147 Pub or restaurant 10 (28)
Time (days) Aeroplane 4 (11)
Have you stolen a teaspoon in the past year?
Fig 1 Proportion of teaspoons remaining by final tearoom type Yes 18 (19)
No 76 (81)
If yes, from where?*
Work 10 (56)
Results
School or university 5 (28)
After five months,56 (80%) of 70 teaspoons had disap- Home of a friend or relative 9 (50)
peared.Thehalflife of the teaspoons was 81 days (that Shop or store 4 (22)
is, half had disappeared permanently after that time) Pub or restaurant 6 (33)
compared with 63 days in the pilot study. The type of Aeroplane 2 (11)
tearoom in which spoons were initially placed did Stealing teaspoons is wrong:
affect the rate of loss. The amount of time a teaspoon Strongly agree 31 (33)
survived in its final room did, however, vary Agree 23 (24)
significantly according to final tearoom type: half life Unsure 15 (16)
42 days for communal rooms (observed 28, expected Disagree 13 (14)
20.5) and 77 days for programme linked rooms Strongly disagree 12 (13)
(observed57,expected64.5,P<0.05;fig1).Therateof How satisfied are you with teaspoon coverage in the institute?
loss of the higher quality teaspoons (observed 12, Very satisfied 0 (0)
Satisfied 6 (6)
expected 12.4) was not significantly different to that of Unsure 19 (20)
standard quality teaspoons (observed 44, expected Dissatisfied 17 (18)
43.6, P=0.88;fig 2). Very dissatisfied 52 (55)
We observed the teaspoons for a total of 5668 *Multiple answers possible.
teaspoon days. The rate of teaspoon loss over the
period of observation was 0.99 per 100 teaspoon days
(95% confidence interval 0.76 to 1.28), or 360.62 per
100 teaspoon years. Assuming an average daily cover over 2700 kmthe length of the entire coastline
1
population of 140 people in the institute, this of Mozambique andweighover360metrictonsthe
translates to a rate of loss of 2.58 teaspoons per approximateweightoffouradultbluewhales.2
personper100teaspoonyears.Thereforetomaintain After the revelation of the study to the institutes
a workable population (one spoon for every two staff, five potentially lost teaspoons were recovered
people)252.4(194.3to328)teaspoonswouldneedbe from miscreant hoarders. Four of these were returned
purchased every year. from areas far removed from their place of last obser-
If we assume that the annual rate of teaspoon loss vation; one had been missing for 20 weeks. No one
peremployeecanbeappliedtotheentireworkforceof admitted to the permanent removal of a teaspoon
the city of Melbourne (about 2.5 million), an estimated from the institute, and no plausible explanations were
18 million teaspoons are going missing in Melbourne advancedforthehighrateofteaspoonloss.
each year. Laid end to end, these lost teaspoons would
Follow-up questionnaire
Overall, 94 employees (response rate 67%) responded
1.00 to the follow-up questionnaire. Thirty six (38%) were
Standard teaspoon
Expensive teaspoon male, 57 were female (61%), and one was undecided.
0.75 Thetableshowsselectedresults.
0.50
Discussion
0.25 Displacement of teaspoons outside tearooms at the
Proportion of teaspoons remaining Burnet Institute, Australia, was highly efficient, at the
0 rate of nearly one teaspoon lost per 100 teaspoon days.
1 4 11 18 25 32 38 46 53 67 81 95
109 123 137 151 Despite the purchase of substantial numbers of
Time (days) replacement teaspoons during the study period, most
Fig 2 Proportion of teaspoons remaining by teaspoon type employees (73%) remained dissatisfied with teaspoon
coverage in the institute.
BMJ VOLUME331 24-31DECEMBER2005 bmj.com 1499
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Onthecase
Although the scientific literature is strangely bereft What is already known on this topic
of teaspoon related research, the phenomena we have
described are capable of interpretation using some Information on the displacement of teaspoons in
well known theoretical perspectives. For example, in institutional settings is lacking in the medical and
3
his classic essay The tragedy of the commons, Garrett scientific literature
Hardindescribesthedestructionofcommons(grazing What this study adds
land open for all local cattle herders to use) owing to
individual herders grazing extra cattle at the expense Welost nearly one teaspoon per 100 teaspoon
of their community. If every herder takes the same days
approach,eventually the commons is completely over-
grazed and useless to everyone. People have no control over teaspoon migration;
Thetragedyofthecommonsappliesequallywellto escape to a spoonoid planet and resistentialism
teaspoons. In the Burnet Institute the commons are equally plausible explanations
consists of a communally owned set of teaspoons; tea-
spoonusers (consciously or otherwise) make decisions
that their own utility is improved by removing a
teaspoon for personal use, whereas everyone elses teaspoons are an essential part of office life.
utility is reduced by only a fraction per head (“after all, Simultaneously, the rapid rate of teaspoon loss shows
there are plenty more spoons . . .”). As more and more that their availability (and therefore office life) is under
teaspoon users make the same decision, the teaspoon constant assault. Teaspoon displacement and loss
commons is eventually destroyed. The fact that leads to the use of forks, knives, and staplers to meas-
teaspoonswerelostsignificantlymorerapidlyfromthe ure out coffee and sugar, inevitably causing a
Burnet Institutes communal tearooms (the “com- reduction in employee satisfaction; in addition, large
mons”) compared with programme linked rooms,cor- amounts of time may be wasted searching for
relates neatly with Hardins principle. teaspoons, both factors leading to decreased
We propose a somewhat more speculative theory employee efficiency. The cost of maintaining a
(with apologies to Douglas Adams and Veet Voojagig). workable teaspoon population, estimated at nearly
Somewhere in the cosmos, along with all the planets $A100 (£43; $75; €63) a year for the study setting
inhabited by humanoids, reptiloids, walking treeoids, alone, must also be considered. We recommend that
andsuperintelligent shades of the colour blue,a planet new institutes design their facilities so that pro-
is entirely given over to spoon life-forms. Unattended gramme linked tearooms predominate over commu-
spoons make their way to this planet, slipping away nal tearooms and that existing institutes consider
through space to a world where they enjoy a uniquely renovations to reduce the risk of teaspoon loss. We
spoonoid lifestyle, responding to highly spoon also advise that buying teaspoons of higher quality has
oriented stimuli, and generally leading the spoon no economic benefit. Finally, we suggest that the
equivalent of the good life.4
Our data might also be contemplated through the developmentofeffective control measures against the
prism of counterphenomenological resistentialism, loss of teaspoons should be a priority on national
which holds that les choses sont contre nous (things are research agendas.
against us).5 Resistentialism is the belief that inanimate
objects have a natural antipathy towards humans, and WethanktheemployeesoftheBurnetInstitute for their unwit-
therefore it is not people who control things but things ting participation in this project and for the vigorous debate that
followed its revelation (particularly Tony Stewart); those
that increasingly control people. Although it seems employees who were aware of the study and contributed to its
unreasonable to say that the teaspoons are exerting design and conductSteve Wesselingh, Ian Cooke, Greg
any influence over the Burnet Institutes employees Battistella, and staff from the Centre for Epidemiology and
(with the exception of the authors),their demonstrated Population Health Research;Andrew Symon for help with data
ability to migrate and disappear shows that we have collection, Jane Hocking for help with statistical analysis, Nick
Crofts for introducing us to the delights of resistentialism, and
little or no control over them. WSMSummerskill for calling the biroid phenomenon to our
Future studies investigating the pattern of move- attention.
mentandlossofothertypesofcutlery or other equip- Contributors:All authors contributed to the conception,design,
ment(perhapsevenmoreexpensiveorimportantthan and management of the study and to the preparation of the
teaspoons) could provide a broader picture of the phe- manuscript.MSCLcollectedthedata,whichwereanalysedbyall
nomenon under study. Microchipping and satellite authors.CKAisguarantor.
tracking systems would have enabled determination of Competinginterests:Nonedeclared.
the teaspoons ultimate location (assuming they Ethical approval: Our study was approved by the director of the
BurnetInstitute.
remainedonplanetEarth).
We have no reason to believe that beverage 1 MTechNatureConservation,TshwaneUniversityofTechnology,Pretoria,
production or consumption or any other teaspoon SouthAfria.Apreliminaryassessmentoftheconservationstatusofmarine
related activities at the Burnet Institute are significantly turtles in Mozambique. www.lists.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0501&L=
different from that occurring at other medical research cturtle&F=&S=&P=10245(accessed28Jan2005).
institutions, or indeed any other similar sized organisa- 2 American Cetacean Society factsheet. Blue whale. www.acsonline.org/
factpack/bluewhl.htm (accessed 28 January 2005).
tion; thus we believe our results are widely applicable. 3 HardinG.Thetragedyofthecommons.Science1968;162:1243-8.
4 AdamsD.Thehitchhikers guide to the galaxy. New York: Ballantine Books,
1979:320.
Conclusions 5 Jennings PE. Thingness of things. New York Times Magazine 13 Jun
The high level of dissatisfaction with teaspoon 1948:19-20.
coverage identified in our follow-up survey shows that (Accepted 9 October 2005)
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