The Sunshine Fund

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In the mid 80s I worked at the California Housing and Finance Agency in Sacramento. The department I was in had a fund called The Sunshine Fund: everyone put in $5 a month, and the money was used for birthday parties and other fun things. It had been going on for years. 

The younger employees were not enthusiastic about The Sunshine Fund. They didn’t want their birthdays celebrated by, and they didn’t want to have to celebrate the birthdays of, fellow employees who, other than working at the same place, they had nothing in common with.

As the balance in the department shifted, through hirings and retirings, the fund lost popularity, and a vote was called to determine it’s fate. The opposition was in the majority, and the fund was terminated. It was further decided to take the remaining balance - $87 - and buy lottery tickets with it. None of the 87 lottery tickets won anything.

Being that I was one of the younger employees who voted to terminate, I ask myself: “What kind of person is against something called The Sunshine Fund?”

I hope they reinstated it.

Illusion

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“Sometimes I'll spend an hour writing a tiny email. I work on it until I've created the illusion that I've dashed it off in three minutes. If I make a typo, I let it stand. Sometimes in fact I correct the typo without thinking, and then I back up and retype the typo so that it'll look more casual. I don't know why.”

― Nicholson Baker, author