Congratulations to our Awkward Office Photo Winner!
September 15th, 2010
Congratulations to Erin and her officemates from Dashing Through the Atrium for winning the Awkward Office Photo Contest! As Erin explains, the credit truly belongs to only one person: “EVERY year my boss makes us take a team photo with Santa. EVERY year he wears his red suit, and EVERY year he refuses to smile. This photo is put on the front of a card and sent out to hundreds of sales reps, managers and directors across the country.”
Thanks to everyone for sending in so many great submissions (check out all the entries here) and don’t forget to pick up The Office: Season 6 (Now on DVD and Blu-ray)!
Eaton’s!
NOT photoshopped, why are you all saying that??
Have you maybe never seen a sleigh flying through a mall, and a couple grinches on the escalators before?
Awesome pic
You people are killing me. Did any of you read the intro? Of course it is Photoshopped. That is what they do at tourist attractions and such all over the place. It’s not like the woman who sent it in did it herself or something. And those are stuffed birds. They’ve been hanging there for like 40 years. Thank you, Erin! I love this picture.
ya, come on you guys…thats like making the plural of Mice…Moose….or Meese
It’s “meeces” Don’t you know anything? Just ask Mr. Jinx, or “Jinxy” on the old pixie and dixie cartoons!
“I hates Meeces to pieces!”
I think their droppings are called “meces.”
Canada Goose is a proper name you do not pluralize it by saying Canadian Geese, you simply say Canada Geese.
Your killing me people!
And while YOU’RE at it, when you are correcting people you should learn to use the correct spelling of ‘You’re’.
You’re killing me Liz!
ps. Awesome photo… can’t wait to see the 2010 Christmas Card!
The guy in the red suit looks like the guy from the hangover and dinner for shmucks.
Hitchcock would be proud.
And the Buzz-Kill Award of the Year goes to…..William !
Of course this isn’t a real picture..
Do you really think the sled should be elevated 60 feet into the air so
the guests would have to climb up near the ceiling ?
I’m no lawyer, but that could be a major lawsuit waiting to happen.
The lousy photo shop is what makes it all kinds of awkward !
P.S. – I know from experience…traveling through the mall at that velocity in a sled…I was not smiling at all….I kind of had the expression like, Santa watch out…we are going to crash right into Mrs. Fields Cookies !!!
All that coupled with the fact that the boss sent this mess out as a christmas card to business associates? Not the winner for awkwardness? For shame, William.
This is not a true photo…It has been photoshopped in every sense of the word. How this got past nominations is completely beyond me. Bucket load of fail to the judges….
Sadly this is the actual Santa phone from the Eaton Centre. They used to have this huge Santa’s Workshop back towards where that Sears sign is. It spanned a few floors of the mall and if I remember right as a child, moving things on it to intice children to watch. I guess that wasn’t PC enough so they changed it to a Ice Castle (with penguins & polar bears? WT*?) a few years back. Then either last year or the year before, they changed to to Santa sitting in front of a green screen shoved into an entrance way into the mall. And they give you this pile of horse crap as a picture…
Wow. Obviously it’s been photoshopped. Did you think anyone really expected adults to believe there is an actual sleigh zooming out of Sears with little sparkly things in its wake?
Ya gotta love getting your Santa pic taken at the Eaton Centre (Toronto)! I had my picture taken there once and Santa grabbed my a**!
Does anyone realize the dude in the red suit has half a shoulder? So photoshop.
My wife saw this and asked why I was in the photo. Beard man in the red suit looks exactly like I did about 10 years ago (before my beard went gray).
Still not as gray as santa though
Also whats up with the geese? I thought santa had a team of magical reindeer, nor a flock of geese.
Did anybody notice there are BIRDS flying inside the mall? lol
Are you people high? This picture does not possess even a tiny fraction of the awkwardness of the clown makeup picture…
At first glance, I thought those winged creatures were the Wicked Witch’s flying monkeys! Those things still scare the piss out of me!!
LOL! I had a girlfriend who was the same way! She wouldn’t watch the movie even as an adult!
You boss is like one of the little robotic elves that build the toys on the North Pole production line.
Perfect! Great story and picture!
Most definitely the Eaton Centre in Toronto, we are REAL proud of our geese eh? That santa happens to be my brothers elementary teacher Mr. Flemming.
I am so happy an actual Canadian seriously put an “eh?” in his comments. Restores my faith in humans as a whole.
I love this Christmas photo! Beats our office photo – the 5 of us crammed into a water log ride at the Mall of America in Minnesota. I was in the front and look like I’m about to die of fright as we hit the water at the bottom.
Feel the Christmas joy.
Too funny! My supervisor’s uncle is the Santa!
Are you suggestin’ that Santa Claus migrates?
No doubt about it – Will Ferrell is the boss in the red suit, and this is leaked promo material for a new movie. Someone please tell me it is – IT HAS TO BE.
At first I couldn’t tell if this was supposed to be for Christmas or Halloween.
Awkward….INDEED!
I’d enjoy seeing them side by side in chronological order….
i NEED to see every year’s!! Submit them all please!
I have the exact same need.
Me too.
Deep down, even though he doesn’t smile, the boss is laughing. Laughing at the hell he makes his team go through every year.
Headline: Santa safely lands in mall after geese strike sleigh.
Witness states that Santa was calm during the emergency landing at the Eaton’s Centre. “He was simply amazing!” said Erin (last name withheld). “He told us we better watch out, we better not cry, and we better not pout….and the next thing I knew we were on the ground outside Lady Footlocker. He is getting some extra cookies and a little something extra in his milk this year at my house!”
Ya, it’s the eaton centre and it’s art geese… and the reason his arm is chopped off is cause the mall people take a picture of everyone in the sleigh and then they use their computers to make it seem like the sleigh is magically flying through the mall…. thus the light and stars trailing from the back of the sleigh and the fact that it’s hovering in the air!
Pretty darn funny! lol
YULE DO AS I SAY.
win!
Ha ha!
WIN!
Those are all Canada Geese – they hang off the ceiling in the Eaton’s Centre in downtown Toronto. Been there forever.
I love the awkward looks on their faces!!
They’re Canadian geese. It’s ‘art’ that is hanging up in the Eaton Centre.
I’m…I’m speechless…LOL.
Sure it’s photoshopped with the geese or other birds flying…what about the Boss in the red suit. Look at his cut off arms and his photo make him sit lower so his body is not the same size as the others in that row. WOW, this takes the cake for bad. I would have been embarrassed to have to send this out to Sales reps, and other people of the company.
One guy hold the sign “NO”. That’s what I say.
(I know it is NOEL.)
LOL you’re right! It’s like a silent plea for help.
They made him wear the wall hanging.
I really love the shining light on Sears. I wonder how many afternoon cocktails it took before they filed into the sled?
Good choice on the winner. Santa looks like he thinks this is bad, and he’s probably had kids pee on his lap. The Photoshopping (or, should I say, -chopping) done to get everyone in that sleigh is awful. Bossman has no right arm. The birds randomly flying above the sleigh just top the whole thing off. You just don’t know where to look for the next lame item.
Stellar! You know this is authentic from the excited faces from flying through a mall while dodging seaguls? Not to mention the gentleman on left’s squared of shoulder, perhaps an inflight injury?
Bahaha, I wonder if he knows his pic is here…
Eaton Centre in Toronto? LOL!
that was my first thought when i saw this as well :p what other mall celebrates geese?!
Recognized it right away! I shop there a lot hehe
The blackbirds make this look like the Nightmare before Christmas!
Congratulations, Erin! This was my favorite photo among a whole lot of great ones.
It’s perfect! And the birds flying in that Hitchcockian way – they are the icing on top.
Well, not yet…they haven’t “iced” anything yet.
Very few people realize Hitchcock originally planned “The Birds” as a feel-good Christmas movie. The first bird to turn was going to be the partridge in the pear tree.
truly strange and disturbing
Nothing says “Christmas” like bloodthirsty mall birds and a sleigh-filled nightmare.
Win!
I agree, WIN!!
At least it’s not a PINK nightmare!
I guess you could call this the softer side of Sears…..
This has to be photoshopped… there’s no way that Canadian geese would be flying with seagulls in the same mall atrium.
I believe this is the Eaton Centre in Toronto… the mall has fake birds hanging from the ceiling.
Not sure if you are being funny or serious?
She’s serious. That is indeed the atrium of the Eaton Centre. It’s a huge shopping complex spanning several blocks in downtown Toronto. It has a subway stop at either end.
This photo just made me nostalgic for my hometown. This is Toronto and the Canadian geese were the first thing that I saw in this photo. They’re an icnonic symbol.
Yup, it’s real. I’ve been there a few times when I was visiting Toronto. I think it’s supposed to be the mall’s “main attraction”, but they’re kind of old-looking in real life.
Yep – definitely Eaton centre in Toronto. We had the same photo taken of my kids there last Christmas.
I couldn’t make that up! Lol
you’re right! canadian geese and gulls would never be caught flying together, much less in such a high trafficked area as a mall atrium.
All those people really thought you were serious.
the best one is mike, who thought she was asking if kim was serious.
I thought I was the only one who saw Mike’s misunderstanding
phew
nope, I saw that too! LMAO!!!
Are you sure these guys work in the SAME office…?!!! Itz like each person got photoshopped in there individually. *lol*