The Wisenheimer

Quite a few years ago (9 to 10 years) I had a tear-off page-a-day calendar of dictionary.com's 365 New Words a Year.  I took it into work, and, because I work with others who care about things like vocabulary like I do, we started to do what we called "Word of the Day".  Two of my colleagues in Support and I would gather in my cube, and we'd go over the new Word of the Day, and review the previous two, for repetition.  We went through hundreds and hundreds of words in the 2-3 years that we did it, and we learned a lot of new words, some that I still remember and use when appropriate (etiolate, imbricate, etc.).  One word that came up in 2006 was "wisenheimer", which is a smart aleck.  There are plenty of those in our office, so we turned that one page into an award.  We gave it a backing and built in a magnet.  Each time someone made a quality smart aleck comment, someone else would declare that that person had earned the Wisenheimer, and we'd then attach the award to the offending person's door jamb.  I haven't been in the office daily due to my traveling and sometimes working from home, so I've rearely had it.  But yesterday in our office farewell lunch/party (it wasn't designed to be for me, as Bruce was leaving), I made a joke and everyone immediately declared me to have earned the Wisenheimer.  So here I am, displaying my cherished award, and something that represents the fun things we've done in the office over the 12 years I've been there that have been part of the great culture we've had there, which is why I almost always came in the office when I was in town, even though it was completely optional for me once I became an SE.