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The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute
Megan C Lim, Margaret Hellard, S E Campbell Aitken K
Cenb"e for
Epidemiology and

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Abstract Objectives To determine the overall rate of lossof

Methods TIle Macfarlane Burnet b1Stitutefor Medical Research and Public Health (Burnet b1Stitute) based in Melbourne, employs about 140 people, The institute has eight tearooms;four are "programme linked"-that is, predominantly used by the staff of a single programme-and four are communal: two are attached , , , to fonnal meetIng rooms, one ISa large mulupurpose staff room, and one is a rather barren corridor with kitchen facilities.

Popolation Health

~C:;~e Burnet workplace teaspoonsand whether attrition and Institute Mcwcal displacementare correlatedwith the relative value of for ~~~i~e:;'~, the teaspoonsor type of tearoom, GPO 2284, box Design Longitudinal cohort study. Melbo~e, Setting Researchinstitute employing about 140 Vic"tona,3001, Ausb"alia people, Megan CLim S Subjects 70 discreetlynumbered teaspoonsplaced in ffltaTrlI =is/ani tearooms around the institute and observedweekly M~t EHellard over five months. d".aor , CaInbellK Aitken Main outcome measuresInadence of teaspoonloss Sell;'; ,esearch offirer per 100 teaspoonyearsand teaspoonh~ life, Con-espondencew: Results 56 (80%) of the 70 teaspoonsdisappeared ~ K Aitken during the study.The half life of the teaspoonswas81 altken@burneledu,au d f ' ' Th I aIf lifi ays, e 1 e 0 teaspoonsm communal B,"1J 2005;33 1:1498-5()0 tearooms (42 days)w.as si~cantly. shorter than for those in rooms assoaatedW1tllparucular research groups (77 days), The rate of losswasnot influenced by the teaspoons'value.The incidence of teaspoon loss over the period of observationwas360,62per 100 teaspoonyears,At this rate,an estimated250 teaspoonswould need to be purchasedannually to maintain a practical institute-wide population of 70 teaspoons. Conclusions 'The loss of workplace teaspoonswas rapid, showing that their availability,and hence office culture in general,is constantly threatened

Pilot study Between 5 February 2004 and 18 June 2004 we carried out a pilot study to gain an initial impression " 0f th e manner 0f teaspoon Ioss at the tnsUtuteand to refine our methods tor the full study.We purchased 32 plain stainless steel teaspoons, discreetly numbered with red nail polish on the undersides of the handles, and disuibuted into a subsetof the eight tearooms: 16 in tlle prograInme linked tearooms and 16 in the communal tearooms. We carried out a weekly audit over five months to assess changesin the disuibuany tion of the teaspoonsthroughout the institute.

Main study At the completion of the pilot study we carried out a longitudinal cohort study, We purchased and numbered a further 54 stainlesssteelteaspoons. adclition In we purchased and discreetly numbered 16 teaspoons of higher quality. The teaspoons were disuibuted (stratified by spoon type) throughout the eight tearooms,with a Ingher proportion allocated to tl10se tearooms with the highest teaspoon lossesin the pilot tud s rwecarried out counts of the teaspoonsweekly for two months then fortnightly for a further three h D kt d th ' edi tel '.
s, es ops an 0 er I1T1ffi a y VISI e bl

Introduction In January 2004 the authors found their tearoom ber,efi of ,teaspoons. Although a flunky (MSCL) was rapIdly dispa~chedto, purchase a, n~ batch, these replacementsm turn disappearedwIthin a few months, ExaspeI'ated our conseq~entina?ility to stir in our by sugar and to accu~te~y dispense Ins~t c~tIee" \V~ decided to resp ond m Ume honoured epIde1ll1ologIsts
fashion and measure the phenomenon.
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ch f th di al d th '-'" sear 0 e me c an 0 er SaeI1W!C Ii terature through Googe, Googe Sch0Iar, and I I Medlin "" "ert e usmg the keywords "teaspoon. spoon, aled . thin "wor pace, Ioss an " atmuon reve k I "" " d "" no g about the pIIenomenon 0f teaspoonIoss.Lacking any 'd fr m pre ' ous reseal'chers we set out to glll ance 0 VI, answer the age old question "Where have all the bloody teaspoonsgone?"We aimed to determine the overall rate of lossof teaspoonsand the halflife oftea~ spoons in our institute, whetlier teaspoonsplaced in communal tearooms were lost at a different rate from teaspoonsplaced in individual tearooms,and whether better quality teaspoonswould be more attractive to spoon shifters or be more highly valued and respected
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surfaces were scannedfor errant spoons,

. th '" ,_lr Th research project to e msUultes S..uL. ey were asked to return or anonymously report any marked , , teas poons that had made their way mto desk drawers , or homes. Two days after the revelauon, staff were '. , ask.ed comple~ea bn~ ane~ymous quesuonnaJre, to which dealt wIth theIr atUtudes towards and knowledge of teaspoonsand teaspoon thefL

Mter five months we revealed Otlr prevIously cov-

and therefore move and disappear more slowly,

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Details of the statistical analysis study and limitations on are

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Resultsof follow-upteaspoonquestionnaire
Questions possible and answe~

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Have ever you stolen teaspoon? a Yes -"0--Work

No (%)01 responses (11=94) 38 (381 58 (621

22 (81)

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School university or 11 (311 13 (~)' 8 (17) 0 ~ ~n'n~

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Home a friend relative" 01 or Shop stolW or ~~~~~~ ~~,~~~~~~~~ " "

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Time(days)

Pub or restaUranl
-Aeroplane Have stoI8II taspoon In UIeput YeeI? you a - Yes No ' '78

10(281
4 (111 18 (181 (81)

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Fig 1 Proportion teaspoons of remaining finaltearoom by type

Results
After five months, 56 (80%) of 70 teaspoons had disappeared lne half life of the teaspoons was 81 days (that is, half had disappeared permanently after that time) compared with 63 days in the pilot srndy. The type of teal"oom in which spoons were initia1ly placed did _sr the in f final amoun t 0 f "e a teaspoon survived rate 0its Ioss. Th e room did, h~however, vary =ect
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if yes, where?' from -~

School university or

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5 (28)
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4 (221 8 (331

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2(111
31 (241 23 (331

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15 (18)
13 (14)

Strongly agree Agree;

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tearoom

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Unsure

Disagree

42 days for communal rooms (observed 28, expected ys for Pro~mme linked rooms 205) and 77 da

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How satisfied youwIIh are Ieupoon coverageUIe In Institute?

lsagree

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12 (13)

(observed57, expected64.5,P<0.05;fig 1).The rate of loss of the higher quality tea.~poons(observed 12, expected 12.4) not significantly was differentto that of standard quality teaspoons (observed 44, expected 43.6,P = 0.88;fig 2). We observed the teaspoons a total of 5668 for
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

Very satisfied SatiSfie-ii

Unsure

-DISsatiSfied, Very dissatisfied 'Multiple answers possible.

0 (01 8 (6) 19(20)" 17(18)

52 (551

population of 140 people in the instirnte, this translates to a rate of loss of 2.58 teaspoons per person per 100 teaspoonyears. Therefore to maintain
a workable population (one spoon for every two people) 252.4 (194.3 to 328) teaspoons would need be purchasedevery year. lfwe asSllmethat the annual rate of teaspoon loss

cover over ~700,km-the!ength of~e en~e coasdine of Mozambique-and weigh over 360 metric tons-the approximate weight of four adult blue whales.' After the revelation of the srndy to the instirnte's
staff, five potentially lost teaspoons were recovered froin miscreant hoarders. Four of these were rernmed from areas far removed from their place of last obser-

per employeecan be applied to tile entire workforce of the city of Melbourne (about 2.5 million), all estimated 18 million teaspoonsare going missing in Melbourne
each year. Laid end to end, these lost teaspoons would

vation; one had been missing for 20 weeks.No one admitted to the permanent removal of a teaspoon from the instirnte, and no plausible explanations were advancedfor the high rate of teaspoon loss.
Follow-up questionnaire Overall, 94 employees (response rate 67%) responded to the follow-up questionnaire. Thirty six (38%) were

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male, 57 were female (61%),and one was undecided The table showsselectedresults.

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Discussion

Displacement teaspoons of outsidetearooms the at

Burnet mstitute, Australia, was highly efficient, at the

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rate of nearly one teaspoon lost per 100 teaspoon days. .:_1 . the pur mase 0f subStanUdl num bers 0 f. esplte nme(days) replacement teaspoons during the srndy period, most

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Fig 2

Proportion 01 teaspoons remaining by teaspoon type

employees(73%) remained dissatisfiedwith teaspoon

coverage in the instirnte.

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Although tile scientific literature is strangely bereft

of teaspoon related research, the phenomena we have described are capable of interpretation using some well known theoretical perspectives. For example, in his classic essay The tragedy of the commons;' Garrett Hardin describes the destruction of commons (grazing land open for all local cattle herders to use) o\\mg to individualherdersgrazingextra cattleat the expense of their community. If every herder takes the same approacll, eventually the commons is completely overgrazed and useless to everyone. 11le tragedy of the commons applies equally well to teaspoons. In the Burnet Institute the commons consists of a communally owned set of teaspoons; teaspoon users (consciously or otherwise) make decisions that their own utility is improved by removing a teaspoon for personal use, whereas everyone else's utility is reduced by only a fi"action per head ("after all, there are plenty more spoons. . :').As more and more teaspoon users make the same decision, the teaspoon (:ommons is eventually destroyed The fact that teaspoons were lost significantly more rapidly from the BUlnet Institllte's communal tearoonts (tile "commons") compared with programme linked rooms, correlates neatly with Hardin's principle.. . We prop?se a somewhat more speculative ~e~ry (WIth apolo~es to Douglas Adams ~d Veet VooJagIg). ~ome-:vhere m the co~mos, al~n~ WIth ~ the pl~ets inhabIted by humanoids, reptilolds, walking treeolds, and superintelligent shades of the colour blue, a planet is entirely given over to spoon life-forms. Unattended S oons make their way to this planet, slipping away p .. through space to a world where they enJoy a uruquely. .d li 1 din hi hi eqUlval ent 0fth e goo d lie.4 0 da . ht al so b e con tem plat ed thro u gh the ur ... ffilg prism of counterphenomenological resistentialism, which holds that les chases sont contre ntnl.! (things are
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loss.We spoonol . estye, respon g to g y spoon renovations reducethe nsk of teaspoon .. to .. . d ul1, an d gen erall Ieadinth e spoon . also advISe that buymg teaspoons of higher qUality has onente Stlln y g . .

teaspoons are an essential part of office life. Simultaneously, the rapid rate of teaspoon loss shows that tl1eir availability (and therefore office life) is under constant assault Teaspoon displacement and loss leads to the use of forks, knives, and staplers to measure out coffee and sugar, inevitably causllig a reduction in employee satisfaction; in addition, large amounts of time may be wasted searching for teaspoons, both factors leading to decreased employee efficiency. The cost of maintaining a workable teaspoon population, estimated at nearly $AIOO (43; $75; E63) a year for the stlldy setting alone must also be considered We recommend that new institllte.~ design their facilities so that proe linked tearooms predominate over communal t gramm . tI . . earooms an d th at eXlS .ng illS tI.tute s conSld er .

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no economic benefit Fmally, we suggest that the . . deve I opment 0f efliectlve contro I measures agamst the

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loss of teaspoons should be a pnonty research agendas.

on national

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a~st

us):' Resistentialis~ is the belief that inanimate

objects have a natural antipathy towards humans, and

therefore it is not people who control things but things tllat increasingly control people. Although it seems unreasonable to say that the tea.~poons are exerting an influence over the Burnet Institute's employees r. .

(~~ the

ex~eptlon

oftl1~

authors),

their demonstrated

We thank the employees tJleBurnet Institute for tJleir unwitof ting participation in this project and for the vigorous debatethat followed its revelation (partiallarly Tony Stewart); those employeeswho were awareof the study and contributed to its desi~ and conduct-Steve Wesselingh, IaI~ Co.oke, Greg Battistel!a.aIld staff from tile Centre for Ep,demlolo.gyand PopulationHealtl1Research; Andrew Symon for help with data
collectionJane Hocking for help with statistical analysis, Nick

ability to I11lgrate and disappear shows that we have

little or no control over them. Future studies investigating the pattern of movement and loss of other types of cutlery or other equipment (perhapseven more expensive or important than te ) uld .d b ader piC tureo fth e phe. aspoons co proVl e a ro d M. hippmg an d sateIiite . nomenon under Stll y. lcroC . .. tracking systems would haveenableddeterrnmatlon of the teaspoons' ultimate location (assuming they remained on planet Earth). We have no reason to believe that beverage production or consumption or any other teaspoon related activities at the Burnet Institute are significantly <lifli . ~re~ t fr om. tII at occu rrin g at other medical research ... . illStltutlons,or mdeed any other similar SIZedorgarusation. , thus we believe our results are widely applicable.

Crqfts for introducing us to the delights of resistentialism, and WSM Surnmerskillfor calling the biroid phenomenon to our attention. Contributors:All authors contributed to the conception,design, and managementof the study and to the preparation of the th CKA ' au ors. ISguarantor. Competing Interests: one declared . .. N Etllical approval:Our studywasapprovedby the director of tJle Burnet Institute.
manuscript MSCL collected the data, which were analysed by all

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Conclusions
The high level of dissatisfaction with teaspoon coverage identified in our follow-up survey shows tl1at

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