I know that office work can be dry and sometimes it is hard to meet people or have conversations with them. My solution when I started at my new job last year was to bring in a few action figures. Yes, on the one hand that branded me as a little bit of a geek. OK, as a big old geek, but that was alright. I wanted my coworkers to get to know me and, more importantly to remember me.

I work in a big place. There are hundreds of people in the department where I work. It feels like a typical cube farm. Actually the work and the people I work with are interesting, but it is easy, in that sort of setting, to be anonymous. That is what I wanted to avoid.

I’m a big fan of the Buffy the Vampire television series. I loved it when it was on originally and I catch a rerun every once in awhile. The action figures started out as a way to prolong my interactions with the characters. OK, that sounds weird. What I mean is this: the characters are so rich, the story arcs for each of them are deep and fulsome that they touched me and sparked my imagination in a way a television series never had before. The action figures were not very expensive — there are expensive ones, collector’s items – so I could justify it in my budget. I picked up the action figure of Buffy and Angel at the prom. One of Faith (I have a soft spot for “bad” girls, I guess), one of Spike…. and the collection grew.

So when I started at this new job, I was thinking of ways to meet people, conversation starters, and I thought of the action figures. They were mostly in a box from when I moved two years ago. So I rummaged through the box and pulled out “Prophecy Girl”. If you ever watched the show, it’s the first season finale. Buffy is supposed to go to a dance (hence the white dress) and she ends up meeting the “Master” the head vampire. I won’t spoil the ending, but as usual Buffy kicks butt. That figurine in particular looks great. It looks very much like Sarah Michelle Gellar, so I brought that one in to work.

With the white dress and pearls, you might think it was a regular doll, but the crossbow is a dead giveaway. So I propped Buffy on my monitor (yes, we have old clunky monitors) and waited to see what would happen. A few people recognized the doll, which made my day. For my cube mates, at least we had a connection — we could talk about TV and it was more than simply “What’d ya do last night?” “I watched TV.”

So I am glad that I took the plunge and brought in a couple of Buffy the Vampire Slayer action figures. It made meeting people a little easier at the new job. Maybe it will work for you, too!

Elisabeth loves collecting figurines and action figures. For more information about collecting Buffy action figures click here.