Games and Competitions in the Office

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do you have any competitions with yr work colleagues?

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 15 September 2003 13:42 (twenty-two years ago)

stay awakee

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 15 September 2003 13:46 (twenty-two years ago)

as of last week, we have a weekly drawing competition. everyone who walks past my colleague's desk (regardless of whether he knows them or not) is handed a piece of paper and a pencil and asked to draw an animal of his choice. This is done regardless of whether he knows them or not (so there's scope for lots of entrants, as 350 ppl work in this building).

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 15 September 2003 13:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Haha I knew this was a MarkH thread for some reason.

No, absolutely not.

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 15 September 2003 13:47 (twenty-two years ago)

last week's animal was the rabbit. This week's is the duck.

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 15 September 2003 13:49 (twenty-two years ago)

at my old job there was a daily competition: "who can piss j0e off the most"

― j0e (j0e), Monday, 15 September 2003 13:50 (twenty-two years ago)

J*n then chooses an independent adjudicator to choose the best drawing - the prize is a Mars bar, btw.

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 15 September 2003 13:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Last year, some of my department had to work in the basement, as there weren't enough cubicles or offices elsewhere. With very little supervision, they invented the game Wall Ball, which I believe was something of a cross between soccer and squash. They would routinely leave their desks for long periods of time so they could play this game in the adjacent room.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 15 September 2003 13:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Everyone in my office but me is on Weight Watchers, so there's constant conversation about how many points they've eaten and new recipes they've tried. I think it's a type of competition.

― NA (Nick A.), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I knew this was a MarkH thread as well!

We don't have competitions or any sort of 'fun' in the office. :(

― robster (robster), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I have this competition with one of my colleagues, where he shits on me (figuratively) and I struggle to not let his petty jealousies crush my spirit.
He always wins because he makes WAAAAAAAY more money than me and our boss is one of his best buddies, and also because I really don't want to play.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:04 (twenty-two years ago)

next week's animal is prolly going to be The Rhino.

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:05 (twenty-two years ago)

We have a Premiership Predictions league and Fantasy Football League going. I am currently languishing near the bottom of the former and 2nd in the league in the latter.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:08 (twenty-two years ago)

We have college basketball playoff pool and fantasy football. At winter holidays or possibly new years' there is some insane weight-loss competition. People always bring in treats to sabotage the other players, and I think there is side betting going on...like people are not competing for their own weight loss necessarily but betting that so-and-so will/won't take the pounds off. Totally mentalist, but I enjoy all the tasty treats; I can make several meals out of cookies.

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:09 (twenty-two years ago)

we have a fantasy football league as well. The last time I looked my boss was beating me.

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:10 (twenty-two years ago)

OH MY GOD I should totally enter the weight-loss competition just to piss everyone off.

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:10 (twenty-two years ago)

currently everyone but me is playing "who can not reply to mark's emails longest" meaning

i. the contract for my book is not yet sorted
ii. i have nothing to do at work
iii. my emotional partial farewell to ilx last week is looking increasingly bonkers (i did say it wd be THIS week i wd be cutting down probbly but....)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:16 (twenty-two years ago)

It is like Cyrano de Bergerac taking a reaaaalllly long time to die and talking non-stop throughout. Only without the death. Or the Frenchness.

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Trust Archel to be all literary - I was thinking of the equivalent Terry Pratchett scene.

― caitlin (caitlin), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:22 (twenty-two years ago)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I think there are some sort of game things here. I ignore them. The various sports betting pools are bemusing, though.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:40 (twenty-two years ago)

sadly, no-one has ever run a Grand National sweepstake here, but there was a World Cup one. Spread betting in the office is fun. I once tried to run a book on the time of birth of a colleague's baby. The money was collected, the times were guessed, but then someone pointed out that the baby in question was being delivered by Caesarian section and so the mother to be knew when it was going to arrive, so I shamefacedly gave everyone their money back.

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Our competition is called "Who is going to bring the gun to work first". I have bets on N***.

― Ally (mlescaut), Monday, 15 September 2003 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)

That would be weird if I showed up at your office with a gun.

― NA (Nick A.), Monday, 15 September 2003 15:03 (twenty-two years ago)

far more successful was the book run by a colleague in the first office I worked in. It so happened that all the partners and managers in our part of the office were out of the building that day, so he decided to run a book on how many times in the course of the day the managers and partners in the other part of the office came over to our side to check up on us and see that we were actually doing any work! We all put 20p in and one guy was out of the running early on as he guessed we would be checked up on just twice. I think the real answer turned out to be seven times and as I said 6 and the other said 8 we shared the money between us.

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 15 September 2003 15:06 (twenty-two years ago)

At the last restaurant I worked at, we would have little competitions to see who could sell the most of a specific item, like the kung pao chicken or bottles of wine. I would always win when it was a menu item because I would recommend it to my tables and say "it reminds me of my grandmother's kitchen in Shanghai" - but of course I've never met my grandmother and also, she's from Korea. People are so guillable!

― phil-two (phil-two), Monday, 15 September 2003 15:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm still betting on you, NA. I know your type. Regulators. You can't be any geek off the street, you know what I mean? You gotta earn your keep...

― Ally (mlescaut), Monday, 15 September 2003 15:25 (twenty-two years ago)

We had a contest in my office with a certain insurance company we represent where the first agent to write $50K in premiums with them through their at-the-time-new website won a 5-day/4-night paid trip to Honolulu. I actually tried, but alas only came in third.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 15 September 2003 16:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Did you get a set of steak knives?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 15 September 2003 16:06 (twenty-two years ago)

shit. beat me to the joke.

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Monday, 15 September 2003 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

ha! Nope just the complementary board game...so I could play at home!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 15 September 2003 16:15 (twenty-two years ago)

When there were only two of us in the office and we were allowed to listen to the radio, we used to do a weekly competition whereby we had to pick five artists and see who managed to get the highest accumulated plays on daytime Radio 2.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 15 September 2003 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)

It doesn't strictly qualify as an office, but we do play many games to keep ourselves amused. Trying to get a laugh out of extremely serious customers is the most competitive, one of my barmen resorted to falling over repeatedly to try with one notoriously po-faced couple. The manager and I compete to get the most ridiculous phrases into our descriptions of wine, I'm currently winning with "It's like an aunt coming onto you at the funeral of a close relative with it's brazen berry fruit."

― Matt (Matt), Monday, 15 September 2003 19:56 (twenty-two years ago)

eleven months pass...

in my (now not-so) new job I am in a department of one so there is little scope for the kinds of things described above. The instigator of the drawing competition has handed in his notice anyway.

I did get a call yesterday from a fellow member of the Social Commitee saying he wanted to set up a Premiership Football League. "B-but.." I said "The season's already underway". This doesn't matter. Apparently.

― MarkH (MarkH), Saturday, 11 September 2004 11:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Two competition running at the moment:
1)everybody but me (being both largerly pregnant and married right now) is playing "who gets laid most" during the art festival we are running since last sunday (and that will be over by tomorrow night)...I still have not understood how you give points to that and where you do get proof, but they all say "you can tell"...
2) in the press office working for the same festival they are playing
"who gets published most" among the various art disciplines they work for (cinema, theatre, music, etc.)

― misshajim (strand), Saturday, 11 September 2004 13:12 (twenty-one years ago)

"Who's Life Sucks Most"

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Saturday, 11 September 2004 13:17 (twenty-one years ago)

oddly enough, my one job working in the public sector was the most competitive. I used to work in a stock control office for the NHS and staff there were ordering stock for several huge warehouses scattered throughout the south and west of England. Each person ordered stock for a different warehouse and the names of them were written on this huge whiteboard together with a measure of efficieny as a percentage. This was actually a measure of what percentage of requisitions by the various health centres and hospitals in the region were successful ie there was stock in the warehouse for them to have. It was usually up in the nineties for everyone but when the report was run one day somebody had an efficiency of 50% as some stock ad not been delievered. A girl in the office promptly walked up to the whiteboard, rubbed out "50%" and wrote "P45" instead.

― MarkH (MarkH), Saturday, 11 September 2004 13:20 (twenty-one years ago)

We used to do Who Can Do Ultrasounds Fastest, but now only one person does them each day. Sucks.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Saturday, 11 September 2004 13:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Reading the title of this thread reminded of me of a joke in The Office that I only caught recently, but keep thinking about. When they were doing the trivia contest in the pub, and they cut to Brent & Finchy chiding the other team for missing an answer: "How could you mix up Howard Jones and Nick Kershaw?"

― dave225 (Dave225), Saturday, 11 September 2004 15:14 (twenty-one years ago)

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