Christmas Party 2004 Strategy Guide
Last night we had the annual company Christmas party (xmas for you commercial types). This year the party was held on post instead of downtown, which worked out well for us urbanites because the monthly riot called First Friday would be underway. The facility itself was lackluster compared to last year's party at the hotel downtown but overall the party itself was more enjoyable. Each year we play a simple gift game where each employee's name is drawn from a hat and they get to either select a gift from the gift table or take a previously called person's gift. If you're gift is taken, it becomes your turn to either take a table gift or somebody else's.
This game presents a number of strategic problems for some of our employees. It seems impossible to develop a winning strategy for the game. Should you choose the best gift right at the start or select one from the "middle" of the pack? The gifts were anything from a large heavy box, to smaller boxes on the table, to envelopes in a box. After seeing employees from the accounting department take envelopes during their turn, Pookie and RunsOn decided that the people in accounting must have some insight into the quality of the gifts and so would choose the best ones. This caught on and those fiscally-minded employees kept having to get new gifts to replace the ones taken by the people using this strategy. Obviously, no wait, *OBVIOUSLY* the accounting people, who may or may not know what the gifts actually are, would not choose the best gifts first because they know they will just be taken from them. In actuality, they don't have to bother with a careful selection so long as everyone else thinks that accounting has some greater insight. The gifts will be taken regardless of their perceived quality and so the accountant gets numerous turns to choose the gifts they might actually want.
I decided that it would be better to get a "medium" quality gift from the start (when the collection is bigger) and hope that everybody goes for the big ticket items and leaves mine alone. So I picked a manilla envelope from the box early in the game. For some reason, Joe decided he liked my envelope and took it during his turn. It's not the first time I've been STABBED IN THE BACK by joe. Don't even get me started on the History of the World match where he ruthlessly turned on me and destroyed both of our chances of winning, despite my not even being in first place. Anyway, eventually Joe settled on a box he thought was an ipod or some sort of mp3 player. I chose to not take somebody else's gift, instead grabbing a new medium quality one from the gift table. The general concensus was that my box contained tax software, a gift we had seen at last year's party. Finally our strategies were put to the test.
For their folly, Pookie received a free appetizer WITH PURCHASE OF A MEAL at Longhorn (? I think). RunsOn was unclear as to the exact nature of his gift but we surmise that it was at least a few free meals at Applebee's (ew). Joe, for his SENSELESS BACKSTABBING WAYS received not the ipod of his dreams, nor the free flight lesson of my original envelope, but an AM/FM alarm clock radio. Kishan was tricked out of a 19" television for a boardgame. And my "tax software" turned out to be the Superbit Director's Cut Extended-Play Platinum Double-CD Limited Edition Widescreen Bonus Feature DVD Gift Set of Spider Man 2. I haven't seen Spider Man 1 yet but I was pleased. I'll take Kirsten Dunst over Applebee's any day.
This game presents a number of strategic problems for some of our employees. It seems impossible to develop a winning strategy for the game. Should you choose the best gift right at the start or select one from the "middle" of the pack? The gifts were anything from a large heavy box, to smaller boxes on the table, to envelopes in a box. After seeing employees from the accounting department take envelopes during their turn, Pookie and RunsOn decided that the people in accounting must have some insight into the quality of the gifts and so would choose the best ones. This caught on and those fiscally-minded employees kept having to get new gifts to replace the ones taken by the people using this strategy. Obviously, no wait, *OBVIOUSLY* the accounting people, who may or may not know what the gifts actually are, would not choose the best gifts first because they know they will just be taken from them. In actuality, they don't have to bother with a careful selection so long as everyone else thinks that accounting has some greater insight. The gifts will be taken regardless of their perceived quality and so the accountant gets numerous turns to choose the gifts they might actually want.
I decided that it would be better to get a "medium" quality gift from the start (when the collection is bigger) and hope that everybody goes for the big ticket items and leaves mine alone. So I picked a manilla envelope from the box early in the game. For some reason, Joe decided he liked my envelope and took it during his turn. It's not the first time I've been STABBED IN THE BACK by joe. Don't even get me started on the History of the World match where he ruthlessly turned on me and destroyed both of our chances of winning, despite my not even being in first place. Anyway, eventually Joe settled on a box he thought was an ipod or some sort of mp3 player. I chose to not take somebody else's gift, instead grabbing a new medium quality one from the gift table. The general concensus was that my box contained tax software, a gift we had seen at last year's party. Finally our strategies were put to the test.
For their folly, Pookie received a free appetizer WITH PURCHASE OF A MEAL at Longhorn (? I think). RunsOn was unclear as to the exact nature of his gift but we surmise that it was at least a few free meals at Applebee's (ew). Joe, for his SENSELESS BACKSTABBING WAYS received not the ipod of his dreams, nor the free flight lesson of my original envelope, but an AM/FM alarm clock radio. Kishan was tricked out of a 19" television for a boardgame. And my "tax software" turned out to be the Superbit Director's Cut Extended-Play Platinum Double-CD Limited Edition Widescreen Bonus Feature DVD Gift Set of Spider Man 2. I haven't seen Spider Man 1 yet but I was pleased. I'll take Kirsten Dunst over Applebee's any day.
posted by outpostbabu at 11:47 PM
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