Let's pretend that you're at work and you're on a teleconference call with a bunch of people. Since you're on a conference call, that means that there are folks in different physical locations. It doesn't really matter whether you're in two different rooms in the same building or in two different countries, the important part is that you're not actually in the same room.
The other salient point in that first sentence is that it's a "tele"-conference call, meaning that you're mainly relying on the audio, and there may or may not be video. For the sake of argument, let's say it's one of the older pieces of technology that doesn't include video conferencing.
So, you now have a situation where you've got at least two physically-separated locations, and you have people on either side who can't actually see each other. This is not an uncommon situation, and there are decent odds that you've been in a situation like this before.
Now, given this situation, let's inject the statement, "how do we decide who gets to choose?" The actual thing that needs to be chosen isn't particularly important, but what is important is that you now need to find a fair way for people who can only hear each other to make a decision. You could just have one side of the call choose, or you could be somewhat mature about it and say, "you guys go first" (on either side).
Yeah, we didn't do that.
Instead, we decided that the only fair way to settle this was a game of rock-paper-scissors. Yes, I'm talking about the childhood game that basically involves guess-work. There isn't really skill involved in the game (unless you're super duper competitive about it), so it's the rough equivalent of a coin toss.
However, some of you may be wondering how we played this game given that we couldn't see each other. That's one of the key elements of deciding who won the round. Well, what's to stop you from playing verbal rock-paper-scissors?
Yes, you read that correctly. We counted to three, and on three, people blurted out whether they played rock, paper, or scissors. I don't even remember who won, but the whole thing made me giggle like mad. I mean, c'mon, we were playing verbal rock-paper-scissors. Best yet, the first couple of rounds were a tie, so we had to do this a few times.
I'm telling you, sometimes work can be fun.
The other salient point in that first sentence is that it's a "tele"-conference call, meaning that you're mainly relying on the audio, and there may or may not be video. For the sake of argument, let's say it's one of the older pieces of technology that doesn't include video conferencing.
So, you now have a situation where you've got at least two physically-separated locations, and you have people on either side who can't actually see each other. This is not an uncommon situation, and there are decent odds that you've been in a situation like this before.
Now, given this situation, let's inject the statement, "how do we decide who gets to choose?" The actual thing that needs to be chosen isn't particularly important, but what is important is that you now need to find a fair way for people who can only hear each other to make a decision. You could just have one side of the call choose, or you could be somewhat mature about it and say, "you guys go first" (on either side).
Yeah, we didn't do that.
Instead, we decided that the only fair way to settle this was a game of rock-paper-scissors. Yes, I'm talking about the childhood game that basically involves guess-work. There isn't really skill involved in the game (unless you're super duper competitive about it), so it's the rough equivalent of a coin toss.
However, some of you may be wondering how we played this game given that we couldn't see each other. That's one of the key elements of deciding who won the round. Well, what's to stop you from playing verbal rock-paper-scissors?
Yes, you read that correctly. We counted to three, and on three, people blurted out whether they played rock, paper, or scissors. I don't even remember who won, but the whole thing made me giggle like mad. I mean, c'mon, we were playing verbal rock-paper-scissors. Best yet, the first couple of rounds were a tie, so we had to do this a few times.
I'm telling you, sometimes work can be fun.
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