Hardworking, Alpha Male, Jackhammer

Do you ever take online trivia quizzes when you are bored? I like them. Not only because I like to test my knowledge, but also because I remember lots of funny scenes from tv shows and what not. It is an enjoyable time. You know what I find particularly vexing? Getting your score for an online quiz and them not telling you what questions you missed or what the right answers are. C’mon people! That is nice that I scored an 18 out of 20, but if I don’t know what I got wrong, I’ll miss the question again if asked by another site. I do want to sharpen my knowledge, not just see how well I did. Frustrating.

A couple weeks ago I was talking to a co-worker, who is probably the closest thing I have to a friend at work, and I mentioned something about watching the office. A couple days later she came back and attempted to test how big of a fan I actually was. Her test was a simple question of what kind of office merchandise to I own. Apparently, another person in my office has a bobble head Dwight doll and some other memorabilia, along with an office trivia board game. I later found out that he got the game as a gift and hasn’t even opened it, but that was beside the point. I exclaimed that it was not a proper judgment on his fanitude and of course challenged him to his own game. He accepted the challenge and our co-worker who got us started on this decided she would be the moderator or official. We tried to set up a day to have this challenge over a lunch break, but it didn’t work out for the next 2 weeks because of business, vacation days, and what not.

After talking trash back in forth in office-ese we decided this needed to happen as soon as possible. We arrived on the date of 10/23 on our lunch break and we are going to get some pizza and have ourselves a showdown. In the following couple days, it crossed my mind that 2 people playing a trivia game and one person officiating might be a little lame. Since I’m sure that there are some other Office fans around, I started asking around to see if someone else would join just. There were a lot of people that had seen some episodes, but did not think that could really compete. Though they wouldn’t compete, they said they would come and hang out for the social event. Now we had 2 people playing, an official and 3 people watching. Finally we found a 3rd competitor. He was on vacation this week, but another co-worker assured us that he is a big fan and would be a fierce competitor, so he got volunteered. Now we had 3 players, an official, and 4 people watching. It occurred to me that other people might get left out, so we made the decision to go ahead and invite the whole office. I told our official to go ahead and send out a mass email.

The result, of course, was not what I was expecting. Instead of inviting others to join in on the game, she invited others to have pizza and watch the TWI Office Challenge. Now I have people coming up to me in my cubical and saying they are routing for me and hope that I am studying up. One guy even said he has $10 riding on my victory. Instead of a fun game among co-workers, we have an all out challenge between 3 people representing different departments with an official, support people, and fans to watch. Talk about pressure. I really need to re-watch some episodes to be on top of my game. On top of all of this, the CFO, Treasurer, and VP of our company each picked their own person to rally behind and told us that they would “sponsor” the event by paying for the food and drinks. It is amazing how this thing escalated. I was going to play a bored game with a co-worker or 2, and now I have corporate sponsors, fans, and people betting money on me. Absolutely Ridiculous!! Though it is really exciting and I think we are going to have a lot of fun. There has also been talk of getting some awards from our marketing department.

I get to take off work Monday – Wednesday for a vacation with Liz and her parents. I’m really looking forward to some time off and good fun with family. Plus my sister is getting married tomorrow, so there is all kinds of excitement going around. I think I’m going to have a lot of fun over the next 5 days, and after it is all over, I am going to come back to work and compete in the greatest trivia challenge of my life. Or possibly second greatest compared to Ali’s trivia madness over the holidays. Of course, I didn’t have corporate sponsors for her event.