Santa Clause: Terrorist.

[Malice]

Does it get any more ridiculous?

This just about made me blow coffee all over my keyboard. What in the hell is going on in the minds of people these days?

"staff organising school Christmas parties should take care not to arrange competitive games with winners and losers, to avoid upsetting the children."

No. Mask the children from the state of the real world, where competition is without existance, and everyone gets an equal share of the pie. There are no losers....we are all winners.

"If you have prizes, make sure there is also something small for everyone at some stage."

I just want to hug someone.

Although the recommendations where removed from the Department of Educations web-site, I wonder who the persons were that sat around a table and considered these recommendations; probably a bunch of losers.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Malice

No. Mask the children from the state of the real world, where competition is without existance, and everyone gets an equal share of the pie. There are no losers....we are all winners.

Only a limited number of things in life can be equated to winner-takes-all or zero-sum games. I'd imagine in a lot of jobs you don't face much in the form of intense day-to-day competetion (especially outside of pressurised environments like sales or somesuch) very often, if at all. Looking at my own life, I faced a lot more stupid ranking/competetion/grading at school than I have since leaving. Yes, you compete on the day of an interview (say) but most of the rest of your time at work you're much more likely to be co-operating than competing (again, I'd imagine).

So yeah, maybe the websites recommendations were a bit on the risk averse side (the stuff about Santa) but on the whole I see nothing wrong with them. What exactly is wrong with having a small gift for everyone who participates in a game/contest/whatever?

As for who came up with them, it's an illusion that bureaucrats can "waste" time. They are contracted for a specific number of hours and they may as well their time doing this as anything else. It's not like that it was either do this or perform some emergency heart transplants.

[Phang]

Originally Posted by Malice

Does it get any more ridiculous?
No. Mask the children from the state of the real world, where competition is without existance, and everyone gets an equal share of the pie. There are no losers....we are all winners.

"If you have prizes, make sure there is also something small for everyone at some stage."

god forbid we cushion the feelings of 3-year-olds after all.

christ. the argument over competitive sports day has legitimacy on both sides, but in this case you're just talking total shite.