Giving Campaign stories
Some coworkers and I organized a Microsoft bridge night the other friday - what my partner Dell insisted on calling "the prestige event of the year." It was for the annual Giving Campaign. There were 10 tables, at least 50 bucks donated per table, plus the MS dollar-for-dollar match, totaling to over $1000 raised for the United Way of King County.
The most rewarding part was introducing several social players to the rules of duplicate at the beginning of the night. They asked good questions and, although I felt clumsy doing it, I had a fun time teaching. It's a weird feeling when I know several orders of magnitude more about something than someone - I feel like I might run them over if I don't tread lightly, and I'm self-conscious about it.
Anyway, the best thing I could do was just have them get in some practice hands, so that's what we did.
Speaking of the Giving Campaign, I had a strange conversation with an admin on my floor today. She came by and dropped off some sundries, like a water bottle, a bracelet, and a fortune cookie, all with some reference to the giving campaign. The conversation went like this:
"What's this for?" I said.
"It's for the Giving campaign."
"Yeah, but I mean, what specifically?"
"It's just for the Giving campaign."
"Oh, so it's just reminding me to give some money."
"Well, but I can't say that" she said, quite seriously. "I'm just supposed to silently drop these on peoples' desks." She made a motion with her fingers as if to drop something, and then backed away.
Apparently, it is not politically correct to ask someone to donate money or time to charitable causes.
I decree it to be time for the pendulum of political correctness to start swinging the other way.
The most rewarding part was introducing several social players to the rules of duplicate at the beginning of the night. They asked good questions and, although I felt clumsy doing it, I had a fun time teaching. It's a weird feeling when I know several orders of magnitude more about something than someone - I feel like I might run them over if I don't tread lightly, and I'm self-conscious about it.
Anyway, the best thing I could do was just have them get in some practice hands, so that's what we did.
Speaking of the Giving Campaign, I had a strange conversation with an admin on my floor today. She came by and dropped off some sundries, like a water bottle, a bracelet, and a fortune cookie, all with some reference to the giving campaign. The conversation went like this:
"What's this for?" I said.
"It's for the Giving campaign."
"Yeah, but I mean, what specifically?"
"It's just for the Giving campaign."
"Oh, so it's just reminding me to give some money."
"Well, but I can't say that" she said, quite seriously. "I'm just supposed to silently drop these on peoples' desks." She made a motion with her fingers as if to drop something, and then backed away.
Apparently, it is not politically correct to ask someone to donate money or time to charitable causes.
I decree it to be time for the pendulum of political correctness to start swinging the other way.