Fantasy Sports
I'm pretty derisory towards fantasy sports. You're not building real teams but making assumptions based on a number of stats and some intangibles you feel in your gut. All for what? The other problem is that there is always someone with less than a life than you who is more into everything and will most likely beat you.
Well, the Olympics are an odd thing. The other week I was sick and missed the general office meeting. Later, one of my co-workers told me about a fantasy Olympics game the company was going to run and the prizes involved.
I nonchalantly said that I would play just to block someone who really wanted the prize from getting it. Then I forgot about it until the day before the Olympics. In between tasks, I built my Olympics fantasy team. I just chose certain countries and sports due to reputation and tanked the less certain stuff.
This morning, when I logged on to work, I saw that I was in 13th place out of 3,200+ players. The top prize goes to the top 12 finishers. This was essentially the equivalent of finishing 4th in the real Olympics.
By the time I logged off, I was 10th. I was also #5 in the US for our sector and #1 in the Boston office.
I really should stop paying attention because I don't want to get so emotional over it. Also, I don't really care so much for the top prize because it means hanging out with 11 other people in the company who all have better jobs than I.
I'm just taking satisfaction that I'm beating out a whole bunch of partners, consultants and accountants. At least, I am beating them for the time being. Things can easily change.