We're in the money
So yesterday was Melbourne Cup day.
In my office, it means someone running a sweepstakes, and everyone who's around gathering to drink wine, eat chips and watch the race.
The sweepstakes is run by the most junior employee (who also puts up the Christmas decorations). Last year, they didn't do this - they asked a slightly less junior employee, on the grounds that she was familiar with gambling due to her ethnic background.
Big assumption, big mistake. The traditional office sweepstake involves the exchange of a $2 coin for a horse, "out of the hat", so to speak. Each horse can only be chosen once, everyone gets a turn to pick a horse before second picks are allowed, etc. No one informed this nice girl of the rules, and there were all sorts of complicated betting rules called into play, none of which any of us had heard of before. It's like she was a little mini-TAB all her own - but crucially, minus the financial backing.
This year it went according to plan, and despite my failure to ever win anything in a game of chance, I paid my $2 (office spirit, people!).
Around an hour before the race, the man in the office with more technical ability than a flea (note: there is only one in my office) tried to turn the TV on. Only to discover that the expensive screen that's caused nothing but trouble since the day it was purchased, was causing trouble again. Oh, and that it can't get TV reception without the cable TV that Finance made us cancel.
I made a mercy dash home to get our cable TV box, remote and a bunch of cables. Our super-complicated TV/ stereo/ streaming MP3 player/ DVD recorder/ cable setup makes for a lot of wires, let me tell you.
Back at the office with the goods, we got a picture but no sound. Every man in the building decided it was his duty to fiddle with the cables, but to no avail. So out came the ancient boombox: TV pictures, radio sound. It made the irritating TV3 commentators much less so: I could imagine them saying entirely more interesting things than I'm sure they said.
Fashion in the field: too many short, short skirts on girls who are too old to show their wa-was in public (ladies, you are not Madonna!); and too many people whose substantial wealth still faield to buy them dress sense.
At least the race was good.
And it was a bloody good race, wasn't it? We all bellowed like nobody's business, especially me, because for a change I had a horse that was in it from the beginning.
So "in it", in fact, that it won. (Shame about the crying jockey.)
And most uncannily: The Trouser had randomly picked the same horse in his office sweepstakes. We're in the money, baby!
In my office, it means someone running a sweepstakes, and everyone who's around gathering to drink wine, eat chips and watch the race.
The sweepstakes is run by the most junior employee (who also puts up the Christmas decorations). Last year, they didn't do this - they asked a slightly less junior employee, on the grounds that she was familiar with gambling due to her ethnic background.
Big assumption, big mistake. The traditional office sweepstake involves the exchange of a $2 coin for a horse, "out of the hat", so to speak. Each horse can only be chosen once, everyone gets a turn to pick a horse before second picks are allowed, etc. No one informed this nice girl of the rules, and there were all sorts of complicated betting rules called into play, none of which any of us had heard of before. It's like she was a little mini-TAB all her own - but crucially, minus the financial backing.
This year it went according to plan, and despite my failure to ever win anything in a game of chance, I paid my $2 (office spirit, people!).
Around an hour before the race, the man in the office with more technical ability than a flea (note: there is only one in my office) tried to turn the TV on. Only to discover that the expensive screen that's caused nothing but trouble since the day it was purchased, was causing trouble again. Oh, and that it can't get TV reception without the cable TV that Finance made us cancel.
I made a mercy dash home to get our cable TV box, remote and a bunch of cables. Our super-complicated TV/ stereo/ streaming MP3 player/ DVD recorder/ cable setup makes for a lot of wires, let me tell you.
Back at the office with the goods, we got a picture but no sound. Every man in the building decided it was his duty to fiddle with the cables, but to no avail. So out came the ancient boombox: TV pictures, radio sound. It made the irritating TV3 commentators much less so: I could imagine them saying entirely more interesting things than I'm sure they said.
Fashion in the field: too many short, short skirts on girls who are too old to show their wa-was in public (ladies, you are not Madonna!); and too many people whose substantial wealth still faield to buy them dress sense.
At least the race was good.
And it was a bloody good race, wasn't it? We all bellowed like nobody's business, especially me, because for a change I had a horse that was in it from the beginning.
So "in it", in fact, that it won. (Shame about the crying jockey.)
And most uncannily: The Trouser had randomly picked the same horse in his office sweepstakes. We're in the money, baby!
posted by The Skirt at 8:39 am
3 Comments:
I still don't know who won (seeing as I didn't get anywhere in our office sweepstakes). So unlike when I lived in Oz where hardly any work got done on Cup day!
I got Delta Blues too!
We got rid of our office tv when we moved (it was about 20 years old) and haven't bought a new one yet as we're saving for a plasma screen. A few people went across the road to watch it in a bar but I had too much work to do. So I didn't know I'd won until I checked the internet at about 6!
Oh, was there a big horse race on?
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