Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Go Fish

Scumbagland yielded a whole lot of hours of boring waiting around today.

It had rained, typically, for the entire Christmas break, making the mine we were going to impassable. At least until the dozers had knocked a few layers off the existing roads to expose a bit of dry dirt. What does that mean? Five hours of waiting around with people you don't know much about.

I've been in this situation before, you see. Plenty. One amazing guy broke the awkward silences by bringing in riddles for us all to do. I've played music games. We've all spent hours playing target practice with the plentiful stones. I have a collection of fossil leaves and other interesting stones from trawling around where the truck has been parked for hours.

And I also have a pack of cards.

That's where that interesting cross-section of people becomes far more of a hinderance. We're constrained to what everybody knows how to play. The lowest common denominator. Sometimes you can jag some really good card players and set up a tournament of sorts... Other days, like today, it's junior style cards in the form of Go Fish!

There's something campfire-ish about tucking a bag of rags under your butt and dealing out the cards while you're sitting out there in the nothing of a mine. People open up to slagging each other off a bit, letting out their sometimes guarded senses of humour, relaxing a bit around people they normally don't talk to. Face it, it's better than ignoring each other and trying to sleep on a wonky bench seat in the back of a truck [ie sauna]. Sometimes a decent person will emerge through the chance to be sociable.

Go Fish stumped me today. That's a pretty basic card game. Should we hold Scumbag interviews with a mandatory gaming skills test?

Should I be campaigning for a card game rules book to be part of the daily equipment?

Dear Scumbag Boss Peoples,

I am writing in order to place a request for a copy of certain card game rule books to be placed in the glove boxes of all working vehicles (and possibly those that aren't, for later). We lower Scumbags feel that it is in the best interest of crew dynamics and sociability that group activities such as the participation in card gaming are an asset to crew dynamics and staff satisfaction. This, in turn, leads to a greater sense of camaraderie amongst employees and therefore a more positive approach to the safety of others within the crew.

Yours Sincerely,
The Scumbags in Scumbagland.



Can we have some staff training days too?

3 comments:

kelstar said...

there was this horrid game called SPOONS i used to get dragged into (in another life) i hated it!! so competitive! if all else fails you can play 21! all you need to know is..your cards need to add up to 21 and if you can do it with 5 cards or moer you beat the person that did it with 3 cards! well tahs how my brother and i used to play... my nanna used to play monoploy with me and everythime you went past a corner you had to drink your sherry...and yes she gave me sherry at the ripe age of 7...i think thats why i dont like to drink now! and if you were sent to jail you had to skull your drink...and then when you got out you had a victory drink.....i think she had a drinking problem =P

kelstar said...

dear lord, i need to sleep ....i know you have the red pen out with all my mistakes on that last post =P

dive said...

BE grateful I'm half a world away, Vic: I don't know how to play any card games at all.