Office Pools

I was just reading a blog entry about what office workers create betting pools on. The responses to the entry were:

• "O.J. Trial"
• "Lottery"
• "Births (Baby Pools)"
• "Survivor"
• "Pick a winner on Survivor, Pregnancy Pool, just about anything"
• "Lottery"

I laughed at how innocent the entries seemed to be. At my company, the pools are more like:

• Number of weeks until the C-(insert your own C-level executive) resigns
• Mean time between organizational direction shifts
• Date of the next angry employee resignation letter sent to bcc: "Entire Freaking Company"
• Number of degrees of (hierarchical) separation between you and the CEO (highest # wins at end of the year)
• Mean number of emails sent daily
  
• Highest number of emails marked "unread" at end of year

I've also started to think about starting a global bingo game where employees would send $5 daily through PayPal to a server in Jamaica. The game would consist of a 5x5 square, populated with random events as predicted a week in the future. For example, some squares might include:

• Stock market breaks 15,000
• New York Times front-page headline uses word "Iraq"
• Apple announces layoffs
• Hillary Clinton announces she did not have sexual relations with Obama

The squares would be randomized and auto-populated based on events during the day. Winners would be paid the payout, divided evenly by the number of winners. The squares would change daily and any pot not claimed would be rolled over into the next day (minus daily maintenance fees, of course). There could also be a last-minute buy-in where users who are only waiting on 1 square to claim "bingo" could buy a new (randomized) square if they are doubtful their square will happen.

If you can't find me in the next few years, look for me in Zihuatanejo, sanding a boat, and looking very tan.