Learn As You Go This Ain't

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Off to an orientation for New Job tomorrow.

As much as I like the idea of working at a museum, I am not looking forward to it. They can try all they want to make it dynamic and engaging, but I have yet to go to a general orientation that doesn't wind up feeling like you've just been introduced to a cool-sounding new board/card/sportsball/video game, but before you can dive in and start to figure it out some lawyer wannabe insists on reading ALL OF THE INSTRUCTIONS aloud, in slow motion.* And since your brain cannot conceptualize things that way, it means that you have to sit around shuffling cards or dice or something while a hopeless stream of gibberish is monotoned at you.

But hey, as long as it doesn't end with the guy in charge setting my drug test urine sample on the table in front of all the other new employees/interns and muttering darkly about PCP while making a note on his clipboard, it will not be the worst job orientation I have ever been at, so there's that!


*Speaking of lawyers, never play Scrabble with a for-real one. No matter what your attitude starting out, you will NOT wind up having a casual friendly fun time. You WILL, however, end up with an urge to murder everyone.

Comments

[beccastareyes]

I do come from a family of cutthroat Scrabble players who are scientists. Granted, since you knew that going in, it was a bit easier when you get into discussions over whether a certain word counts as an acronym/foreign word/proper noun or had worked its way into the English language enough to not count as one. It kind of spoils you for casual play.

(It also meant that any day I could beat my stepmother at Scrabble, I felt pretty good, and any day I'd beat my father... well, that would be awesome and I don't think I've ever actually done it.)

The other side of the family is more about card games, and is equally competitive, enough that 'because I love you' was the proper way to address any strong play against an opponent so the little kids could learn that just because someone creams you at cards doesn't mean they are out to get you personally. Going easy on the kids is not a part of how Mom's side of the family plays cards.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

My mother was a terrifying juggernaut of doom at Dutch Blitz, which we tended to play in 5-7 person clusters. But at least when it was just family, we tended to deal with that by having actual handicapping. Since you need to run through your stack of cards, my mom would take a few extra cards in the stack, and the youngest kids would take a few less, to give them a fighting chance. (Since my mom comes from a family of golfers, it made perfect sense to have a formal handicap.) So no one felt completely curbstomped, but it was also a point of pride to be able to work up to using the standard number of cards.

[beccastareyes]

Most of the games my family likes are things like Scat or rummy-style games where a lot of the game is based on being lucky in what you draw (though observation skills help).

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

My approach to board games is unbelievably casual. Unless I am in an official tournament with a cash prize, I am more about the creativity and fun than the competition.

With Scrabble, it could also be that as a descriptive linguist I am easily convinced of the validity of a word. Do we all know what 'pwn' means? Then it counts, dangit!

[beccastareyes]

That is a compelling point; or at least a reason to agree on the rules before one plays.

[shadesofmauve]

Mom and I tend to play a free-for-all version of scrabble in which we happily use made-up words if they sound awesome and like they SHOULD mean what we say. Kind of Balderdash/Scrabble, I suppose. Obviously not very competitive.

We've also played with the goal of filling in as much blank space as possible (so things had to work all which way) and extending OFF the board over two feet of tabletop.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Huh. I would have guessed you'd get hit up more with suspicion of hallucinogen use than PCP.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Fun Fact: did you know that some brands of antidepressant creat false PCP positives on drug tests? I SURE DIDN'T UNTIL THAT DAY

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I did not know that. That's a hell of a thing to not point out when prescribing something :P

[childthursday.livejournal.com]

Don't play Scrabble with lawyers or academics. I freely admit to being the least fun Scrabble player ever. I have a degree that validates my big vocabulary dammit.

I am hoping orientation generates some awesome stories from you.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, as I noted in an above comment, linguists may not count in that "academic" category. Or go to far in their usage. "Look, we all KNOW what 'pwn' means, right? It is TOTALLY a word then!"

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

Strip Scrabble is a thing that has happened in our household.

[daiq.livejournal.com]

Uno is a bloodsport! I didn't understand that other families didn't play that way for a long time!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I don't think the High Powered Lawyer I played with would have gone for that. At least, I HOPE he wouldn't have, since he's my uncle ...