Torneo de Ping Pong en el trabajo

Ahora que trabajo en una empresa de tamaño modesto, he notado una gran diferencia en como estas empresas tratan de hacer del ambiente de trabajo algo mas grato para el empleado. El departamento de recursos humanos siempre esta ideando eventos y actividades para fomentar la camadaderia y la socializacion entre empleados: cosas como cervezas en los últimos 15 minutos de cada viernes, fiesta en las ultimas 2 horas del primer viernes de cada mes, equipo de basketball, equipo de dodgeball, competencias de pasos, etc son cosas que hacen que trabajar no se sienta tanto como un lugar donde tienes que trabajar, sino, como un lugar donde vas a echar cuento y a pasar el tiempo. Algo, así como el colegio donde ibas todos los días a echar cuento, jugar deportes y a hablar con chicas y el único precio que tenias que pagar era entrar a clases y estudiar para examenes. Era un precio alto, no lo niego, pero la mayoría de las cosas buenas de la vida son así.

La ultima iniciativa fue adquirir una mesa de ping pong y para inaugurarla querían organizar un torneo. Yo estaba super emocionado, ya que en el colegio yo me la pasaba jugando en las mesas de ping pong. Incluso recuerdo que 2 veces me expulsaron temporalmente del colegio porque me jubilaba de clases para jugar ping pong. O, quizás, fue la primera vez por jugar ping pong y la segunda por jugar ajedrez? Si, creo que fue así porque no creo que fuera tan brutico en aquel tiempo como para dejarme expulsar 2 veces por la misma razón.

En una clara demonstracion de mal juicio, el departamento de recursos humanos, me pregunto si me quería encargar de organizar el torneo. Al principio tenia dudas de aceptar. Tenia pocos meses en el trabajo, no me sabia los nombres del 90% de mis colegas y no me sentía con suficiente confianza como para encargarme de eso. Además, que como nuevo empleado nadie me conocía bastante bien y todos me trataban muy profesional y con mucho respeto y no quería perder eso tan rápido. Pero la chica de HR me insistió: me dijo que no tenia que ser algo muy formal y que lo organizara como yo creyera mas conveniente y que simplemente me divirtiera mientras lo hacia

Y si que me divertí! Aquí le dejo algunos de los emails que mande durante el proceso. Desafortunadamente no los pude encontrar todos, pero algo es algo, y creo que son suficiente para pintar una imagen del proceso.

Este es el primer email que envié para ver quienes se interesaban en participar.

To: ALLUSERS

From: Gian Puma

Hi Everyone

We are very pleased to announce that the Prestigious Minter Ellison Ping Pong Grand Slam Tournament is about to start.

This prestigious event is reserved for the most talented table tennis players around the world; however, for the first time in its entire history, the Minter Ellison Ping Pong Tournament will be open to ALL Minter Ellison employees.

This is a fantastic opportunity for you to become a part of history, and join a long list of players who have endured the physical and mental hardships that this tournament imposes on its competitors. Only those who have shown resilience, endurance, genius level intelligence, leadership, caring, Hollywood good looks, treat their pets right and have consistently shown a good hair do during the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s, have been able to win it all in the past, so join today and be the tournament first champion.

But that’s not all. Also, for limited time, we have reduced the entry fee in an amazing 250.72%. So, only for the next 15 minutes after you read this, the entry fee will be reduced to only $9.99 and, as if that were not enough, the first "x" people to sign up will receive a nice card or something. 

So Hurry up! And take advantage of this amazing offer!!! Joining is easy, just email the Royal Organizing Committee (this email's sender) expressing your interest and we'll contact you with the tournament details.

Tournament Rules (boring stuff! – No need to read past this point really)

- Players are required to make themselves available for interviews with the media after each game. Failure to do so may result in heavy fines for which the amount will be set by the Royal Organizing Committed at the moment of infraction

- Players are required to observe proper behaviour during games. Failure to do to do so may result in heavy fines for which the amount will be set by the Organizing Committed at the moment of infraction

- All other fines that the Organizing Committee may think appropriate in order to get some lunch money

- Trophies and prizes will be acquired based on players entry fees less money used by the Organizing Committee to go to lunch while organizing this significant event. 

Varias personas expresaron su interés después de este email así que el siguiente paso era decidir si hacia una competición individual o de dobles. A mí me emocionaba la idea de dobles así que organice un formato basado en equipos por departamentos de manera que se creara  un poco de competición saludable y decidir de una vez por todas  cual es el departamento que más ayuda a la empresa y cuáles son los departamentos que solo crean peso y arrastran a la empresa hacia un pozo sin fondo del que nunca podrá salir. Envie el siguiente email

From: Gian Puma
Sent: Monday, 20 April 2015 9:45 AM
To: Table Tennis Distribution List
Subject: FW: Table tennis tournament

Hi Everyone

These is the list of people who want to participate. We noticed that we almost have 2 people per department so We thought we could turn this into a doubles competition where people could compete for their department glory and something like the Most Important Minter Ellison Department title.

The thing is that you wouldn't get to pick your teammate, except for the law department who have 4 people so they can swap. Also BD (my department) only has one player (I begged the girls to play in order to defend the name and honour of our department, but they just looked at me funny) so we'll have to borrow one from IT who has 3 players

What do you think? Does it sound like a good idea or would you prefer to play one on one?

If you like the idea these are the teams

Table Tennis Tournament - Doubles Competition
Participants Department Team Thomas finance The Bean Counters Rabih finance PaulM IT The Code Michael IT Susie Law 1 Law Stuff 1 PaulD Law 1 Melissa Law 2 Law Stuff 2 Jade Law 2 Kellie Secretary The Enablers Melanie Secretary Linda HR The Salary Keepers Jenelle (*2) HR Malcom (*1) Business Development The Client Baiters Gian Puma Business Development
*1 Not really BD, but after lengthy discussions in our department was agreed to be made honorary
team member on the basis that he helped us fix some email issue that we had a couple of months ago
*2 Still on the process of convincing her to participate, but needed to complete the set

Desafortunadamente a la gente no le gustó mucho la idea así que el formato quedo decidido en 1 contra 1

Hi Everyone

The people have spoken and general consensus is to play a singles competition (also logistically easier)

Competition starts 2^nd of May, which gives everyone a week to honed your skills and prepare both physically and mentally for what's to come.

Normal training routines recommended for the next 2 weeks, in order to maximize your chances of winning a competition such as this include:

·         Running 15km a day

·         Healthy eating (no meats, no cakes/chocolates, no beers)

·         1hr talks with a certified table tennis sport phycologist

·         1 hr a day of watching table tennis competition matches on YouTube to develop your tactical skills

·         Hitting 1500 forehands and 1500 backhands a day

·         1 hr a day of meditation to become one with the ball

In the meantime I'll prepare a schedule of play which I'll send to everyone soon

El siguiente paso era organizar el orden de los juegos y si iba a ser tipo round robín o straight knock-out. Yo nunca había organizado una de estas cosas antes hacía que no estaba familiarizado con los términos. Hable con uno de los muchachos que se unió al torneo y el me paso el nombre de una página donde puedes descargar los formatos

Hi Everyone

After hours of work The Royal Table Tennis Tournament Committee has finalized the tournament format and order of play.

The format is as follows:

·         Participants are separated into two main groups : the men branch and the women branch

·         Each branch plays a Double Elimination tournament style (explained below) to determine the champion of their corresponding branch (men's champion and women's champion)

·         The two champions battle it out to determine who The Ultimate-Undisputed-Grand-Slam-Table-Tennis-Master-Of-Minter-Ellison (the winner) is.

How does a Double Elimination Tournament Style works?

Glass-Half--Empty Definition: you have to lose at least twice to be disqualified

Glass-Half-Full Definition: you get at least two chances to win

How do I read the Tournament Draws Diagram

·         The numbers to the left of the names (1 to 7) mean the seeding position (explained below)

·         The number between each game is the game number (we want to have the games in that order)

·         Each branch (Men and Women) has two brackets: the winner's bracket and the loser's bracket. If you lose one game you move down to the loser brackets and you get one more shot at winning the whole thing

·         The winners of the 12 game in each branch are the champions and will play one last game to determine the winner

How were the seeds and order of play determined?

Seeds and matchups were determined using the names-in-a-hat methodology. The innocent hand belonged to Rabih Halabi who, coincidently, draw the number 1 seed and got a BYE on the first round. You are encouraged to contact Rabih if you didn't like your seeding place or if you just want to know more about how he got the number 1 seed.

Prices and Entry Fee

The HR department has kindly offered to cover the entry fee for all participants (yay!!!). Participation prizes will also be awarded by the HR department. The "form" of this prizes will be revealed at the end of the tournament.

Feel free to ask any questions

  

Después de aquí se me ocurrió establecer algunas reglas

Hi everyone

The Royal ME Table Tennis Organizing Committee thought that we may benefit for having some rules set in the tournament so they set about making something up.

Here are the official Table Tennis Tournament Rules approved by ample majority in the committee

Game Format

A match is made of 3 games of 11 points each game

The one who gets to 2 games first, wins the match and moves to the next round

Games Scheduling

We'll keep this very relaxed. Each round, I send emails to the players that are going to compete and then you agree among yourselves the best time to play. You don't have to organize the game on that same day, but try not to take more than 3 days to play your game so that things don't take too long

Keeping Score

I'll provide players with a template which they'll fill out after finishing their games with information such as (winners of each game, winner of match and points). After the game you can email/fax/bring it to me and I'll update the tournament bracket

The rules of the games

In regards to the general rules of the game (how to serve, how many serves, how to win, etc.), our speaker today will give us a little overview on that

El "speaker" fue una persona que administra un club de ping pong local que es conocido de la Gerente de Recursos Humanos y que amablemente se ofreció a venir el día de la inauguración para decir unas palabras. Gratis por supuesto. Es impresionante cuantas personas están dispuestas a ofrecer su tiempo gratuitamente en Australia.

Hi Everyone

Here are the results for the first round. Congrats! to the winners so far.

On the Women side Suzie has dominated the game. She did throw some threats around at the Opening Ceremony so it was expected

On the men side we've got the following first round winners: Andrew, Paul, Paul, Thomas.

To those of us who lost our first game, I want to remind you that there's still chance as each branch championship is played between the "Winner's Bracket" finalist and the "Loser's Bracket" finalist (see the draw sheets), and NO I did NOT rigged the tournament to make it work like this, as people have suggested, it was organized like that from the very beginning J

Feel free to organize you second round games when you have a chance

Desafortunadamente debido a las condiciones del clima en la oficina donde está la mesa de ping pong yo perdí el primer juego, pero ya que el formato del torneo se había hecho DESDE EL PRINCIPIO de manera que permitiera a cada jugador un segundo chance, todavía quedaban esperanzas. Después de un par de semana teniamos un finalista

We have our first finalist on the men's side: PaulM which defeated Andrew this week. Both players had gone undefeated before the match, but as there can only be one winner Paul emerged victorious. See the draw for games played, results and next games to be played

We also have our first disqualification: Me! I was faced with 2 very strong opponents, possibly professional level players if you ask me, but I am not going to name names here as that's not what this is about.

However, some players have expressed their concern about how some of us got placed in very disadvantageous positions in the draw which may have forced our early exits, and have suggested that we should probably start over and consider all this practice, but as a fair competitor I recognize my loss and bid you to continue the tournament (Unless a big majority wants to start again or something in which case I'll do what the majority wants of course) and determine our first Table Tennis Grand Slam Champion J

Find attached the updated draws. Please organise your games when convenient.

Good luck everyone! J J

PaulM fue el primer jugador en llegar a la final y yo el primer descalificado, lo cual me hizo sospechar que quizás el torneo fue arreglado. Después de un par de semanas Andrew tuvo una segunda oportunidad de derrotar a PaulM en la final ya que logro derrotar a todos los jugadores del "loser bracket", pero Paul volvió a ganar y se convirtió en el primer

Ultimate-Undisputed-Grand-Slam-Table… Who cares!