Well, not the lottery; but…
On Tuesday we were having the office holiday party and pot luck. After the “white elephant” exchange the department director stood up. He said, “Okay, since R___ is always asking about cash bonuses, here they are!” He passed out lottery “scratcher” tickets named “Cash Bonus” to everyone. He took one “scratcher” from the top of the stack and gave one to each person in turn… until he got to R___. He skipped R___ and gave a ticket to G_____. Then he said, “Just kidding!” and gave the next ticket to R___.
The ticket he gave to G_____ (the one that, if given in order, would have been given to R____) was a $100 winner! R___'s ticket was not a winner.
These guys are fairly close. They share ethnic heritage and they sit in adjoining cubicles. R___ complains over the partition that G_____ “stole” his $100. G_____ replies that it was just the “luck of the draw” and that it could easily have been the other way round. R___ says that the ticket should have been his, except C______ distributed them out of order. This is all done in a joking manner. But I wonder: How serious is R___? He’s a good-natured guy and jokes a lot. Is he really mad? Or is he just playing a game?
In any case G_____ has already “spent the money”, having put cash in his grandkids’ Christmas cards. He had no intention of sharing, feeling that since it was “the luck of the draw” he won the money fairly.
(Parenthetically, which is why I’m putting this in parentheses, G_____ is pretty competitive. We were having a “fun” meeting and the organizer gave us a five-minute break. He said that the first one back from the break would win a prize. G_____ and I went upstairs to get some papers. Now I’m normally a fast walker, and others have often told me to slow down. So I’m walking normally and G_____ is practically racing me to the door. It was kind of funny seeing this guy who’s past retirement-age “running” to “beat” me. Of course he got back to the meeting room first, as I wasn’t about to race anyone for the kind of prise that was likely to be given out. He won a “Kush ball”, and was quite happy about winning it. Co-worker J____ said she should have won it because she never even left the room! Not that she wanted it, though. We were just having too much fun being amused by G_____'s antics.)
Anyway… J____ said that if she were in G_____'s position (winning the lottery ticket, not the Kush ball), she would have split the money with R___. This is the view of others as well. She also said that C______ shouldn’t have “messed” with the tickets and that he should have handed them out in order.
On the one hand, nobody knew if there were any winning tickets at all so it really was the luck of the draw. On the other hand, it’s ironic that the one time C______ was kidding around with them, the outcome was as it was. Certainly if C______ hadn’t been playful there would be no controversy.
What would I have done if I was in G_____'s position? I probably would have treated R___ to lunch at a very nice restaurant that everyone likes but is too expensive for us to go to, and I would have kept the balance. It’s not as sportsmanlike as dividing the cash equally, but it’s probably what I would have done.
If you were G_____ and had received a winning $100 lottery ticket that should have gone to R___ (and of course not knowing what the ticket held beforehand), what would you do?
