Mega-millions and Me: Reflections on fear and greed in the work place.

While I am certainly no stranger to the 7 Deadly Vices, I do not consider myself greedy by nature. For example, I don’t particularly covet or aspire to great wealth. As a result, I have never had any particular interest in the lottery. But recently, where I work, they had this office pool for Mega-millions. I guess I hadn’t checked my e-mail during the day to read about it. But at the very last minute, I found out not only that it was happening, but that I was the only person in the office who had not chosen to participate and that it was too late to join. I suddenly felt this desperate, irrational desire not to be left out. I could not imagine anything worse than showing up at work the next day and finding out that everyone had won a big, solid gold “get out of work free” card except for me. I could see them all celebrating, unable to contain their glee while I stared on blankly like a baseball player watching the visiting team celebrate a World Series victory on my home field. Haunted by images of this intolerable (and, of course, now suddenly inevitable) eventuality, I tried to negotiate with my office mates/friends to let me in. But they, having already calculated—and theoretically spent-- their anticipated portion of the winnings, were curiously wary about having another person entering the deal. Sure, by contributing my ticket to the collective pool, I would slightly increase their chances of winning. But, their share of the winnings would suddenly be slightly smaller. And since in their irrational lottery-addled minds they’d already won the damn thing, the slightly increased probability of winning was far less compelling to them than the slightly diminished per person take away. I was finally able to convince them to let me buy the ticket and sign a paper swearing that, if my ticket won, I would contribute the winnings to the group pool. And thus I was able to sleep soundly that night. Anyhow, what I found fascinating about the whole experience (beside the the each-man-for-himself “Treasures of the Sierra Madres” overtones; the sudden glimpse into the selfish and mistrustful beast within us all) was the fact that I had no real interest in winning. I simply didn’t want to be left out. I had in effect, not bought a lottery ticket, but a $5 insurance policy against that happening. And it was money well spent. I’m not sure what it says about my psyche, but there it is.

Oh, and by the way, we won.

Just kidding.

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Posted on 12/9/2005 ( Permanent Link )
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