Pizza. We all love pizza, don’t we.
(Well, technically that’s not true, but for the purposes of this blog let’s just assume we ALL love a nice slice of hot pizza…)
So, let’s imagine the scene…
You and your team are working late. It’s been a long day and you’ve all been working hard to meet that deadline. And it’s past 7pm, when company policy says it’s fine to order in food for everyone on expenses.
The pizza’s arrived and it’s a biggie! It’s a huge, steaming-hot pizza big enough to feed everyone in the team and it’s been placed in one of the meeting rooms with some disposable plates, some paper napkins and some drinks.
By now you are all absolutely starving. I mean, totally I’m-gonna-bite-my-own-arm-off ravenous! So it’s time to tuck in and get amongst the cheesy goodness, right?…
BUT WAIT!
What’s the best way to do this? What’s the fairest way to make sure everyone in the team gets something to eat – and remember, you’ve all been working equally hard and are equally hungry.
Which of these options do you think you should go for?
Option 1. Divide the pizza equally
You could do this:
Count up how many people there are in the team, divide the pizza up with one of those strange cutter things into at least that same number and then hand a slice to everyone – with a few slices left over if anyone is still hungry.
Seems fair, doesn’t it? Seems like a nice way to do it. Seems sociable and an approach that takes other people’s hunger and love of pizza into account. No one ends up with an empty plate and a distinct lack of any spicy sausage and mozzarella.
Seems like the right thing to do, no?
Option 2. The survival of the hungriest (and quickest)
You could also try this:
Tell everyone the pizza’s arrived. Then fling the door of the meeting room open and shout ‘Hey, everyone! First come, first served! You snooze, you lose!!!’. And then leg it into the meeting room to snaffle as many slices of Meat Feast as you can before anyone else gets there.
If you’re feeling charitable, you might even let the intern and the new temp have some of the leftovers. I mean, it’s not your fault they were slow…or that the intern’s in a wheelchair…or that the temp had trouble getting into the room during the stampede because they’re partially sighted. Survival of the fittest, eh!
I mean, you got your three slices of pizza, didn’t you? So you’re WELL happy.
No problem. No problem at all…
Which option would you go for?
Now, I don’t want to try and sway you. This is, after all, just a hypothetical pizza we’re talking about (probably).
But doesn’t option 1 sound a lot…..nicer? A bit less selfish? A tad more socially minded and a bit less focused on your own needs? I mean, you’re free to choose, of course. This is a democracy, after all.
But next time there’s a pizza run, stop and have a think.
What if YOU aren’t in charge of ordering the pizza this time? What if you’re not the lucky person who gets first dibs on the American Spicy on this occasion? What if, by some misfortune entirely out of your own control, you’re in a wheelchair next time and can’t get into the room quick enough?
Hmmm, maybe, in these scenarios you’d think that Option 1 is the better way to hand out the pizza, no?
Maybe you might get to thinking that EVERYONE deserves a slice. And that privilege, speed and access to the pizza shouldn’t mean you get more Ham & Pineapple than anyone else in your happy little team of workers….just maybe.
Makes you think, doesn’t it….
(Any parallels to the voting habits of the UK electorate in the 2015 General Election are purely accidental…)
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