Priceless 9: Victory

Priceless is...

... that moment when my colleague passed her phone to each one of us team members notifying we had won third place in the treasure hunt, during our VC's speech. All we could display were sheepish smiles and raised eyebrows!

This is the second time I've participated in a treasure hunt, both were company events, and both times my team has won! The first time, we won first place and this time, third place.

This time around, it was a last minute decision to sign up - a day before the event. We knew we wouldn't get brownie points for meeting the diversity criteria, as all of us were corporate staff. So our only chance was to score high in the shortest time.

Our team was a mix of all colours, sizes, heights and ages. We were disadvantaged as none of us were academics, so some of the questions were a bit harder for us to grasp, besides my rusty HPLC knowledge. But what we lacked in head knowledge, we made up by our rapport with senior management. At one point, my team mate even called up the VC to ask what he had advocated in one of his speeches (this was one of the questions), so we got it from the 'horse's mouth'. 😆

It was kind of neat that the treasure hunt questions were delivered via our e-learning platform so we could count on accuracy and transparency in the judging. There was a crime scene where we had to figure out who was killed, how and who did it. That was the most challenging part as obviously the only skills we could count on were logic and what we watched on TV. But perhaps our guesses were correct!

To be honest, I'd never have logged into our e-learning and library portals if not for this race. In fact, I was surprised I had access! All in all, it was a good experience and it was really fun working in our team's configuration.

This week has had a number of surprises. When I thought I could sit back and enjoy the big event, I was roped in as a VIP usherer at the last minute. I found out a bit of sad news (for me) early of this week. But out of that, I've heard a happy news as well and I am glad for my buddy. And out of the blue, there were three mutually exclusive funny-awkward moments within just a week. It is always a danger to be found alone. And oh yes, how could I forget the time when I was called to give a campus tour for some external guests - me, who gets lost (constantly) trying to find my way around the campus!

It has been one heck of a week!