I am thrilled to report that there is a World Organisation for the old hand game, Rock, Paper, Scissors. These people are truly purists – allowing only the three above moves. No “dynamite”, “water” or “testicle” allowed when these people play.

I think I’ve been playing too many computer games lately… When you start hearing evil, deep male voices exclaiming “Killing Spree!” in your dreams you know that you need to lay off the shoot-em-up games a bit. To this end I went out and bought the latest versions of two of my favorite games from my heavy gaming period back in high school – Railroad Tycoon 3 and Civilization 3. The early versions of both of these are strategy games which I enjoyed wasting many an hour playing when I was younger. So now as I’ve embarked on another game-o-rama I’m starting to think about all the other strategy games that I’ve come across… SimCity, SimAnt, SimEarth, SimEverythingElse…, Zoo Tycoon, Rollercoaster Tycoon… and if I had to create a strategy game of my own it would have to be something along the lines of “Warehouse Tycoon”.

What would the game be about?

In essence it would be a strategy game where the aim would be to build up a successful web of product distribution centres. Your role is that of Warehouse Manager and your job is to set up your warehouse with the necessary staffing and equipment and to ensure that it runs smoothly. You can either play against human players (the Multiplayer Gold Edition will be required for this facility) or against computer generated Warehouse Managers.

Points are awarded and subtracted for the good and bad things that happen in your warehouse. The winner of the game is the player with the most points at the end of the game (you can choose between 5, 10, 20 or 40 year sentences/positions).

How would it work?

Firstly, you will have a variety of staff at your disposal. You can hire/fire, oversee, manage and generally interact with these players. These players include:

• Computer operator
• Order pickers
• Forklift Driver
• Temp staff

There would also be a range of computer generated characters that you would appoint, control/oversee and interact with during the course of the game:

• Senior Management
• Delivery Drivers
• Sales reps from Transport companies
• Sales reps from warehouse equipment suppliers
• Visitors from overseas head office
• Lunch van operator

During the course of each “turn” which is the equivalent of a day at work a mixture of good and bad things will happen to you, your staff and your warehouse. Some of these events will occur as a direct result of the way you manage your warehouse whilst some will be completely randomly generated by the game’s engine.

Some of the events which would INCREASE your score would include:

• Reward staff for good work. Level 1. Canoli. Level 2. Beer. Level 3. Day off
• Lunch truck comes by at 11am – gives workers strength
• Training courses – improve knoweledge
• New trolleys – efficiency increase
• Implement barcode scanning system – increase efficiency
• Introduce operational procedures – increase efficiency
• Move to larger premises

Some of the events which would DECREASE your score would include:

• Warehouse too small. Stock clogs up the aisles decreasing the ability to efficiently access stock for the picking of orders.
• Staff in warehouse picking incorrect goods and/or incorrect quanities.
• Orders being shipped to the wrong customer
• Disturbing warehouse staff during break time
• Goods being lost in transit
• Inaccurate inventory levels
• Theft of stock by staff and/or delivery drivers
• Warehouse driving over goods with forklift
• Workers taking too many smoke breaks
• Computer system crashes – cannot function
• Anything to do with customers based in New Zealand
• Government Departments’ ridiculously stringent delivery requirements
• Warehouse staff writing silly names on pallets

Meetings

During the course of each “day” you will meet with various computer generated characters. The outcomes of these meetings can have an affect on the efficiency of your warehouse, your wages or the mood of you or your staff.

The people you will meet with will include:

Senior Management – You will meet with your superiors at the end of each week. You will be given feedback on your performance and that of the warehouse. Your wages may be increased/decreased as a result of these meetings.

Sales Representatives from transport companies – all promising the best service for the best price. The cheapest aren’t always the best.

Equipment Sales Representatives – Some suppliers will rip you off more than others. You will need to spend money on your warehouse operation if it is to be successful, you are only allocated a certain amount of funding per turn, so you will have to be selective in your spending.

The choices you make at these meetings can have a major effect on the operation of your warehouse.

The Dice of Blame

If you discover that a shipping error has been made, you can try to determine the source of the error. If you cannot determine who’s at fault you can throw “The Dice of Blame”. Be careful though… If if one of your staff is at fault, your perseverance is rewarded by an increase in your score. However if the dice shows that you are at fault – you will be penalised.

I could keep going on about this game for ages, but I’m sure you get the picture. I think Warehouse Tycoon would have limited commercial appeal, but then again who would have thought that a game where you build an ant colony could make money…..

On the weekend Olivia and I went to this little Japanese/Korean place for lunch. This establishment is small, close to our abode and for under $9 a dish churns out some simply outstanding food. Like many places like this they prepare the dishes to order, so you can be waiting up to 20 minutes for your meal (especially when they’re busy – which is often). I have no issue with this waiting period. I am a patient person and am happy to wait for a good feed.

While we were waiting for our meals, the we felt this cold gust of wind. A woman had walked in with her daughter and didn’t bother to close the door. The wind was quite strong and the place quickly began to resemble Dorothy’s house in the Wizard of Oz. Well okay maybe it didn’t, but the wind was pretty full on and this person stands at the counter (her hair blowing all over the place) oblivious to the 20 or so sets of evil eyes which are firmly aimed at her back. As I was getting up to close the door another customer beat me to it.

Now I know that we have always been taught to never judge a book by it’s cover, but there are occasions where all of us have that feeling that the person we have just encountered is going to be an annoying shit. This was one such occasion. I turned to Olivia and said “This woman is going to be trouble” and boy was I right. This rather well-dressed woman (hereafter known as MoleWoman) had ignored the McDonalds 50m away, walked past the three other food places on the strip food, two of which had ready-to-eat Asian food sitting in bain-marees – barked her order at the meek little girl behind the counter – and told her to be quick because she and her daughter were in a hurry. Having dealt with customers directly for all of my working life, I have always spared a thought for the waiters/shopkeepers etc I come into contact with. Similarly I have always had no time for rude, horrible customers. In fact we have a word for such people in my warehouse.

I thought for the sake of the exercise I would monitor proceedings. I was waiting for my meal so it helped pass the time. After about 6 minutes, MoleWoman, who was standing over the counter glaring at the staff trying to churn out meals for 20 or so waiting customers, got the attention of the girl who took her order and complained that she had been waiting for over 10 minutes and that she had been promised that her meal would be ready in 7. MoleWoman was obviously in some sort of time warp because after 9 minutes she complained that she had been waiting for 15 minutes. At this point I nearly jumped out of my chair to abuse the crap out of this woman (or at least sit on her) – I was fuming. Olivia told me to calm down so I did.

My meal arrived. Sukiyaki – a funky soupy, beefy, glass noodly affair.- yum yum…. Olivia’s did not. After another couple of minutes MoleWoman complained again, the staff were obviously disturbed by this and I think wanted to just get rid of the cow. In the end, they ended up giving her what I’m pretty sure was Olivia’s dish. They came in well after us, and MoleWoman got her meal (same dish that Olivia had ordered) around 7 minutes before Olivia. I hate to see such horrible behaviour rewarded, and what kind of lesson is that for her daughter? If MoleWoman was in such a rush, why did she not go to one of the many alternatives I listed above? She could have been in and out and on her way in a couple of minutes. But no, she had to darken the doorstep of the kind of place which does not specialise in a three minute turnaround. Some people make their own misery – and piss of a lot of others in the process. The MoleMen and Women of this world, of which there are plenty can all politely jam it.

***

On a similar tone to this post, I would like to direct you, dear reader, to a weblog which is written by the employees of a Walgreens 1-hour photo lab in the States. The writers are basically having a whinge about the horrible customers they deal with and the crappy jobs they have. As a result the writers have become a little horrible themselves. All the same for me it’s a necessary read.

On the weekend I went to the football with my dad and my 7yo nephew Matthew. Since Matthew doesn’t get totally absorbed in the game I let him listen to my MP3 player. He only seems to like dance music (I’ll blame my sister for that so I put some dance music onto the player for Matthew. I had a separate memory card with more “Brian music” on it. After a while Matthew got sick of the techno and asked if I had any other music. I told him I had Brian music which he probably wouldn’t like – he said he’d give it a try and so I popped the card into the player…

About 10 minutes later, Matthew turns to me and asks “Uncle Brian, what’s this song?” I read the MP3 player’s display and to my horror I saw that he was listening to the song “Uncle F*cka” by Terrance & Phillip from the South Park movie. For those of you not familiar with the lyrics to this song – check them out.

I took the player off him and told him I’d need to have a look at it. I basically stalled him while I busily deleted that and the other tracks that were not for young ears. I don’t think he would have taken much from Marilyn Manson’s Cake and Sodomy, but I thought it safer to delete it. I had completely forgotten all the tracks I’d stored on the card.

I felt terrible – here I was trying to be nice and all I’m doing is corrupting his young mind. “Bad uncle, BAD UNCLE!!!” was all I could think…

A few minutes later Matthew asked me “Brian, what was that song?” How to deal with such a question? I took the wimp’s way out and said “What song?” to which he replied “You know, THAT song…. Was it a bad song?” My heart was fluttering and it wasn’t because Richmond were in the process of losing the game after having been 39 points up earlier on. Again I wimped out and said “Matthew, I don’t know what you’re talking about – can you just watch the football?”

How lame am I? Even I know better than to try and play the Jedi mind trick on a 7 year old – he knows what he

heard. But what does one say? “That’s a grown up song Matthew” or “Yes, it’s a bad song” – but then why would I be in possession of such material?

I’m still feeling really bad about it all, and am curious to see what happens next time I see him.