Harassment at the Workplace...

Okay, so I now have semi permanent access to a Wii. I say semi permanent, because it’s actually located at my place of work. So I get all of the joys of playing on a Wii, without actually having to face going out to procure one.

Or not, as the case may be.

Now, I have never particularly been in favour of the Wii as a console, because as I have stated before, I really don’t think that it is a serious gaming machine. It still suffers from the old Nintendo stigmatism of being cute and cuddly, and for my money, aimed at a consumer demographic a lot younger than me. That, and being little more a new year’s party distraction. I have never felt particularly cool playing on a Wii, my attempts to play games well normally resulting with me looking like a deranged chimp with Parkinson’s disease. But I guess this was okay, when the rest of the people in the room are either impossibly drunk, tired past the point of no return or just simply not there in the first place. Now imagine trying to maintain some kind of composure when boxing or playing tennis in your lunch break with your colleagues of mutual employment walking past you. Or dodging past, more accurately.

The workplace is a bizarre environment. It is a place where the average full-time employee may well spend more time residing in than the comfort of their own home, around people that you see more than your own spouse or offspring in the average working week. Therefore, I am of the opinion that your reputation and moral standing are more important in this pseudo residence than anywhere else. Also from bitter experience, I know how the slightest act of forgetfulness, malice, out-of-character actions or just a simple slip of the tongue can be the beginning of a life-sentence of ridicule. If playing on the Wii is somewhat un-cool in the first place, then the effect is magnified to almost biblical proportions in the office – Multiplied by the fact that I am known as a gamer where I work, and this is just the icing on the top of the proverbial reputation cake. When one of my flailing companions does manage to beat me on the Wii – a console that I am not afraid to admit my lack of competence on – A whole new dimension of soul-crushing ensues. But if I win – then the ‘Well you’re a games nut. I guess we all expected that’ down playing starts.

It appears that you’re damned if you do and damned if you Wii. Particularly in a public place…

- Galford.