“Remoted” Workday 208 / Day 316 (Tuesday)

Today we had a team-building exercise at work. It was a 90-minute Zoom virtual murder mystery event set in ancient Egypt. We were split into four teams and had to choose our team name. There were Tomb Raiders, Crusaders, Fab Four Pharaohs, and the team I was in, Chet & the Three Cleopatras. I maintain that my team had the best name. 

Not a good murder detective.

There was a a lot of actual Egyptian history woven throughout the event and a series of clues and puzzles specific to the game. Logic and creative thinking were required, and breakout rooms and files to download. I felt very stupid during a lot of it, beginning with having trouble accessing the file for the first puzzle. It contained a recipe in a dozen or so steps and then a weird series of sets of numbers at the bottom. The numbers and colons were mumbo jumbo and I had no idea what it meant. 

The pressure was on, as the first team to solve won a clue. It turned out the number represented lines in the recipe, a word in the line, and a letter in the word. That is not the investigative path we were treading, by a mile. Chet & the Three Cleopatras did not win the clue. We were just a second behind another team on one puzzle, because we couldn't figure out how to exit the breakout room. Oh well.

There were other opportunities to win clues, and thanks to a 2004 museum-group trip to Memphis to see the "MASTERS OF FLORENCE: Glory & Genius at the Court of the Medici" exhibition when I lived in Tennessee and worked at a museum, I recognized the pyramid in Memphis to win a trivia question. That show in Memphis was amazing. Having the winning answer was my sole moment of triumph during the murder game. Solving codes and picture puzzles in a team event today was not a glorious moment. 

Additional clue-winning opportunities involved producing a calendar, eyeliner, and toothpaste. This is the first time my kitchen ever felt too big. I had a calendar at my desk, but a Tomb Raider produced one quicker. I would be only halfway to the bathroom for the eyeliner or the toothpaste and someone would already have displayed the item.

Despite not winning and not being able to bask in the glory of being crowned the murder mystery champions, it was still a fun event. I learned the ancient Egyptians had toothbrushes. And that Sudan has more pyramids than Egypt. At least I came out of it feeling smarter.