Harbourside Survivor Week 6: Precision Halving

Have you ever heard of Schlag den Henssler?
If not, perhaps you’ve seen clips online of people attempting to slice various foods perfectly in half? The social media trend was quite popular for a while, garnering “meme” status. That was the core of last week’s Dartmouth Harbourside Survivor challenge! As contestants wandered into the kitchen during lunch, they saw an impressive array of assorted donuts. As anyone in an office setting knows, this is a good sign!

But these were not for eating…YET!

Donut Drama

The competition has reached a fever pitch in the Dartmouth office. It has even spawned its own internal newsletter to keep staff up to speed. (We would like to thank “The Harbourside Heckler” for the catchy “Donut Drama” heading).

Before the challenge began on Wednesday, a new shake-up occurred. The previous teams, with their longstanding alliances and strategies, were re-shuffled! From the remains of Red, Blue, and Green, came two consolidated teams of Purple, and Yellow. In addition, teams themselves would no longer be earning immunity, but individual contestants within those teams. Finally, to raise the stakes even higher, henceforward, voting would now occur immediately after a challenge. No deliberation, no plotting, just quick, split-second decisions. Each team would still have to eliminate one player from its roster in order to adhere to the holiday-party “season finale” timeline.

Precision and Geometric Control

Working in an engineering consulting firm, geometry and geometric control are something that our engineers handle on a daily basis. Stepping away from spreadsheets and steel, gauging the perfect angle by which to cut a donut is a very different kind of puzzle. Various strategies emerged immediately. Some opted for lightweight donuts, believing it would be easier to control for their weight. Others revelled in the challenge of attempting to perfectly halve a Boston cream, with its unknown filling distribution. Some even chose to slice their donuts horizontally, like a bagel, rather than vertically. Each of these techniques lead to interesting results (though cream filled pastries proved to be needless gamble).

All in all, our engineers performed admirably. On average, the weight distribution for donut-halves varied by only a few percentage points. There were a couple outliers (thanks to those aforementioned Boston cream donuts), but most were remarkably close. Purple’s winner had only a 3% variance between halves, earning them immunity for the week. Incredibly Yellow’s winner succeeded in reaching a 0.1% variance! Such impressive geometric and volumetric control is to be expected from one of the best engineering consulting firms in Halifax.

A Donut Shared is a Donut Halved

A donut is a welcome treat in the middle of the workday. A chance to share an experience is even nicer.

In an era where “pizza parties” have become an online corporate joke, it’s important to remember that little treats such as these are not a benefit in a workplace. Nor are they signifier of a strong corporate culture. Anyone can purchase a pizza or a box of donuts. Although most everyone appreciates donuts and pizza, they alone de not make a workplace special. It is the circumstances AROUND these little treats that matter.

There is a very large difference between an activity that can be completed within 15 minutes and an event that requires staff to return to their desk after 15 minutes. Both these could be “pizza party” style occasions (or perhaps a donut slicing competition) but where one of these allows staff to relax for a moment, the other tries to mandate “corporate fun.”

Providing staff a moment to breath in the middle of the day is much more significant than regulating when they get to inhale. The real benefit that is being described here is flexibility and understanding. If a little treat comes along with strong corporate culture, all the better. A work-treat is appreciated, but it cannot take the place of leadership or a supportive environment.

Voting Begins

With the donuts halved and eaten (don’t worry, hands were thoroughly washed before handling). It was time to proceed to the vote. Each team was reduced to 5 players this week, making for 10 contestants. After two more are eliminated from the running, will there be enough participations to continue the team format? Or will we be reduced to an office free-for-all?