In the British comedy The Office there are many moments of awkward silence, usually when the boss does something that he believes to be uplifting and empowering for his employees, but is, in fact, as well-received as an open tin of sardines left out in the summer sun. Today I experienced a moment reminiscent of that show. I interviewed two candidates for a position in another part of our company and the first interview was over lunch. The candidate and I talked while dining in our cafeteria, not the most elegant place, but serviceable and quick. Partway through our meal the cashier turned on a microphone (rather surreal that there even was one in the cafeteria) and announced that The Drawing was going to be held that very moment. The head of HR wandered past, seemingly on his way out of the room, and reached into a cardboard box that held the slips with the names of the entrants. (I still didn't know what The Drawing was for at this point, having apparently been comatose for the last few weeks while buying lunch.) The cashier made a crack about not pulling his own name, as the HR guy was reaching into the jumble of folded pieces of paper. He pulled out a slip, looked at it, made a mumbled comment and nervously stuffed it into his pocket (we can only presume it was either his name, the name of one of his direct reports, or someone whose pink slip has already been printed). He drew out another piece of paper and the cashier announced the name. To complete, dead silence. No applause. No reaction. No anything. The winner (of what turned out to be Flyers tickets) was not in the room and the sparse crowd did not think it warranted a crashing round of cheering if the winner (not an especially well-liked person) was not there.

The woman I was interviewing said "That's cute." And I realized right then that there is no way she would ever want to come work for us. She currently has a job with a gigantic German software company, where no such frivolity is ever tolerated, and if it was, there would certainly be a more appropriate, enthusiastic reaction, rather than one that would greet a dead fish.