Museum treasure hunts are Serious Business

captainbrass

I went to a treasure hunt at the British Museum this afternoon organised by an internet-based social group I'm in. In case you don't know, a treasure hunt is basically a quiz where you go around some place of interest answering questions on a sheet about the things therein and the one who gets most right wins. I was anticipating a fun afternoon.

I might have guessed something might go wrong when about 150 fucking people turned up for this (I'm not joking - they split us up into 28 teams). I should have been cast-iron sure when the self-appointed alpha male of my team decided our team name should be "The Illuminati" (for fuck's sake!). Well, it turned out that this particular quiz, unlike most I've seen, didn't direct you to a room and then ask you questions about the stuff in it. No, you had the questions, but with no indication as to where the answer might be, beyond perhaps the question saying that the object was Egyptian or Roman. Basically, I had to run around two floors of the fucking huge British Museum finding answers which might be on any of the thousands of objects displayed, with five people I'd met half-an-hour previously, one of whom I'd already concluded was an idiot.

After about an hour or so of this, plus Mr Alpha Male being an annoying dickhead, I decided I'd had enough, waited until everyone's attention was distracted and sneaked out. I don't normally bail on things, but the level of Serious Business here was ridiculous. Fortunately, it wasn't a total waste of time as I know someone who lives nearby, so I went round to her house and watched football on TV instead. Cultural ambitions defeated. 

LouieW

It is too bad that you did not get what you wanted out of that treasure hunt. Had you been to any before that were not so competitive?

As for what you said about ridiculous levels of "serious business," this site comes to mind, especially this bit.
The Role of a Trainer
Some players choose to retain the services of a personal trainer. Experienced and talented trainers can be invaluable in building an RPS[Rock-Paper-Scissors] career, but beware of charlatans. There are many “trainers” available for hire who have never been either a competitor or referee and have no qualifications to speak of. Before you sign a contract, find out who you’re dealing with.

IanExMachina

That's a shame

How 'alpha male' was the alpha male?

captainbrass

Ian -  Well, he was called Julian, which puts limits on anyone's alpha maleness. However, he did seem to take the whole thing a bit too seriously and to want to try and take charge of how we should do the quiz. He was a bit too pushy for me.

It might have been easier to handle him if the rest of the group hadn't consisted of three women, two from Slovenia, all of whom spoke English as a second language, and me (I'm not brilliant at being assertive in that kind of situation), Basically, he took over by default. 

dmboogie

@Louie

Please tell me that's a parody.

IanExMachina

^^

Should have called him Julie, bitches alpha males love that.

Yeah the group sounds a little disparate, at least you escaped and spent time with a friend.