Giving Free Outs

The other day I was walking back from my company's fitness center towards my desk when I saw another co-worker walking down the hall towards me. It was on the late side, around 7pm, a time when most of the employees at the building where I work have left for the day. So it wasn't unreasonable to expect that nobody else would be walking these halls at this time.

So when I looked up at the fellow co-worker, I noticed that he had one of his fingers buried knuckle deep inside his nose. He was concentrating so hard on this excavation attempt that he didn't yet see me coming the other way. This was by no means a minor dig. This was a Schwarzenegger-in-Total-Recall-Removing-The-Tracking-Implant-Effort.

At this point, I gave away a free out and continued to let my co-worker draw to a hand. I looked down pretending I hadn't yet seen him go spelunking up his nasal cavity. I gave him ample time to sense my presence and withdraw. After what I thought was a reasonable time, I looked up again to see that he had finished his job, and greeted him with a friendly "Hello."

Had this been at the poker table, I would have pushed him all-in by greeting him with "Hey Paul, pick me a winner!"