The Color Market

You should never hesitate to trade your cow 

for a handful of magic beans.

~ Tom Robbins

Well, yesterday was the "color market" at work.  I didn't have a plan, but no one seemed to want to dive in and start arm wrestling for little snips of yarn - so someone suggested that I shuffle their name cards and read them in a random order - determining the order in which they would get to make their selections.  I read through the 11 names three times - the middle time in reverse order - and each person got to pick one color each time her (or his) name was called.  

After that, everyone was free to bargain, negotiate and swap with everyone else.  Some people were really flexible, while others had their hearts more or less set on a particular combination.  As you might expect, some people had more fun with it than others...  

By the time the dust settled, I think that everyone was reasonably pleased with her or his selections.  

Here's the whole crew - each holding up her (or the lone "his") index card with the selections stapled on.  I work with some pretty awesome people - smart, funny and genuinely caring...  :)

(Oh, one couldn't make it, but someone else drew colors for her - hence the woman with two cards in her hands.)  

I'm not sure that I'd do it that way again, but it was something different and kind of exciting and I think that, in the end, it worked out.  Now let's just hope that everyone loves their gifts!  Fingers crossed!  :)