Games Ruthless Executives Played During Recess

It’s easy to forget that every powerful executive of a Fortune 500 company was once a merciless playground bully. The childhood games they used to play reveal their prodigious management styles. 

Duck, Duck, Tax Evasion!

Run around the circle, tapping the heads of future small business owners. Call everyone a “goose” as these silly gooses earn less, yet still somehow owe more taxes than you do. Select the poorest goose and pledge one of your vacation homes if they can catch you. Speed off in your Tesla while they follow on foot. They’ll never catch up!

Four Salaries Squared

Using chalk you monopolized, draw four squares. In each square, write down the following numbers: your teacher’s salary, your bus driver’s salary, your custodian’s salary and your principal’s salary. Square its sum to determine how much you should make when you become an executive. Make sure not to consider your future employees’ experience, value, or ability to earn a living wage while playing this game or you will lose immediately.

Simon Says: Do What I Say and Don’t Ask Questions

Whatever Simon says is mandatory, and you better do as you’re told or you’ll be fired from the fourth grade. Simon Says: tell Sarah M. she smells like moldy socks. Simon Says: chuck dodgeballs at first graders. Simon Says: open a handmade bracelet business and tell your workers they’re unpaid interns. The bylaws of this game forbid girls from playing as Simon. 

Double Dutch with Dollar Bills

Chain together mommy and daddy’s money until you have a $10,000 jump rope. If other playground kids insist on using their own jump ropes, light those plastic suckers on fire! Though this game goes against environmental regulations, if anyone dares to tattle on you, spread bedwetting rumours about them. 

I Spy…An Attempt to Unionize

Look out for the tell-tale signs of a playground union forming: whispered conversations, huddling masses, and signs of hope on their faces. A happy playground is a deceitful playground. Here’s an insider tip: if the union has chosen to obscure their organizing by claiming they are merely playing a three-on-three game of basketball, then they are the biggest liars of them all. Time to box them out!

Hops & Scotch

The pressure to be a top-earning executive is immense. This game is designed to “take the edge off” and can be played with any alcoholic beverage that will fit in your Spiderman thermos. Lean back in your swing set, kick off your Heelys, and bribe any adults who know what game you’re playing to keep their mouths shut. (Would be a real shame if mommy’s and daddy’s donations to the teachers’s pension fund dried up…) 

Privatized Space Travel Relay Race

Challenge your wealthiest classmate to a private spacecraft relay race, where you race to the moon. Bonus points awarded if you reach Mars and establish your own colony. The highest scorer of this race was able to successfully colonize Mars and select his very own alien bride. Together, they aim to be the wealthiest executives in the galaxy.

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