Playing Games

Mixing business with playing games is not a good idea. Once a transaction is raised to the level of a game ethics loses its hold on the situation. The object of business becomes wining, and only winning justifying almost any misdeed to win. The idea of ethics implies a strategy for long term survival. Playing games is an unprofessional, a likely unethical way, of doing business. In practice, savvy business people do play games in response to the aggressive games of their customers. This follows the tenant of mathematical game theory that sees a tit for tat response as an ethical approach to dealing with an aggressive or manipulative client. Conflict of any time can emotionally scare a person and lower their ethical standards in the future as their approach to doing business become a situation of wining and losing and not delivering goods and services of value. Nevertheless many businesspeople have the native ability and intelligence to keep game playing from corrupting their ethical and professional standards In business you want your first response to a game player to be a professional response otherwise you will reinforce and perpetuate a habit of playing games, some of which you could lose considerable.

Game Masters
The law gives business people the tools to fight back. Getting involved in a  game other than tit-for-tat leaves the business person vulnerable to a game master. The only way a professional business person can do to fight back is to do business in a business like way, and transact business in an ethical way. If a business person does not stick to the ethical path they can be taken advantage of by a cunning operator. For, example a home owner needs some work on their house. They ask a carpenter to do the work. The home owner wants the work done without a city permit. The carpenter does the work, the owner does not pay citing the need for a permit. The carpenter is in a bind since he can be fined thousands of dollars for working without a license or permit.

Shell Games Occurs with paperwork. There are sometimes considerable paperwork involved with contracts. The object of this game is to get your signature but withhold a copy from the client. The game goes as long as it take the client to become confused. see fatiguing into compliance, constructive taking. It is unethical  because it is a high minded game design to exploit people. see cunning. Clients also play this game when reviewing contracts. They will remove copies that are not signed for instance so they can later say none was given them and therefore no valid contract exists.

Change Games are a type shell game. If dollar bills are placed on a counter the business owner can tactically snatch some bills while the customers briefly distracted. Another variant is to worry the customer about the solid change while positioning ones self to take the larger bills.

Immaturity. These are adolescent games whereby a business owner justifies taking money from their clients they do not deserve predicated on the excuse the customer did something to them to deserve such a response. A perceive insult for example become the reason for short changing the customer.

Catch Me if You Can: This game can be outright pernicious. A business that is not managed well invites this sort of game to evolve. Morality is lowered to a level of wining and losing. Cunning, guile, lying and cheating are all fair here. The object of this game is to reaffirm the intellectual, emotional or social prowess of the game player. In a sense they are a legends in their own minds and want to keep it that way. Catch Me if You Can is also a crime game. A person goes into a home or business and scopes out what can be stolen, but not noticed for a long time. If there is a stack of valuable first edition comic books in the basement, a construction worker might remove a few because their absence would not be noticed. Here the game is strictly money and not ego and status.

Counter Games: This game follows the theme of the section on immaturity but with an added dimension beyond Catch Me if You Can. Here the counter person positions themselves to not deliver quality service if the customer is perceived as pushy, critical or aggressive.  In this scenario there is benefit for the counter person because they do not have to be discipline in their work. Mistakes can be plausibly denied. Parts houses are notorious for counter people who play this game which includes "pulling the customer's chain. The reason they can get away with it is that counter personnel are highly trained in product recognition. There are few people competing for their job, thus business owner's will side with the counter person if there are any complaints. There problem with these games is that the perpetrator hones their game to a science so the outcome always looks like they acted properly. This includes playing sexual games if necessary.

Predatory Games

A predatory games is executed on the level of a war. Morality does not exist here. There are only winners and losers. Every unethical tactic imaginable is used to extract concessions and money from the client. These game border on criminal activity. See constructive taking.

The "Dislike" Game
I dislike you, therefore I can play games with you— bad service, badly cooked food, shortchanging you, misinforming you.

Confidence Game

Waiting Game

Winners & Losers
"You are a loser therefore I can screw you" attitude, as though one had an aristocratic birthright to exploit "losers." Here business dealings are seen as a predatory game with the winner in the moral position. Business in this way circumvents any ethical consideration at all. and supplants ethics as the standard of conduct with "winning" being the determinate of right and wrong.

Crime Games
Operates much like winners and losers, however... **

Immaturity

Eristic

Wheeling & Dealing, Bantering

war

mental problems, perceptual imagery

Mental problems can lead a well-meaning person to commit unethical acts. There is spiritual and social imagery to consider. These are images in the mind of the mentally ill that dark forces exist and it is duty to destroy them. Playing games here is predicated on the perception of evil or of dealing with a lower class person. The latter is an elitist game.

Phone Games, hide & seek

Intellectual Games

Distancing Game Hide and seek. Here the object is to avoid scrutiny of company policy, complaints and the like. Mismanaged business compensate for their inefficiency and confusion by distancing themselves from the customer by transferring the customer from one department to another. see forthright and open. Intellectual games are sometimes played out in multi leveled catch me if you can. Games such as these on the job seem altogether unprofessional and the precursor for more exploitive games, delays, and abuses of the client. see distancing games.

Office Games distancing
These common game here is the distancing game.

plausible deniability, mismanagement, fraud, constructive taking. immaturity, irresponsible workers

Sexual Games Here the object is to pester or embarrass the customer. The object of the game is to have them overreact and look bad. There is a science to this counter people soon discover. Since the game is on a sexual level the customer is not likely to complain to the management. The management many times does not care and will side with the sales person. Manager are so loyal to their sales force they do not often believe a sales person is a thief until long after the stealing started. They are in a form of denial to all criticism of their workers.

there are other things in an ethical evaluation, self regarding duty to make a profit, professionalism, maturity, customs

professional

elitist games, fatiguing distancing unapproachable

pulling a person's chain

Intellectual Games: Denying full service to a client based on the idea "they are too dumb to know the difference." This a variant on the wining and losing game in which the winner receive as his reward extra money or consideration in the game player's mind

Elitist Games: This is a game that is mentally derived. The perpetrator sincerely belies they are of higher social and economic stock and the clients of lesser means are their flock. Like the mental illness game there is visual imagery of the client that registers worthy and unworthy of the business owner's attention. The unworthy struggle to garner the attention of the business person who tactically distances himself from the client. Here a person is forced to stroke their ego in order to get any thing done. This is a form of exploitation based on popular. The popular get good deals, the unpopular do not. This is not the same as selecting a client on the basis of their emotional, economic and intellectual compatibly since some clients recognizably cost a business person more than others in terms of time and emotions. Being rude is not the same as being unpopular. see protocol and decorum

Catch Me if You Can

Pernicious Games

hair stylist

Gotcha Game, spectrum

laying in wait

Change Games

Bantering A form of spirited sparring between businessperson and the client

delaying games

Shell Games, cunning

see ethical split it starts when there is an ethical split

fun and games

musical chairs?

POWER DANCE

Snatching, stealing things that one would not notice are missing for a while