Well, it's that time of the year again...time to finish your coffee and Roll Up The Rim. Yes, the ultimate Tim Hortons contest, a Canadian tradition, is back. For those of you that are reading in the United States or internationally, and aren't familiar with the contest, check this out for an overviewLast year, I decided to track my progress throughout the duration of the contest to see how it balanced out. Well, as if to test my resolve, and in an astounding display of non-winning ineptitude, I actually went 0-for-43 to start the contest. That's not a joke...that's not exaggerated at all...I actually went 43 cups of coffee before I won anything.
FORTY-THREE!
With the mathematical probabilty of winning being 1-in-9, it was pretty unbelievable to say the least. At about 25 , it became a joke with my friends and I. Now I wanted the streak to go longer...to see just how long it could last. I never thought it would go as high as 43...but sure enough it did. And then when I won that free donut, it might as well have been a car because I felt so victorius. After that initial win, I went another 20 cups before winning again, so I was 1-for-63 at one point!
But the entire concept of Roll Up The Rim raises some interesting questions. It's just a Canadian trait to show up somewhere with a tray of coffees from Tim Hortons. It's what we do. But now that the contest is going on, what happens if you show up with 4 coffees and hand them out...and somebody wins a big prize, who gets it?
I subscribe to the school of thought that if you bought the coffee for someone and you give it to them, then it's their prize. But there are a lot of people that think that if you bought it, it's your prize. What do you think? If you buy a coffee for a friend, and they win the car, what do you do? Or if someone bought it for you, and you win...same question?
Or do you just avoid the whole potential scenario and stop buying coffee for others while the contest is running? Let's hear from you in the Comments section.
And by the way, as of today, I'm 3-for-11 so far this year.
4 comments:
If you buy a coffee for someone else I say you forfeit the win and if they win a car it is theirs. You should know it going in that someone else might win something if you buy them a coffee. If you're selfish then don't buy others a coffee....but that wouldn't be a true Canadian, would it?
When I worked with Phil and Rich at CD Plus, I went and bought the coffee, and Phil ended up with a bicycle under the rim. At no time did I think that the bicycle was rightfully mine, but I did curse my luck.
If someone bought me a coffee and i won something big, i would offer a split(much the same if they bought me a lotto ticket for my birthday). However, if I bought someone else a coffee I would not expect them to extend the same offer but would be surprised if they didn't.
I too think you forfeit your right to a prize if you give your coffee to someone else. That being said, if I gave a coffee to a buddy and they won something substantial and didn't bother to give me some kind of compensation for it, I'd be pretty pissed at them, because they wouldn't have received any winnings if it weren't for me.
But do I deserve their prize? No, because if they didn't exist (i.e. if i wasn't buying that particular cup of coffee for them), then I likely wouldn't have won that prize either.
caesar
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