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Terrible Workers

A humorous and thought-provoking game where you can sabotage your friends and rise to the top! Prove your worth as the best (or least terrible) worker in this fast-paced card game.

SETTING

TIME

PLAYERS

TECH USE

Overview

Terrible Workers is a game we designed that demonstrated our heuristics. The game encourages students to bring out the best version of themselves by pitching to be hired for diverse kinds of jobs (vice president or even a pirate!). This fictional scenario ensures enough psychological distance from daily life to create a low-stakes and fun environment to engage in active thinking and self-reflection. Raising their awareness of people skills is the first step to students actively practicing and getting better at them. Terrible Workers is sure to bring out playful competition, social connection, excitement, and lots of laughter! As a parent, teacher, or educator, you can choose to lead a small discussion in class after the gameplay on what each student thought the goal of the game was. The different interpretations and perspectives that students bring to the conversation will promote a rich learning experience. Refer to the guides section for more tips on how to facilitate the discussion!

Application of Heuristics

Learning Outcome

Intended Learning Outcome

Understand that interpersonal traits or “people skills” are more important for real-world success than measurable and technical/academic skills. While technical skills are more tangible and measurable, interpersonal traits are more abstract but equally important, if not more.

  • Bad interpersonal traits can overshadow good technical skills

  • People will choose to work with you for your interpersonal skills over your technical skills, or at least it will be a combination

  • Picture of you is incomplete with just technical skills. Interpersonal traits also make up who you are

  • Strengths and weaknesses can co-exist, and that’s normal

  • Exposure to different types of interpersonal skills

Student’s Point of View

Every individual has a unique perspective on experiences they have, which is why it is valuable to obfuscate or hide the true learning goal of the activity. When we tested our game, we uncovered these key takeaways from students, some of which were different than our intended goal, but all lead to the same core goal of being aware of and practicing people skills.

  • Awareness of the difference between interpersonal traits and technical skills

  • Communication skills: debate, improvisational speaking, persuasion, and interview skills

  • Perspective taking: understanding what “positive qualities” mean to different people.

  • Collaboration: discuss with others

  • Leadership: recognize leadership qualities

  • Decision-making and business skills: marketing, advertising skills

  • How to self-advocate: pitching yourself and self-advocating is important, understand how to make ourselves stand out of the crowd

  • Reframe negative traits in a growth mindset: negative traits and weaknesses should not bring you down, can get better at it and spin it in a positive way

  • Self-confidence: how you present yourself is up to you, you should not be brought down by other’s perceptions of you. pitch yourself to the best with what you have and who you are

Classroom Facilitation Guide

As mentioned in the overview, Terrible Worker is versatile and can be used in various settings, not just classrooms. If you want to use this game for teaching, we offer a classroom facilitation guide. It provides step-by-step tips to effectively guide students in learning interpersonal skills through the game.

Resources

Printable Facilitation Guide

A guide to help facilitate the game within classrooms and other playable places.

CMU HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION INSTITUTE | MHCI

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