Excellent point! 画蛇 was compelled to hedge in the 1st post

In 画蛇's own words:

Roughly rendered, the official theme of Workplace Forum’s inaugural featured event may read as: Polish our English, and outwit (“out-compete,” in my reading, somehow fails to capture the intended flavor of the event as the sponsors envisioned) our American and Indian colleagues.

No one can find fault with the “polish our English” part. As non-native users of the language, we all have room for improvement. And to the extent we are able to stage an effort towards that end, we will no doubt reap some real benefits in the long haul.

With the latter part of the theme, however, I am not sure that most of us on this forum can honestly say that we identify with it. I know I cannot. In fact, truth be told, at present I don’t have even one single Indian colleague; as for my American colleagues, I am not remotely in a cut-throat competing relationship with them, and as such, most of the time, I don’t mind being outwitted by them if that happens to be the case. Life, to me, is much more than just competition for the sake of competing. If anything, I compete against myself, not anyone else, whom I much rather make a friend out of.

My misgivings with the theme itself notwithstanding, I, for one, whole-heartedly embrace the Forum’s first-ever featured activity. And to put my two cents where my mouth is, I offer the following piece …