A few years ago I was made to participate in a “Leadership Building” seminar that lasted for 2 days, once a month, for six months.  The course was industry specific, and the last 2-day session began 12 hours immediately following my return from New Orleans.  I made that session, since I wanted my little piece of paper.  At the end of the session they asked for your appraisal and evaluation of the course and my overall feeling of it was… it did nothing for me.  I did not use one bit of knowledge from there in a situation that it was supposed to prepare me for.  The only positive thing I did have to say about it was one segment called The Alligator River Story.

It’s a morality exercise that I think would be interesting to see what other people think about it, and how my own views may have changed.  So below is a story for you to read, and then further instructions are below:

There lived a woman named Abigail who was in love with a man named Gregory.  Gregory lived on the shore of a river.  Abigail lived on the opposite shore of the same river.  The river that separated the two lovers was teeming with dangerous alligators.  Abigail wanted to cross the river to be with Gregory.  Unfortunately, the bridge had been washed out by a heavy flood the previous week.

So she went to ask Sinbad, a riverboat captain, to take her across.  He said he would be glad to if she would consent to go to bed with him prior to the voyage.  She promptly refused and went to a friend named Ivan to explain her plight.  Ivan listened intently to Abigail, but he did not want to get involved at all in the situation.  Abigail felt her only alternative was to accept Sinbad‘s terms.  She went to Sinbad and spent the night with him.  Sinbad fulfilled his promise to Abigail and delivered her into the arms of Gregory in the morning. 

When Abigail told Gregory about her amorous escapade in order to cross the river, Gregory became upset.  He cried aloud, his sorrow mixing with anger and in his emotional throes slapped Abigail across the mouth once before leaving her swearing never to look at her again for her infidelity.  Heartsick and rejected, Abigail turned to Slug with her tale of woe and of what Gregory had done.  Slug, feeling compassion for Abigail, sought out Gregory and beat him brutally with a baseball bat.  Abigail was overjoyed at the sight of Gregory getting his due.  As the sun set on the horizon,people heard Abigail laughing at Gregory as she and Slug walked hand in hand over the hill to live in the forest.

Here is the exercise.  Please leave your answers in the comments:

A) Rank the five characters (Abigail, Gregory, Sinbad, Ivan, and Slug) from the most offensive character to the least objectionable. The character whom you find most reprehensible is first on the list; then the second most reprehensible, and so on, with the fifth being the least objectionable. 

B) What made you choose the character that you listed as most reprehensible (the first one) and least objectionable (the fifth one) in that order?

UPDATE: Britt knows how to follow directions… really… or at least she knows how to make me change them.

I’ll be revealing my answers to these two questions and why on Monday.  If you do this on your own site with your list, let me know so I can link to it.  Thanks.