OK, first the basics: name, age, wage and occupation.
Going in order of wage from highest to lowest (some obviously converted from British Pounds to American Dollars at the rate of 2:1, but I can't see there being any huge discrepancies there):
ELSIE, 57: Shop owner. Owns a supermarket in a large town. Wage: $110,000.
CAMDEN, 43: Hair stylist at top salon in national capital city. Has celebrity clients. Wage: $90,000.
RUSSELL, 55: Marketing manager for a division of a major corporation with executive salary to match. Wage: $80,000.
NICOLA, 28: Travel agent. Wage: $36,000.
RACHEL, 37: Librarian. (FTR this is actually someone I worked with when I was a librarian, back in the days before I became a techie.) Wage: $32,000.
DAVID, 72: Lighthouse keeper. Wage: $28,000.
MARK, 21: Bartender. Wage: $11,000.
ROSE, 64: Piano Teacher, but used to be a headmistress. Wage: $8,000.
ROUND ONE: None, the first round the players have to decide on appearance alone. (They'd have to be pretty damn thick to choose one of the top three wage earners at this point though. Who'd choose a well-turned-out middle-aged person like Elsie or Camden over someone who looks like Mark, Rachel or Nicola?)
ROUND TWO: Three facts about the remaining seven players. Since we don't know which the players will eliminate first, I've included facts about all eight:
ELSIE: Has been married for over thirty years and has three grown-up children. Has an awkward phobia of cats. Her husband is often away on business.
CAMDEN: Lives with his long-time partner but has no children. Enjoys the arts and live music. Regards his creativity and attitude as his best assets.
RUSSELL: Married fairly late in life and has two children in their early teens. Enjoys swimming, boating, and the outdoors. However, finds living in the city refreshing because there is so much life there.
NICOLA: Lives with her fiancee. Her #1 passion in life is diamonds. Also enjoys shooting and hockey.
RACHEL: Divorced with no children. Enjoys public speaking and has done so on many occasions. Will happily admit she knows "less than nothing" about any kind of pop music.
DAVID: Lives with his wife of many years, and is a grandfather several times over. Likes the countryside because of its smell. Both he and his wife are highly physically fit.
MARK: Lives in lodgings with friends of similar occupation. Has no regular girlfriend although is popular with women. Suffers from extreme claustrophobia in public elevators.
ROSE: A widow whose husband passed on a few years ago. Enjoys gardening and also painting, which she is very good at. Is an active member of several neighbourhood committees.
ROUND THREE: Six wage-earners left now. The facts in this round focus on travel.
ELSIE: Rarely gets the chance to leave home for more than a few days at a time. When she and her husband do travel, they enjoy fine food and luxury hotels.
CAMDEN: Visits Paris on a quarterly basis. Camden also regularly makes short trips to San Francisco and back. He and his partner usually have an annual two-week holiday abroad.
RUSSELL: Makes occasional trips within America. He also enjoys sailing and takes his family on at least one sailing trip every year.
NICOLA: Usually takes several short holidays each year with her boyfriend. Often goes on trips with others in her work environment. Enjoys discovering new exotic locations.
RACHEL: Travels locally a great deal, but rarely goes further afield. When she does go abroad, it is typically planned a long time in advance.
DAVID: Has rarely been abroad since leaving the military decades ago. A holiday for him typically involves his wife and him visiting family, although they have on occasions gone on trips on their own.
MARK: Once or twice a year, likes to visit "party" destinations with lots of big-name dance clubs. Usually holidays with a large group of male friends.
ROSE: Although she occasionally holidays, she prefers to stay close to home. Rarely leaves the town she lives in and has strong roots tied to her local community.
ROUND FOUR: Five wage-earners left now. We learn something of the wage earners' school days.
ELSIE: Had a reputation for being an impatient child among her teachers. Did not adapt easily to academic learning and was disappointed in her exam results. Made the decision to enter employment early rather than go to college, an unconventional decision for a girl at the time.
CAMDEN: Was known as an intelligent and popular, but sometimes lazy, student. Several of his teachers wondered if he could apply himself sufficiently to fulfil his potential. He showed a strong preference for the artistic disciplines and hated maths.
RUSSELL: A high achiever at both school and college, he was regarded early on as something of a geek and somewhat oversensitive. In college he overcame this and became a popular student, sitting on the student council for a year.
NICOLA: Regarded as popular rather than scholastically outstanding, her best asset was always judged to be her people skills rather than any great academic talent. She lists her favorite subject as music and her best one as maths.
RACHEL: Regarded as "talent" by her teachers, but barely noticed by her peers, she was an extremely shy child and an awkward teenager. She hated sports but enjoyed history and literature. After gaining excellent grades at school, she went on to complete her study at a top-ranked college.
DAVID: Growing up in the state education system at a time when one barely existed, most of his education was paid for by the military who invested in order to put him through college. As a boy, he was known as a fairly quiet child but excelled in some physical sports.
MARK: While popular with the other kids in school, he had the reputation of being a troublemaker. His grades were regularly below average and some of his teachers felt that he could do better if he applied himself more. He rarely took part in sporting or social activities.
ROSE: Known as a child with a fairly forceful personality, she has an excellent academic record from more than one college and/or technical institution. Intelligent, generally well-liked and able to force a point through, she was active in student politics and student affairs. She was the editor of a student magazine for a year.
ROUND FIVE: Four wage-earners left now. The same specific questions are applied to each wage earner.
Those questions are:
1) Has the wage-earner ever bought a car worth over $20,000?
2) Does the wage-earner own, or jointly own, a property with a garden?
3) Does the wage-earner regularly read the financial news?
4) Does the wage-earner regularly shop on the Internet?
ELSIE: 1) Yes. 2) Yes. 3) Yes. 4) Yes.
CAMDEN: 1) Yes. 2) Yes. 3) No. 4) Yes.
RUSSELL: 1) Yes. 2) Yes. 3) Yes. 4) Yes.
NICOLA: 1) No. 2) Yes. 3) No. 4) Yes.
RACHEL: 1) No. 2) Yes. 3) Yes. 4) Yes.
DAVID: 1) Yes. 2) No. 3) No. 4) No.
MARK: 1) No. 2) No. 3) No. 4) No.
ROSE: 1) No. 2) Yes. 3) No. 4) No.
ROUND SIX: Three wage-earners left, and this is the last information the players will get. It's also the most important though.
ELSIE: She has always been self-employed. While frugal by nature, she believes in paying top-dollar if what you get for it is the best.
CAMDEN: Some of his famous clients believe that his particular occupational talent might be a gift from God.
RUSSELL: Believes he may have advanced to a higher level in his career if he had been less family-oriented, however thinks that this would have been too much of a sacrifice for him.
NICOLA: The favorite part of her job is making people's dreams come true when they thought that they couldn't.
RACHEL: Thinks that many aspects of her work have helped her to overcome some of her early problems with shyness in social situations.
DAVID: Takes his job very seriously and considers that he will probably still do it for as long as someone is needed in that post.
MARK: Enjoys his job and takes some pride in how well he does it. Regards it as a great way to meet girls as well as a way to earn some cash.
ROSE: Shortly before her husband died, she made some major re-adjustments in both her life and her career.
OK... for the sake of proving fairness, here are the major clues, going from the smallest wage to the largest...
ROSE: A widow whose husband passed on a few years ago. Enjoys gardening and also painting, which she is very good at. Is an active member of several neighbourhood committees.
In other words, no way is this woman holding down an $80,000+ job. She probably works part time. The players should eliminate her straight away. They might get sidetracked by her high achievements academically, but her lifestyle makes it clear that she isn't a high earner.
MARK: 1) No. 2) No. 3) No. 4) No.
It should surely be obvious to anyone with a pulse that Mark is a low earner, but the fact that he gets four "nos" to the "four questions" should seal the deal - he doesn't read the financial news or even shop on the Internet.
DAVID: Takes his job very seriously and considers that he will probably still do it for as long as someone is needed in that post.
There's nothing at all to indicate that David is a high earner, but this is the biggest clue that he's not. A post that someone is "needed" for is unlikely to be one that earns the keeper $80,000 or more.
RACHEL: Travels locally a great deal, but rarely goes further afield. When she does go abroad, it is typically planned a long time in advance.
Extreme academics are rarely high earners - I should know! - and Rachel is no exception. The "planned a long time in advance" thing suggests that she's hardly the type of person who would order a plane ticket to Rome on a day's notice.
NICOLA: Her #1 passion in life is diamonds.
There are all kinds of clues with Nicola - her age, the fact that she's never bought a car worth over $20,000 - but this one is fairly subtle. Her "passion", as it's worded, suggests aspiration - in other words, she likes diamonds but doesn't actually have them. If she earnt $80,000+, she shouldn't have many problems in that regard! The biggest red herring with Nicola is her prolific travelling. Unless one bright spark comes up with the correct theory that she's able to do it because of concessions from her occupation (travel agent).
RUSSELL: Believes he may have advanced to a higher level in his career if he had been less family-oriented, however thinks that this would have been too much of a sacrifice for him.
In my opinion, this is the person who, apart from Elsie, is most likely to be picked as the top wage earner. Other than Elsie, he's the only person to answer "yes" to all four of the wealth-related questions. There's so much about him that screams wealth that I had to throw in the (fairly obvious) late clue above that suggests that he hasn't made it to the top of his profession. A Marketing Manager is no CEO!
CAMDEN: 1) Yes. 2) Yes. 3) No. 4) Yes.
Another strong pick for the top wage earner, but there are more discrepancies in Camden's case than Russell's. His job is described as a "talent" and he thinks one of his strongest assets is his creativity - he doesn't fit the profile of, say, a top executive. The major flaw in the case for Camden as the top earner is the fact that he doesn't read the financial news.
ELSIE: Rarely gets the chance to leave home for more than a few days at a time. When she and her husband do travel, they enjoy fine food and luxury hotels.
In the case of our top wage-earner, however, the clues are scattered pretty much everywhere. You have a strong, opulent-looking, individualistic woman with a husband in business, who's always been self-employed and who has strong professional commitments to stay near her home. Clearly her work means more to her than her family life. She's plainly wealthy and is willing to pay "top dollar" for good things. Apart from Russell, she's the only person who has paid for an expensive car, reads the financial news, shops on the Internet and has a house with a garden. Poor exam results aside (and those hardly apply to someone who's always been self-employed) there really isn't anything here to suggest that she's not the top wage-earner, and a whole load of stuff to suggest that she is.
