The above title comes from Eric Berne’s 1970 book, Games People Play. He used it to describe a situation when a person instigates an argument between two others and then sits back to watch the fun.
It came to mind when I read this news snippet, in which the Tigard School District wants to build the Alberta Rider school on Bull Mountain Road. This requires approval from the City of Tigard, a separate governmental unit. The City wants the school district to build a road along the east side of the school site, running south from Bull Mountain Road. This would cost about $500,000. A private developer building on the site would be required to do much the same thing, to connect Bull Mountain Road to the land to the south. The school district doesn’t want to do it and is complaining that the City is being unreasonable.
I shouldn’t succumb to schadenfreude when two government agencies get into a fight with each other, but I do.