After last weekend, I have come to suspect that Frogger gained its staying power in the annals of classic games not only due to its ratio of simplicity to fun but also because of its roots in philosophy and real life application.

On the surface, the goal is straight forward and easy to grasp. You have to work on your hand-eye coordination and your timing or you’ll end up in the drink. Later, as your skills improve, so too do the opportunities for advancement and bonuses. You begin to get noticed by the powers that be, who respond by placing increasingly greater challenges in front of you with shorter deadlines until you find yourself scrambling to keep up, making stupid mistakes, and eventually ending up in the drink.

My dad likes to say that corporations promote their employees to the level of their incompetence. Like frogs, these poor saps just don’t know when to stay put and stop trying to cross the river. They get so focused on what’s right in front of them that they don’t even see that the lights guiding their way are attached to the front of a speeding vehicle. A vehicle that doesn’t understand what that repeating thumping sound is against the grill because its focused on what’s coming up next instead.

Seriously. Don’t go driving on the back country roads at night unless you can handle the snuffing of a hundred tiny points of light. Frogs are not smart.