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"Spilts don't matter"
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 2006-04-30 5:15 PM |
Expert  758    Morgantown, WV |  Subject: "Spilts don't matter"So, I did my first race of the year yesterday. The Green Mountain College sprint distance triathlon. I was all done, cursing myself for not training enough this year, and knowing that my cold that's been lingering all week was coming back, when I heard one of the volunteers talking. She was apparently timing the race. One girl was yelling at her becuase she wasn't taking splits of people coming in. This is the part that's on my mind. She responded to the girl "What does it matter? It's just the final time that counts! Who cares how long your bike is?" The other girl was starting to get mad. She tried explaing "They care. They want to know where they need improvement, and want to know how the race is stacking up against their training" The girl that was screwing everything up answered "Well, I don't care. Seems stupid" And then preceded to NOT take splits. Luckly someone else was also taking spilts. I was blown away. It seems this is the attitude I get all the time. "I don't care, so you shouldn't". "Who cares if you're 10 seconds faster? It's just 10 seconds". It makes me so angry. I CARE, THEREFORE, IT MATTERS, DON'T YOU GET IT? THIS ISN'T ABOUT YOU! Just needed some where to fume, where people actually UNDERSTAND where I'm coming from. Oh, and this isn't just about racing, or triathlons, this is about life. It's a problem in society that's pis&^ng me off. Thoughts? Edited by greenmtnman 2006-04-30 5:17 PM |
| 2006-04-30 6:12 PM in reply to: #410465 |
Elite 2661 DC Metro, slowly working my way to NC | Subject: RE: "Spilts don't matter" Specific to the race itself, I'd shoot an email off to the race director and let them know what happened - volunteers that aren't doing what they need to do aren't a whole lot of help and also mess up the reputation of the race. Life in general... Yeah, it's incredibly annoying. I try (and admittedly don't always succeed) to try to remember that just because something isn't important to ME, it may be the be-all, end-all for someone else. But I also try to see the reverse as well and not necessarily go smashing my "it's all about me right now" moments into someone else. But, DUH, SPLITS DO MATTER. |
| 2006-04-30 6:22 PM in reply to: #410499 |
Expert 941 WA | Subject: RE: "Spilts don't matter" wow, that's really messed up! i second bodycheck, tell the race director to bar that girl from ever volunteering again! that's very inconsiderate of her. the whole world would be better if everyone was more considerate. |
| 2006-04-30 7:36 PM in reply to: #410465 |
Expert 758 Morgantown, WV | Subject: RE: "Spilts don't matter" Yeah, and the thing is, it's a class, and she's being graded on how smoothly it runs! I didn't mean to sound elitest in the little rant either. I totatlly understand why people pass stuff up as just "stuff", not having any meaning to them. I just want everyone to be respectful, and care about other people. I can deal though. Of course no ones going to know what it means to me, I don't understand half the stuff other people do. So, I wasn't trying to sound elitest. |
| 2006-04-30 7:44 PM in reply to: #410465 |
Elite 2661 DC Metro, slowly working my way to NC | Subject: RE: "Spilts don't matter" You didn't sound elitist. Annoyed and frustrated, yes (and I would be, too!), elitist - not at all. The situation you were in, it's part of her JOB (despite the volunteer title) to treat that stuff as important. And yeah, it would be nice if everyone was respectful of everyone else. (Course, then we'd have a spontaneous breakout of world peace and the world might implode or something...) |
| 2006-04-30 9:01 PM in reply to: #410465 |
Expert 957 | Subject: RE: "Spilts don't matter" I'd be furious if splits were missing for me due to someone like that. Yeah, my overall time isn't impressive, but my swim time usually put me in the top 50% of women, so I want proof anytime I am in the top 50% of something. I've dealt with volunteers on a number of occasions when I used to work on campaign. Some people are just too difficult to deal with or cause too many problems that it's sometimes best to just get rid of them. So definitely let the RD know about her. |
| 2006-05-01 8:49 AM in reply to: #410645 |
Elite 3650 Laurium, MI | Subject: RE: "Spilts don't matter" i guess you get what you pay for.... I had a similar problem at my last tri, except instead of just not recording splits, they were recording them wrong. All the volunteers were over 80 and had trouble reading the watches and race numbers. My swim time (for 500 yrds) was recorded as 30 min because he read the starting time wrong and through each transition I had to tell them my number 3 times before they got it right. Somehow 28 looked like 16, 42 and 12. Fortunately my friend Sarah was there to watch and she was there at each transition making sure they recorded everything right. There were a bunch of people who didn't have some splits recorded, so they had to wait 2 days to release the results. They blamed it on a "flaw in the computer recording system." there comes a point when you have to say "I appreciate you wanting to voulenteer, but please just go home." |
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