So, sez you, what is Goy really like?
Not terrible, sez I. At least, that’s the easy answer. What’s nuts is the obliviousness of Rippin’ to the Goy’s existence.
As with running any program for the first time, we had a learning curve to overcome with the District tournament software, but it wasn’t particularly horrible. We never did suss out using it for Congress, and we’re not sure if that’s us or them, but we really didn’t care, given the nature of Congress selection process (preferential balloting). And once or twice the program over the weekend and went entirely kaflooie and was salvageable only through a reboot, but to be honest, I expect less than 100% stability from most apps in this day and age, so there’s no shock there. The insistence of the program to prioritize side constraints even when they didn’t exist (in PF, after LD byes) was annoying, but, eventually, predictable. I passed this information along to the Goysters, who remain (and this may be my biggest complaint about them) relatively unresponsive. Perhaps they’re bombarded with all sorts of requests from people pointing out to them that their program isn’t perfect, and they’re too annoyed with all of us to do anything but think to themselves, well, it must be users being annoying and not the program that’s flawed. God knows, that’s the kneejerk I.T. response to problems, so I sympathize with them because it’s usually true. But, guys (goys?), the program has bugs that needs to be fixed. Get on it. I mean, when you have side restraints prioritized in PF flip rounds, at the very least there’s a default setting that needs some tweaking.
But my biggest complaint isn’t with the software, which is quite manageable, and which saved me much time-consuming filling out of forms. It’s with Rippin’. I have multiple, conflicting instructions on what to file. I have no clear instructions on how to file Congress (so we’re doing what we always did and hoping that their ineptly explained new forms have some relation to it). There is NO CONNECTION OF THE SOFTWARE TO RIPPIN', which means I have to print EVERYTHING and mail hard copies to them. From which I deduce that they have no master connections to the data after tournaments. I mean, really. How much are you people paying me for this, anyhow? How much are you paying yourselves for endless oversight of automatic processes? How sincere is your commitment to automating these Dark Ages processes that serve no earthly purpose but to satisfy bureaucrat-lust. I could send Rippin’ the file and they could look at it on screen, if they were so inclined, at the cost of (wait for it) no money and no time and no energy, or I can print out the file (dozens and dozens of pages) and—well, do the math. I mean, to begin with, everyone has to fill out every bloody form they always had to fill out EVEN THOUGH THEY REGISTERED ONLINE. Why? For the signatures of all the people who didn’t qual? Do they think people are making up their interest in going to NatNats? Do they end up with that many Principals demanding to know why they’ve been kept in the dark about even having forensics teams at their schools all these years? Do they understand the concept of solving problems after they occur (if any) rather than pre-solving for every problem that could conceivably occur under the sun, including the self-extinction of said sun? And they wonder why New York doesn’t really care too much about NFL, when the organization is obviously mostly about a tournament most of us can’t go to, when the entire body of Rippin’ folk must needs be entirely dedicated to combing through all this endless data for no other purpose than that tournament?
Jeesh.
I continue to maintain that I am the World’s Worst District Chair. If I cared about myself and some Sailors ever attending, that might help, but since that is an impossibility I only do this because I believe in supporting my fellow schools, some of which do want to go. But compare—can you believe this—CatNats. Our diocese is allowed to send X number of entrants. We have a one-day tournament mostly along our usual lines to select X number of entrants. At the end of that day, X number of happy entrants go to a tournament that begins and ends on dates that they can actually attend. In other words, CatNats compared to NatNats is a piece of cake. The Catholic Church, which invented the Jesuits, the Vatican library and, presumably, all that arcana in the Dan Brown books, has a simpler process than the non-Catholics?
I say Jeesh again.
On the positive side, after my complaining earlier in the year, they have cleaned up their act enough so that the subject lines of their endless series of automated emails no longer inevitably contain misspellings. I should take that to heart. They drive me crazy, but they used to drive me carzy. I guess that’s a step in the right direction.
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