In which we wish we weren't so obligated

I probably made a big mistake going with per-round PF obligations at the Tiggers. People just don’t understand it. My base assumption was that since all the LD coaches never had much problem with it, neither would the PF coaches. But they seem to be made of less stern stuff. It doesn’t help that tabroom correctly calculates what they owe and all they have to do is look. That’s like asking them to read the invitation, and since when has that ever happened? It also doesn’t help that I originally missed the fact that there’s 7 prelims in PF, and had set the obs as 2 all around rather than 2.3. Oh, well. No PFers will be harmed in the runup to the tournament. But a few PF coach heads will be spinning off the hinges.

Last night I told them to check everything, since the few hire requests I looked at were conceived somewhere north of Cloud Cuckoo Land. Usually the requests are off, but this was pretty dramatic. The thing is, there aren’t going to be that many judges for hire, and they have to be doled out carefully, primarily to the long-distance folks, who have the greatest warrant. If you can get there by bus, you can throw another judge onto one of the seats. But I know the whining will begin the minute I send out the notice that there are no more judges. It’s always the same people, and they almost inevitably are from big programs that theoretically have plenty of alums to draw on, but whose alums have gotten as far away from them as conceivably possible at the first opportunity. I’ve said this before: if you don’t have a pool of grateful alums to draw upon, you’re not doing your job right. Hell, Kaz is still supported by alums from Newburgh, and she hasn’t been there since the Coolidge administration. Any question whether she’s doing her job right?

Marty Meat, by the way, thinks I send out too many emails. Maybe. But better too many than too few. Kaz said that when she was traveling the last few weeks, people were saying that tournaments in our region were identified by the endless texts telling people to go to their rounds, to start their rounds and to end their rounds. Yeah, that’s us. We’re great communicators. Judges who hit start in a timely manner and finish within a reasonable amount of time, however, don’t hear all that much from us. You do your job, we don’t have to bug you. You act too cool for school, we’re on your case like [insert your own metaphor here, but “white on rice” is not acceptable].