In which we ignore what Wednesdays are supposed to be about

I’m nearing the end of my season. Our CFL qualifier is this weekend, and then I’m done tabbing until September. I will be down at NDCA in Orlando, but I’ll be judging PF for Lexington, all of two rounds, so at least I’ll have something to do. CP won’t be there, because he has to tend to Pennsylvania. (I’m only reporting it as I heard it.) Kaz will be judging Policy. I am prohibited from tabbing by the bylaws, but I gather no one is tabbing. Apparently they’ve decided that tabroom can handle it all by itself. We don’t need actual people in tab: they’re just featherbedders, avoiding the real work of the tournament.  Yeah, whatever. All we did at the Gem was improve nearly every MJP assignment and evenly distribute the rounds for PF, dole out too few rooms too many times, adjudicate conflicts, empanel judges for breaks, and generally keep things moving. Who needs that?

Since they’ll be doing the assignments by rounds, NDCA will not, in fact, have our problem. For reasons we don’t quite understand, tabroom does not assign rounds the way we would. In PF, there’s usually plenty of judges, for whatever reason. So what we want to do is spread the assignments around equally. Tabroom doesn’t do that. I thought it might be a vestigial result of pairing priorities for MJP, a default set of which is also over on the PF side, but removing them didn’t seem to make a difference. I want to give that more of a look, though. We’re fine pulling people who’ve judged 4 rounds out and replacing them with people who’ve been sitting on their duffs all weekend playing Minecraft, but it would be nice it this were automatic. (Come to think of it, giving everyone a couple of rounds—after the tournament starts—and then turning that off might do the trick. I won’t know until half a year from now, though.)

While I am marginally sympathetic to judges wanting rounds off, and obviously will go out of my way to do it when we have the resources, I’m not quite as sensitive to people complaining that they’ve Judged, Every. Round. when they have a scheduled two-hour break between rounds. And they do complain. Obviously a six-hour break is much more refreshing. So is jumping in the lake, which is what I recommend they do.

Anyhow, after this weekend they won’t have Menick to push around for a while. I’m turning my attention to summer fun planning. I realize that the vast majority of forensicians see summer as the opportunity to extend the already endless debate season into endless plus, but that’s the beauty of having a day job. I already have something to fill the empty hours between rounds. Sometimes having simply no rounds is the best thing of all.

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