I am now lined up for all the usual college suspects, with
the exception of Yale, which I will no longer be working. Mostly they will be
the same old same olds, with the exception of the Ben Franklin folk, who are
going a week earlier. I’ve talked about this before. Everything about it is
counterintuitive, and counter to the original plan when it moved to Presidents’
Weekend, but their reasons for trying the different weekend were strong. It is
theirs to do. I have a feeling that it will all work out fine, but the event
will prove itself, or not, when it arrives. The basic hunger for rounds, at
least where there’s bids attached, seems unabated, which should do a lot to
remove the question mark from the new date. As far as I’m concerned, it’s much
of a muchness, but there is no question that not having a team, while it
doesn’t necessarily render me opinion-free, does render me relatively
opinion-worthless. For instance, Kirby had some questions about the divisions
at Rather Large Bronx, and he asked for thoughts from both me and Kaz. She has
a whole herd of horses in the race, and I don’t. So we definitely look at
things differently. Then again, even when I did have horses, it was a mere
handful, which is a lot different from a raging herd. I went for years without
having to decide who would get which slots, and I was happy not to have to make
that sort of decision. She has to make it all the time.
All things being equal, I’m expecting to call on McGonagall
and the Paginator as the latest cogs in the great wheel of tabbing. Kaz will be
where she can be, which is mostly where I’ll be. I would love to work a show
with CP again, since we haven’t shared the honors since, I think, Bronx in ’14,
AKA the “Luck Be a Lady Tonight” Karaoke Bonanza. I’ll call on Catholic Charlie
when I can; he doth protest that he’s innocent of knowledge of debate tabbing,
which he then proceeds to do in his sleep. (In reality, I’m the only person who
usually falls asleep in the tab room. Give me five minutes of catnap and I’m
ready for anything. So why can’t I sleep in the middle of the night in a bed?)
My standing offer to bring new people into the tab room is
still out there. I’ve heard people complain that tab rooms are closed black
boxes and I’ve invited those people in directly to watch and learn and help,
and they’ve ignored me, I guess because it’s more satisfying to carp than to do
what is mostly a thankless job of blindly juggling arithmetic and trying to
find you-know-who who hasn’t checked in 15 minutes after smart time. Most of
tabbing is enforcement. It has ever been thus, that enforcement was required,
but once e-ballots started removing the truly mind-numbing business of entering
ballots, the enforcement has started to show more clearly. Anyhow, we will
always need new people to direct tournaments and to understand the tabbing
process. Yes, tabroom does a lot, but there’s a limit to automatic. You need to
know why you’re doing what you’re doing, plus you need to move vast numbers of
children (the forensicians) and lunatics (half of the judges) and serial
killers (the other half of the judges) from one place to another in a timely
manner such that everyone is happy and no one comes into tab threatening your
life with a railway share. I've written my big old toolkit to help people out with this. But getting in there and doing it, preferably under the guidance of someone experienced, is the best way to learn the ropes.
Any takers?
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