In which we congratulate ourselves on our work over the Labor Day weekend

I did a lot of work on the Toolkit over the weekend. Articles on the meaning of Best Practices, selecting tab staff, physical comfort, and my favorite, the Concierge Table. That latter is important and, I think, overlooked. Most tournaments have a worthless table of smug upperclass students who think they are in charge of things, when their real job is acting as a help desk to the tournament’s guests. These tables are packed with takeout Chinese food containers, computers playing movies and TV shows, and homework, among other things, and surrounded by the host school’s team so thickly that only the most dedicated guest could ever make it through to—horrors!—get some information.

The ballot table is dead, folks. There aren’t any ballots anymore. It’s time to put your people to work somewhere meaningful and create a space at the tournament where your guests can find out what’s happening. Or, you can continue to have your upperclass students take up space and, occasionally, muck things up by taking the initiative when they should have taken the problem to you. Your call.

The Toolkit is getting pretty near completion. I’ve finished transcribing everything that I brought up in the presentation back in Dallas last year. Everything’s been updated if it was already there, and created if it wasn’t. A lot of work for, granted, a small number of people. So it goes. If even a handful of people heed half of it, I’ll be happy. So will the people attending their tournaments.

There is still a bit of work to do. Maybe it will all be done in about 2 weeks. Then I can put it aside and start actually doing the work it describes. Although, of course, Byram is only a few days away. I saw the Paginator over the weekend, but we didn’t discuss our upcoming work much. It was more interesting to debrief him on his recent trip to Europe. He did 37 countries in 9 days, or something like that, and slept on the trains between the cars, hoping that the conductors wouldn’t ask him for the tickets he never purchased. Ah, youth. He did briefly get to meet my granddaughter (at the chez, not in the 37 countries in Europe), and he claims he’s becoming baby savvy, having also met with Megan West’s baby over the summer. He did not offer to change any diapers, however, so it’s unclear how savvy he really is. It also came to light that he’s never been to WDW. We’ve got to do something about that.

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