[Katy]

Some of my former teammates have had problems. One of our team members was the topic of discussion of another team and the boys were making bets on who was going to sleep with her first. She had never expressed any interest in this idea and was rather annoyed/upset/insulted. Also once when I was our alliance captain I heard a few not-quite-flattering comments but really if you don’t like a person I think you will always find some way to make fun of them.

These kinds of stories are not fun things but FIRST was never guaranteed to be jerk-free and I do not think that these stories represent the majority of the males in FIRST.

I think the only thing frequent enough to really worry about are just simple time and place problems. For example last year at championships we found we had to switch out both drill transmissions within 30 minutes for our next match. A guy decided this was a great time to come up and talk with me. That was not a very good time.

Personally I don’t like it when people from other teams randomly come into our pit area as a basic rule. It feels like strangers are walking through your house. The front of the pit is open obviously and so the front edge is rather social but I think of the rest as team space. That place in the back away from traffic is where I take work when I don’t want to be bothered and if I had to “draw a line” that would be it.

I am sure that girls do the guy-chasing thing in the same way that some guys chase girls but actually more frequently I hear girls joke about how many guys are chasing them in a semi-bragging method…a “stalker count.” I really don’t like that…and I would just like to put that factoid on the table for whatever it is worth.

Second factoid for the table…I don’t think the comment “Do you know how to use that tool?” gets whatever effect was intended. Guys stand there and grin as they say that as if it was witty and offer to help show you how to run very basic power tools. I understand that might be somebody’s way of starting polite conversation and it wasn't intended as an insult but it just usually makes me very mad. The other effect is to confuse me as I check the tool to see if the person was pointing out a genuine problem.

Third factoid…If we could somehow make it a social rule of FIRST that you can hand people your phone number if you want but not chase people around demanding theirs (same of screen names etc) I think that would make life easier for everybody. Last year at the championships party a guy walked over to our team and explained he was collecting girl’s phone numbers and asked us to write them on his arms. We thought it was funny but it made all of us nervous and we didn’t want to do it. The result was I watched him get eight numbers in a row with area codes not even from our time zone.

I don’t think random hugging or conversation to be harassment…or even the very random telephone number once in a while. That is just how people are. I think if we could just all leave each other to their personal spaces (such as the back of the pit), not follow people around, and not interrupt people who are working we would solve 90% of the problems. Still…I don’t think the behavior at FIRST regionals to be abnormal or notably bad/annoying.