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Originally Posted by Karthik
I'm sorry to beat this to death, but despite three clear mentioning in the manual, it seems that some teams still do not understand that the saving of seats is not permitted. This rule was broken numerous times in the Curie stands during qualifying. What made it this even worse, was that when my scouts pointed out these rules, they were verbally abused and told they "weren't being very graciously professional".
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I arrived at the location in question right after the confrontation occured, to watch my teams robot perform in its next match.
The fact is that there were many open seats available in front of Curie field when this particular incident occured, all of them providing a good close viewing position suitable for scouts. There were several rows of seats taped off with no one in them (an activity that I am not fond of), and anyone could have sat down in these seats without confrontation. There were also plenty of open seats.
Regardless of the rules, people save seats. People who would prefer to follow the rules can find themselves forced to save seats because everyone else does, producing a catch 22. It is not allowed in the rules, but it will happen anyway. This is human nature. When you run into that, instead of causing a confrontation, pick an open seat, sit down, and watch the match. It is usually not that difficult to find an open seat.
I run into "saved seats" quite often when I make the quick trip out from my support position in the pits to watch my team's robot perform in a match. When I do, I calmly explain that I will be there only for the duration of my team's match and there is rarely any conflict or concern. There is no profit margin in reading people the riot act with regard to the rules. If there is a conflict in spite of my being as accomodating as possible, I move to another seat. I almost never have to do that, and there is no sense in complaining on the rare instances when I do.
If you make an effort to avoid conflict, you are not likely to get one. If, on the other hand, you make an effort to cause a confrontation when interacting with others, you are likely to get what you seek. This is an important lesson to teach teenage students, especially those who are prone to causing confrontations. It does not matter whether you are right, or wrong, with respect to the rules. Causing a confrontation is not GP and we should learn to avoid this behavior, regardless of the situation. This is one of the things that we are supposed to be learning through our participation in FIRST.
Eugene