Terrible Volunteer Experience

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

...He also was constantly rushing my drive team to get the robot setup. I know there is a schedule, but this is also a competition. We are trying to do some advanced things in Hybrid modes, and they don't work unless the robot gets setup correctly...which takes a little bit of time. Usually the field hasn't even connected before we are done with setup.

People asleep at pokey sticks or slow on returning balls just isn't ok (and yet I've seen it denied multiple times by others when it's pointed out). The rush off the field though, I think we can really do something about at a higher level. It's happened to us as well, and it seems that it's an honest lack of instruction to the volunteers. I hope next year they come out with a rule like "teams must be off the field by the time the first alliance is done being introduced", and will pursue this idea.

Instructions like this can't fix all the bad volunteer experiences, but in some situations I think they can help. As far as safety glasses, I like the two-minute loaner idea. How do the sign-outs work now?

[Jon Stratis]

Who are the volunteers you deal with at every competition? Some are mentors. Some are parents. Some are students. Some are friends who were convinced to help out. Some are professionals who work for one of the event sponsors. Some might have no connection to FIRST at all.

When thinking about volunteering for something like this, there is a relatively large amount of turnover. Parents might stop when their kids graduate. Friends might be too busy. Students might move away for college. Mentors and professionals may have lifestyle changes (like having a kid, for example) that prevent them from investing the time. As a result, you always have new volunteers at events. People who have never done this before.

At each event, there is a list of "key volunteers". These are the people that run the whole show. It includes the head ref, the lead robot inspector, the head queuer, pit admin, field reset, and FTA (I may have forgotten one or two, but you get the idea). These individuals have all been volunteering, mentoring, or otherwise been involved with FIRST for many years, and they're the ones that "get it".

If you have a problem with a volunteer, document it as best you can (in other words, write it down!) and find the best person to report the issue to. If your issue is with a robot inspector, talk with the LRI. If its with a ref, talk with the head ref. If you aren't sure who to talk to, go to pit admin OR find the nearest available key volunteer - they'll be able to make sure the complaint is registered with the correct people. Having a written copy of the complaint avoids the "telephone game" and misunderstandings.

Unfortunately, these events tend to be staffed a little light. There simply aren't enough volunteers to have extra's sitting there waiting for a job to do, thus it's incredibly difficult to ask a volunteer to leave halfway through an event. I know robot inspectors often get pulled off to help with other jobs after inspections are done. As an LRI, I can tell you that I would figure out how to appropriately address any complaints about an inspector. Most often, this would involve talking with the inspector to try to get them in the right frame of mind, and then keeping an eye on them for the rest of the event. Anyone who had multiple or serious complaints would either be asked to come back in a role that didn't have the interacting with teams or spectators, or would simply be asked not to come back.

Finally, I'll close with how busy the volunteers (and especially the key volunteers) are. They're all running around the entire time making sure the event runs smoothly. They have a hundred different things that need to be done every hour just to make sure every team gets out on the field for every match. Unfortunately, that means something like this (a bad experience with a safety glasses volunteer) can be a lower priority, especially if the immediate issue has already been "resolved" by getting the individual a pair of safety glasses from another team.

[Akash Rastogi]

Unfortunately, I had the same experience as the OP after I had left my goggles at a restaurant in order to make it back in time for a match. When I got to the door I realized I forgot them and asked to borrow a pair for 2 minutes while I went back to the pits to grab one of the many spares I keep in my bookbag. After she refused and was quite rude about it, even after I explained I had spares and would bring the glasses right back and had a match in 5 minutes, I was told to call someone for a spare from the pits. After I stood there calling people without answer in front of her, she still refused, everyone was out of the pit to see the match and its pretty hard to notice your phone ringing in there, even on vibrate. There were also many students and mentors who didn't have service in the pits/dome. I told her I would have gladly signed out a pair for 2 minutes and forfeit my wallet or even my coach pin to her to borrow a pair, but nope, she did not budge. Thankfully, a student from another team who overheard was nice enough to lend me glasses for a minute while I got my own. I thanked the volunteer anyway, and went on my way.

I understand that a volunteer cannot make exceptions otherwise everyone will ask, but why be so rude? Other than this person, I had no issues with other volunteers. I usually hate ragging on volunteers because they are all wonderful people, but this was just too frustrating.

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

Yep, we gave out 1500 AndyMark safety glasses at the Championships. We will do this again next year. How we distribute them may or may not change, but this year we handed them out at our booth.

I agree that the volunteers are instructed to act certain ways, be cheerful, and abide by GP. I was a volunteer inspector on Wednesday and Thursday, and we were told how to act and inspect very clearly. I trust that other areas (safety glasses hander-outers, etc.) were well informed how to act. This volunteer should have been asked to leave her duties.

Maybe Volunteer Coordinators can hand pick a few undercover auditors who do things that have historically raise the ire of these over-zealous volunteers to see how things are handled. In this case, it would be good to have an auditor try to enter different doors into the pits without safety glasses and then see how they are addressed if they give similar excuses for not having glasses as said in this thread. Heck, since we are giving out a few thousand dollars worth of safety glasses, I might try this myself (hide safety glasses, hide name badge, see what happens).

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

Perhaps you could set up a station with "Andy Mark" safety glasses outside the pits...so people wouldn't already have to have a pair to get your free set.

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by Siri

As far as safety glasses, I like the two-minute loaner idea. How do the sign-outs work now?

At regionals you sign your team number and name and get a temporary pair.

I was told at champs no one can sign them out at all.

[Andy A.]

I've run into more then one volunteer working the pit entrances who was just plain rude and nasty. I concluded that it's not a matter of the individual, it's the position. I can imagine that sitting in the same place for hours on end having to deal with the same 'problem' again and again would wear thin. It will get the best of anyone, given enough time. The bummer is that a lot of visitors, parents, friends etc. get a full dose of cranky FIRST volunteer right away.

I had a chance to talk to Bill about this at CT. It seemed like it wasn't the first time the issue had been brought up. My suggestion was that volunteers be rotated through the position so that none were required to hand out glasses for more then a couple hours. He mentioned that had been looked into in the past and would be again.

[DjScribbles]

I, my wife, and one of the parents all had a very similar experience.

My wife and I got to the pits before realizing we forgot the bag with the safety glasses in the car. My wife just wanted to stop in and see how the kids were doing, I was going to help with some changes to the robot. We were denied after stating we were mentors, and told to call someone on the team or go get them. I shrugged it off, kinda a pain, but I was able to borrow a pair from our inbounder, who wasn't going to the pits anyway.

But later, one of the kids parents who isn't really involved in the building of the robot, but also wanted to go see how the kids were doing had this scenario:
He asked for the safety glasses.
The woman asked if he was a mentor or a visitor.
He responded that he was a mentor, as he's helped the team with things like fund raising and such.
The woman responds that the glasses are for visitors, members of the team are responsible for bringing their own.
The parent states that at all of our other events in michigan, that it was never a problem for him to borrow a set of safety glasses.
The woman says "Well this is St Louis, not Michigan".


We also had a parent forced back out into the downpour by event staff just before the hail/tornado because he came in the wrong door after he took the team trailer back to the garage after loading our stuff up.

[Seth Mallory]

Years ago they gave safety glasses to anyone. Many teams did not bring any with them. On Saturday they would run out of them and send people around the pits to look for them. It was common to find the entire team in loaners and find 10 more pairs in their pit. The event would finsh with 2 or more empty totes. That is why they want the teams to supply their own. That said not allowing an adult to sign for a pair seems a little to strick.

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by Andy A.

I concluded that it's not a matter of the individual, it's the position. I can imagine that sitting in the same place for hours on end having to deal with the same 'problem' again and again would wear thin.

It is a matter of matching the volunteer to the position. Shout out to Dimas, who is brilliant at this position and could give training on how this should be done. He has helped us at Chesapeake for years.

[pathew100]

My wife was a safety glass distribution engineer last year in St Louis. She did not have a very positive experience. Sounds like the same problems persisted this year. I think it's mostly miscommunication between teams and FIRST.

FIRST doesn't have enough safety glasses at the Championship to be able to loan them to teams. (Last year on Wed or Thurs they overnighted more safety glasses to St Louis for the weekend)

The volunteers at Championship are instructed to only give glasses to visitors. As pointed out already, teams are instructed to bring enough for themselves and they will not be loaned glasses. Maybe this needs to be a separate e-mail blast before Championship to get the point across.

Also, if you do have a problem with a volunteer, you can go to pit admin who can get a hold of the volunteer coordinator responsible.

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by pathew100

My wife was a safety glass distribution engineer last year in St Louis. She did not have a very positive experience. Sounds like the same problems persisted this year. I think it's mostly miscommunication between teams and FIRST.

FIRST doesn't have enough safety glasses at the Championship to be able to loan them to teams. (Last year on Wed or Thurs they overnighted more safety glasses to St Louis for the weekend)

The volunteers at Championship are instructed to only give glasses to visitors. As pointed out already, teams are instructed to bring enough for themselves and they will not be loaned glasses. Maybe this needs to be a separate e-mail blast before Championship to get the point across.

Also, if you do have a problem with a volunteer, you can go to pit admin who can get a hold of the volunteer coordinator responsible.

Well the kids are in charge of packing - the thought of kids forgetting a pair is not crazy. What I was suggesting is that adults could sign out a pair...just in case. To provide no alternative if a team forgets theirs is kinda unforgiving of FIRST.

The real issue was the way it was handled - with hostility and in an un-graciously professional way.

[BrendanB]

The biggest problem is that safety glasses are most commonly kept in teams pits so when members of the team who have been in the stands for most of the day decide to go down to the pits the issue arises that the teams safety glasses are in the pits. For those who keep a pair with them all weekend they can be commonly be lost when one leaves the pits to visit the stands or get something to eat.

I'd recommend teams keep a few pairs in the pit with a majority of your supply in the stands for members when they go to the pit. It makes no sense to pack your safety glasses and leave them in the pit for the weekend. Another recommendation is for students to purchase their own pair (which most do) because they are more likely to have them at competition.

[pathew100]

Originally Posted by animenerdjohn

To provide no alternative if a team forgets theirs is kinda unforgiving of FIRST.

The real issue was the way it was handled - with hostility and in an un-graciously professional way.

The safety glass job at Championship is very stressful. The volunteer who was involved in this incident had probably been yelled at by students/mentors all weekend as my wife had last year.

But I agree completely. It was not handled in the appropriate way. And you're right, FIRST needs to be a little lenient here.

All of this would get better if there were more safety glasses available. And if people actually brought them back when they were done borrowing them (this is the hard part...)

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by pathew100

The safety glass job at Championship is very stressful. The volunteer who was involved in this incident had probably been yelled at by students/mentors all weekend as my wife had last year.

But I agree completely. It was not handled in the appropriate way. And you're right, FIRST needs to be a little lenient here.

All of this would get better if there were more safety glasses available. And if people actually brought them back when they were done borrowing them (this is the hard part...)

I would agree with you, if the first incident had not happened on Thursday morning.

[Siri]

This is crazy, but could teams leave their glasses at the entrance? Say on Wednesday each team (optionally) gives 2+ labeled glasses to the safety glasses people, and only those glasses can be given to the team. Making some simply cubbyholes/shelves (stable, light, modular, etc) to store each divisions glasses would be a good student project. I know it creates more for work volunteers, and even for teams, but maybe it's time to give more teams more resources as well as more responsibility.

Just a random, difficult to execute thought.