Saving Seats Epidemic

[MechEng83]

At the 2011 Championship, I encountered a VERY rude mentor/parent/adult from a team who was reserving 5 entire rows on the lower level in front of the Einstein stage. I, along with 2 of my students had rushed from our pit to the stands for the opening ceremonies. We saw plenty of open seats in the "reserved" section and sat at the upper corner edge, as there were very few other seats available.

This particular person came up, yelling and screaming at us that the seats had been reserved. I calmly stated to her that seats could not be reserved and that we were not moving. My students had no idea what to do, but I firmly repeated my statement. I look young, so I assume she figured I was just a kid with some attitude problem. The situation was never resolved, but she threw up her hands and gave up.

THEN, an elderly lady came down the aisle and took a seat at the edge of the "reserved" section. The same woman came back with a vengence, and I swear, I saw rabid foaming of the mouth. She yelled and screamed at this elderly woman (who, I might add threw back some hilarious responses, including how "un-GP" the screaming woman was).

Thankfully, another mentor from the team came and grabbed the woman and diffused the situation, telling her it was ok to let us sit in those seats. Eventually, the rest of the team arrived to claim their "reserved" seats, and managed to consolidate into TWO rows.

Because of this incident, I instruct ALL my students that seats may not be reserved and make sure they all can quote the section of the administrative manual (4.14) stating this.

Now, I'm not advocating being rude and targeting spaces that are blocked off by other teams, but when there is truly no other place to go, don't feel bad about sitting in their reserved section. The rules, and GP are on your side.