Where's the Gracious Professionalism?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by J-Blondie

I think it's possible they had a lack of experienced volunteers who were willing to referee. Reffing is a tough job, and I'm sure to most volunteers it's extremely intimidating to most people.

That said, the negativity against the refs this season isn't going to help volunteer numbers for reffing either, which is also a thing to consider.

I have to agree. I volunteered as a rookie ref, wound up on a 6-ref crew (who were experienced and had worked together before). Due to the ref layout (4 refs + head ref), one of us was always on break. But, that was Week 1.

By Week 4, some head refs, like the one for the competition I added to my reffing schedule, had figured out that more refs were needed, in addition to FIRST's adding two refs (1 on break and 1 at the truss). For that one, we threw all 8 of us on the field for elims--1 head ref, 2 refs focused on scoring, 1 ref focused on fouls, and 4 refs targeting both scoring and fouls. I saw a Week 6 event with a similar layout.

But here's the thing--after that Week 1 event, I saw a post indicating that one or more of the refs from my Week 1 crew were reconsidering reffing again. It's not an easy job to find volunteers for, it's even harder to find experienced volunteers... and given the amount of criticism they get, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them drop every year, particularly this year. I'll be back next year, probably...

But I do have a suggestion for any Volunteer Coordinators reading this. If you see someone complaining about the X position (ref, reset, judge, whoever), you have my full approval (not that it matters) if you rope them right into that position next year, or for an offseason. Just to let 'em have a taste of what it's actually like.

[jaykris284]

Agree completely with Anupam. Competition is what drives innovation, it's what creates the next big thing (nowadays the next big thing is usually tech related). So yes while FIRST's end goal is to inspire students I would have to say that the idea of competing, and winning that competition is quite inspiring. Knowing that all the work you have done over the past 6 weeks has paid off, it truly sets the stage for a future endeavor that might take longer than six weeks.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by EricH

But I do have a suggestion for any Volunteer Coordinators reading this. If you see someone complaining about the X position (ref, reset, judge, whoever), you have my full approval (not that it matters) if you rope them right into that position next year, or for an offseason. Just to let 'em have a taste of what it's actually like.

Anyone who thinks that the volunteers are really bad at their job feel free to take a walk in their shoes this off season and see how easy it really is and see how you handle being in the crosshairs.

[J-Blondie]

Mhm. This year my team went to the new week one event down in Central Illinois. The reffing was off on some things, but it wasn't all that bad compared to some complaints, especially during week one. No serious problems with calls or anything that would have decided matches. It was clear that the refs had a lot to learn about how to work the field and how and what to call things, but that's understandable. Fast forward to week 4 Wisconsin...mostly all the same refs as week 1, but things had changed. It was clear that the group was more confident and that the team was working better together than they had during week 1. It was clear that they had gone on to learn from mistakes, missed calls, field errors, etc. and worked to make their team better so that they could handle a much larger regional.

Just one example about how people can work to improve themselves to make their jobs easier and to take some problems and resolve them. I think they did a very good job.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

"Gracious Professionalism" is an ambiguous term, with no set rubric for what defines "GP" behavior and what doesn't. I can only assume this is purposeful, as it should be. It's not black and white, and is often difficult to apply to many situations. It's an ephemeral guideline to what the culture of FIRST, and hopefully the rest of society, should be.

Barry Bonzack posted the definition of "grace" once in a thread at another time the FRC community was facing adversity.

Likewise, "professional" can be defined as follows.


Neither term directly correspond to one another, and just the definitions of the two words do not encompass all of what Gracious Professionalism is. But you can begin to glean the intent, and more insight can be gained by listening to Woodie Flowers speak about it. Woodie and FIRST often use terms like "kindness," "respect," "creativity," "integrity," "sensitivity," "mutual gain," "standing on the shoulders of giants," and "high quality" when describing GP. In particular, Woodie's sentiments about avoiding humiliation of others echo particularly strong with me this year.

It may be cliche, but adversity is a test of character. While it's far from the first time in FRC history, this year has had plenty of adversity. And like the times in the past, some have handled the adversity better than others. Many have shown that Gracious Professionalism is indeed ingrained into their character. Others have handled it with less grace and less professionalism, and their actions have not contributed to our mutual gain. I do not blame them, this has been a very stressful year and a lot of people have seen their hopes derailed by events fully outside of their control. It can be difficult to manage.

Yet, I do find it hard to reconcile how some of these attitudes are in line with our mutual gain, mutual respect, or avoiding humiliation of others. Throwing temper tantrums or publicly degrading individuals, whether they be volunteers or professionals, does nothing to help the community. The spite and vitriol exhibited by not only the scorned parties, but others in the community, does not seem healthy to me. Just as I do not blame these individuals for their negative attitudes, they should not lay the blame on others. Often, the same emotionally-charged, high-stress environments that led to their emotional states were often involved in the decisions that they disagree with. None of these decisions were made with malice in mind, and nobody is happy about these scenarios. Empathy is tremendously important here.



Is it that inconceivable that the competition is only a portion of what FIRST is about, and a means to the end of the ultimate goal of changing culture? It's an easily understood and exciting event that draws attention and gets participants and observers excited. It's using the sports model to create attention and excitement for STEM programs. It's not the core emphasis of FIRST.

I wish we could spotlight this entire post. It's perfect.

Jane

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

"Gracious Professionalism" is an ambiguous term, with no set rubric for what defines "GP" behavior and what doesn't. I can only assume this is purposeful, as it should be. It's not black and white, and is often difficult to apply to many situations. It's an ephemeral guideline to what the culture of FIRST, and hopefully the rest of society, should be.

Barry Bonzack posted the definition of "grace" once in a thread at another time the FRC community was facing adversity.

Likewise, "professional" can be defined as follows.


Neither term directly correspond to one another, and just the definitions of the two words do not encompass all of what Gracious Professionalism is. But you can begin to glean the intent, and more insight can be gained by listening to Woodie Flowers speak about it. Woodie and FIRST often use terms like "kindness," "respect," "creativity," "integrity," "sensitivity," "mutual gain," "standing on the shoulders of giants," and "high quality" when describing GP. In particular, Woodie's sentiments about avoiding humiliation of others echo particularly strong with me this year.

It may be cliche, but adversity is a test of character. While it's far from the first time in FRC history, this year has had plenty of adversity. And like the times in the past, some have handled the adversity better than others. Many have shown that Gracious Professionalism is indeed ingrained into their character. Others have handled it with less grace and less professionalism, and their actions have not contributed to our mutual gain. I do not blame them, this has been a very stressful year and a lot of people have seen their hopes derailed by events fully outside of their control. It can be difficult to manage.

Yet, I do find it hard to reconcile how some of these attitudes are in line with our mutual gain, mutual respect, or avoiding humiliation of others. Throwing temper tantrums or publicly degrading individuals, whether they be volunteers or professionals, does nothing to help the community. The spite and vitriol exhibited by not only the scorned parties, but others in the community, does not seem healthy to me. Just as I do not blame these individuals for their negative attitudes, they should not lay the blame on others. Often, the same emotionally-charged, high-stress environments that led to their emotional states were often involved in the decisions that they disagree with. None of these decisions were made with malice in mind, and nobody is happy about these scenarios. Empathy is tremendously important here.



Is it that inconceivable that the competition is only a portion of what FIRST is about, and a means to the end of the ultimate goal of changing culture? It's an easily understood and exciting event that draws attention and gets participants and observers excited. It's using the sports model to create attention and excitement for STEM programs. It's not the core emphasis of FIRST.

Love this post. You said it an earlier thread, but it's basically been my 'motto' regarding controversies this season: "Let's take a step back". Vicious complaints about how terrible the GDC is and how this season has been absolutely ruined by various things do absolutely nothing to help. Maybe this response is coming from 'rainbows and unicorn land', but I truly believe it. Also bothering me is the speed at which people are directly attacking FIRST and HQ. Example would be the SVR situation. Obviously, it was a ludicrous situation-but we're still missing the most important side of the story as to what happened-HQ's. But before members of the impacted teams came on to discuss their side of the story, conclusions were preemptively drawn-stories that now attack FIRST are given more credibility/instant reliability. A wide group of people believed the misheard, 'threatened removal from championship' without a single second person commenting on the sitiuation. The willingness of some to believe that was simply frightening and really shines a negative light in some ways.


But hey, maybe I'm just missing a bigger point.

[rkbot]

I think this year has turned out pretty well compared to how many other team activities would have if they turned out like this has. Yes there have been many questionable calls. I think i am speaking for many when I say that there have been calls that you can clearly see should not have been made or should have been made. For the amount of money and time students, mentors and sponsors put into this, winning is a big part, but i do not think most teams get angry about the fact they have lost. It is the circumstances in which they have lost. I try not to be to hard in my judgments of the referees, as this years game is very confusing.

I have to say this though, that if this were any other sport the refs would be getting much more flak immediately after match. I play other sports outside of first, and if a call is made that is clearly wrong there is an immediate verbal disapproval. This disapproval involves yelling/cursing at the refs or the other teams you are against. I am happy that i do not see this inside of FIRST but this years game makes many people go very close to crossing that line.

I also do not like seeing the "Gracious Professionalism" card played every time you disagree with something. They are allowed to be wrong, and this year they have been wrong a lot, so there is good reason to be angry. Most are not willing to sit back and watch when they know something has not been called properly.

I still see Gracious professionalism every time i go to an event. There is respect between teams, mentors and volunteers. Any team or person can go up to anyone else there without fear of ridicule to ask for help. This makes me happy because from what i have seen in other sports and just in general, there are very few people like the ones you meet in FIRST. Many wont even give you the time of day.

The reason you see so little compassion this year is because of the lack of people admitting that they have made a mistake. It gives me hope to see a referee admit that they were wrong. I have seen this on a few occasions which is good but, i have seem many where they have not. People do not want to show respect to someone who makes multiple mistakes and does not admit that they were in any way wrong or are not willing to listen to your side of the story.