2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[Kevin Sevcik]

I'm putting my annoyance at seat saving into a separate post to save people the trouble when replying.

Seat saving was a problem. I know it's theoretically not allowed, but having to explain that to the ignorant is extremely trying when you're already tired from 2 days of competition and just want somewhere to sit while your match comes up. One of my NEMOs had to shame a team that should really know better into letting a physically disabled student take a seat in a row they were "saving". I personally decided I'd rather sit somewhere else than argue with a scout that needed two nice seats at the end of a row for filing boxes. Because he had to FILE in those boxes. Thank goodness I wasn't escorting any VIPs or sponsors or I'd have to explain why filing boxes needed a better view of the field than themselves.

To the suggestions that we smaller teams should just suck it up and get in there and save seats like the big boys:

No.

We bring a skeleton crew to Champs and travel regionals. We do not have people to spare to plop in the stands indefinitely just so we don't have to argue with you when the pit crew finally gets a break to watch a match or two. Nor do I feel like stooping to your level of ignoring the rules and trying to intimidate teams into accepting it.

And please don't tell me that this is an isolated problem stemming from parents/mentors/tagalongs that just don't know better. If they don't know they're being jerks, it's not my job to educate them at the competition; it's your job to educate them beforehand. Believe me, its for the best that you do so, because I and some of my mentors are going to be much less polite about it than you will be.

This is not to say I don't appreciate the problems faced by large teams attending events. You have far more people bringing far more stuff than you could ever hope to stash in your pits between matches. Thus everyone parks with all their stuff in the stands. And then there's a load of stuff spread out in the stands that you really don't want strangers moving about and sitting amongst for completely understandable reasons. These are entirely legitimate concerns. It's just that you always seem to park yourselves and your stuff in the best seating available, and then we have to wonder why the pom-poms and backpacks (and filing boxes) always seem to get the best seats at the event.

It seems like we've been arguing this issue for over a decade now, and clearly the community is no closer to a solution. The team viewing area certainly helps, but it doesn't do much to provide argument-free seating for casual observers or people who want to catch a match or two that doesn't involve their team. I think more action on the FRC side of things is the only way things will get better.

My proposed solution would be adding an additional "No Saved Seats Period" seating zone around the current match team viewing area. Preferably with large-print easy to read signs and an usher or two to cut down on arguments. Teams would be welcome to reserve space outside of this zone as a home base, but seat saving in the zone would be banned or strictly curtailed to only support scouting teams (1-2 seats per person, up to 4 saved seats per team). This would obviously take some tweaking, but I think it'd work a bit better than the jungle rules that currently seem to reign in the stands.