Where was the GP at Championships?

[trobots.com]

I only saw one particular case of un-GP it happened at the door of gate B. a mentor of a prominent championship semifinalist (who will go un named, I don't point fingers) was entering the gate. Unfortunately this man had such an attachment to his hazelnut creamer coffee that when he was told that it was not allowed in and he'd have to dispose of it or drink it to gain entry, he hollered at the door staff, then chucked it over 6 feet across the ground right by the trash can.

Being appalled as I was, I immediately picked up his cup, lid and holder and kindly placed it in the trash can. Then took the last 5 sips of my coffee and gladly entered. The man told me thank you, and I told him not to thank me. I told him sorry he had to deal with that.

Fortunately for me, that was the last and only un-gp behaviour I saw all day.

We need to all remember we are no better than our fellow man, no matter what job we all hold, what socio-economic status that's involved, or anything. Plain and simple, we're all fellow travelers on this pale blue dot called Earth.

[Chrisms]

I'm speechless... I don't know what to say... although, it's not entirely shocking.

at the warp party, a few of our team members were walking, and another kid literally ran into one of us, and shoved him aside. No reason at all, just passing us, Didn't know us, so it wasn't like a friendly like arm punch or anything of the sort, just a random act of violence.

I think the root of the problem is people who "don't get it" and this problem is faced by every team, every year. When new people come into the program, they don't really "get" first yet. And it's only after they've worked all build season, that they gain a respect for everyone else involved in FIRST.

I really have no solution for this, besides get everyone involved more, engage them and show them how much work everyone is doing so they gain a respect for it... But also, there will *always* be people who are like this, and no program will ever change that.

[DCA Fan]

I am amazed at all these situations, and I agree with everyone who notes that as this community grows, we are going to pick up a few bad eggs, it's simply inevitable. What we do need to do is first, continue to emphasize the message of gracious professionalism, both on and off the field. Really have students understand what "I graciously accept" means. We need a reporting system that allows staffers and volunteers to report any incidents of ungracious behavior (honestly, yelling at event staff is simply unacceptable, no one has any right to feel elitist to them), and I feel that FIRST needs to in some way make Gracious Professionalism a bigger part of the awards. Yes it's not what we're directly here to teach (science/tech education), but let's set ourselves truly apart from other sports by emphasizing sportsmanship even more. A sportsmanship award is a good start, but let's also look at ways that could competitively make a difference and strongly encourage, even coerce, people into playing nice with one another. While this may only really make a difference in a FIRST competition, I think that people will find that the behavior and general feel of such an event will be something they will want to emulate and carry over into their everyday lives.

[jimbot]

THIS IS ALL MY OPINION, feel free to argue or diagree, it helps build self esteme

It is exceptionally difficult not to feel aggresive or angry about something. I am a active participant in soccer and FIRST, both of which I have periods of anger towards something/one. The thing that seperates GP from flat out rudeness is how you control your anger. If I really need to, I will run it through my head a few times and then think out why that happened, or forget it all completly.

If you can keep a bright and welcoming attitude to a person who angers or annoys you, I feel that is defenitly the hight of GP.

I'm proud to say that I witnessed no unGP at Colorado, even the winners of the Finals actually came over to congradulate us when our robot hurdled for the first time in its final match of the day. I thought this was an amazing feat.

[Pavan Dave]

I would hope that FIRST would do something about it. They apparently did something about the people who worked to hack their website AND they plan on doing it to people using wireless for "malicious" purposes next year, why not make the list a little longer? All they need to do is send a message to team leaders (whom I hope were not involved). How hard would it be to set up a <frcXXXX@usfirst.org> account or even via TIMS and let all of the leads know what kind of behavior their team is exemplifying. I bet after the first year or two, we'd see more "GP" in play.

On that note, I wonder if judges talk to staff before giving awards. Although you never suspect "role model" teams that win Chairmans or EI of such behavior, you never know and this is definitely something that should be part of the process... maybe.


Pavan.

[gillejr]

The more and more I read about GP I swear it’s become some sort of god like behavior. If you just give people common courtesy, and treat others like you want to be treated, you will be GP. It’s not a new concept, its just something that is stressed a lot more than normal in this program then other programs.

Also let’s face some facts, this is a sport, and there will be some bad blood between people sometimes, rivalries will occur, some heated discussion, and many other things that always happen in sports. But that doesn’t mean you can’t keep your head on, and there never is an excuse for being rude to someone who is doing their job.

Face it some people are total jerks, and probably will never change. But yea, it is kind of sad.

[Danielle H]

Excuse the odd reference, but I'm involved in my school's musical of South Pacific, so I'm stealing a line from that for the purpose of my statement: "You can't put back a petal when it falls from a flower." In other words, we can talk about what happened at Regionals and at Championships all we want to. We can express our disgust with the behaviours that we saw and hope that those reading this thread take it as a learning experience to keep better watch on their teams, or more seriously impliment the principles and basic moral values associated with GP. But what if that doesn't happen? What can we really do?

Discussing what happened in the past is great, as it helps us learn, but we can't truly do anything about it. We can call up those staffers at Nationals and make sure they were properly apologized to (In fact, that might be a decent idea... if it doesn't make you sound like a stalker), but that's just about it. Unless teams start teaching GP hardcore, then incidents like that are, unfortunately, going to continue to happen. You can't keep doing the same thing and teaching the same things and expect different results. If nothing changes in respect to how important GP is on your team's prioroty list, then the team will not hold GP any higher than they did in the previous year.

What needs to change is not necessarily the people, because the people can learn if they are taught. But that's the emphasis: IF THEY'RE TAUGHT. A lot of the blame in this thread has been put on the students/offending persons, as it should be. Ultimately, people are responsible for their own actions, but how do they learn? They learn the most from those who are their mentors. This doesn't mean the the mentors are "horrible people" or only "show unGP towards their teams," not at all. What it means is that MORE emphasis needs to be placed on GP on each and every FIRST team.

Until that happens, the number of incidents like this may decrease, but they will always be around, as sad as it makes me to say it.

P.S. If this offended anyone, I'm truly sorry, it was not my intention. I tried to be constructive in what I was saying while getting a point across, and I hope I succeeded in that. But if someone interprets something I've said in an offensive manner, please, let me know and I'll personally apologize to you. I don't want to anger/upset people today. =D

--Danni
--393

[StephLee]

Originally Posted by gillejr

The more and more I read about GP I swear it’s become some sort of god like behavior. If you just give people common courtesy, and treat others like you want to be treated, you will be GP. It’s not a new concept, its just something that is stressed a lot more than normal in this program then other programs.

Also let’s face some facts, this is a sport, and there will be some bad blood between people sometimes, rivalries will occur, some heated discussion, and many other things that always happen in sports. But that doesn’t mean you can’t keep your head on, and there never is an excuse for being rude to someone who is doing their job.

Face it some people are total jerks, and probably will never change. But yea, it is kind of sad.

I fully agree that there are some things you just can't avoid in any program, and that some instances of undesirable behavior will occur no matter what we do. HOWEVER, Dean has made numerous references in speeches at kick-off to the guard we should all take against allowing certain trappings of the world of sports - the undesirable aspects - to creep into FIRST.

Originally Posted by Dean Kamen, 2007 Kick-Off

So I'm begging all of the mentors that no matter how exciting and intense the competitions are getting, like other sports, one day we will be the sport, the 21st century sport that's part of the culture everywhere.
I'm begging all of you to remember we have a much bigger set of goals to keep at the front of our mind all the time, than when your robot wins or loses.
Some of the robots will lose.
Some of them won't even run.
But all of the participants should be winners, they will be winners if we keep track of what's really important.
So my first message is just for all of you veterans, it's the booster shot.
First is an extraordinary group of people doing an extraordinary thing, lets not ever lower our standards or forget why we do this.
And for the students, I remind all of you, we don't want any of the trappings of sports that frankly are an embarrassment or inappropriate for things as important as what we are doing here and helping create the next generation of people that will determine the fate of the world.

Despite the fact that it wouldn't be hard to allow these things to slip in as we get bigger, it's our job to prevent it from tarnishing such a life-changing program.

[vivek16]

That is absolutely horrible. I am disgusted by the fact that they made someone cry. This should be immediately corrected although as many have said above, it probably will not solve the problem. I guess that as FIRST grows there will only be more incidents of this. The only solution is to stop it in the team and make sure that there is some consequence for being non GP. There are different levels of non GP but this is just unacceptable.

[vivek16]

Originally Posted by gillejr

Face it some people are total jerks, and probably will never change.

True, I agree with you completely on this but if this type of behavior does happen they should not be in FIRST. FIRST is, indeed, a privilege, not a right.

-Vivek

[Protronie]

I have read of the non-GP incident at Palmetto.. personally I never saw or heard of any which is a good thing cause I have almost zero tolerance for insolence from anyone. I wish people would point fingers and name names... if someone sees (name) from team XXXX doing this or that... post it for all to say, hey (name) that wasn't kewl. If a whole team has problems with GP letting the rest of us know would be nice. I and any team I might work with just might not to associate with rude, un GP teams.

[Kim Masi]

Originally Posted by ebarker

It also seems that some teams are not interested in either
(a) the safety award or ....We have points and penalties on the robot field of play, but no where else.

Being safe and being GP is not about getting the points, the award or the recognition, its about doing it because it's the right thing to do, and is what FIRST stands for.

[Kim Masi]

Originally Posted by KathieK

The lack of GP can be blatent or subtle.

Many people were wearing team Media badges with no intent on taking photos or writing articles about their teams... but were OK when I asked them to leave the field unless they were truly media people (I think that's horrible that someone would try and use that badge just to have access to the field so they can coach their teams or scout).

I couldn't agree with this more, Kathie. Subtle acts of GP are sometimes even more rude and disrespectful than blatant ones. One of my biggest pet peeves about the Championship event is that there were many people down on the playing field who did not have the proper permission to do so. I saw a highly respected mentor of one team tell someone else to take a pit crew badge off of a student and put it on so they could go down to the field.

There were also instances where I saw people wearing badges of whom they did not belong to. I saw a highly respected mentor give their VIP badge to someone else so they could wear it on the field.

To me, neither of these acts were gracious, professional and instead just selfish. When will this stop?

Sorry, now that my rant is over, I would like to echo and sum up what people have said as a possible solution to all of this:

-It starts with one person, you don't have to be the head mentor or the student leader to spread the idea of GP, it starts with a small voice
-Everything you do is contagious, your actions one minute can be someone else's the next.
-When you're about to make a decision, say anything or take an action, just remember, "would my grandma approve?" If not, chances are you shouldn't.

[Zyik]

Correct me if I am wrong here, but I believe the Devil Duckies, Team 1266, have had one of the best ideas for maintaining Gracious Professionalism.

They put stickers on all of the team members. This sticker has the phrase, "Hows my Gracious Professionalism?" a phone number, and a number for the student. This allows you to report members of the team who are acting a little un-GP without making a scene. If it's just meant to be another, "hows my driving" joke, maybe it shouldn't be, its a good idea.

Perhaps if everyone adopts this idea some of the un-GP incidents will decline.

Anyone from 1266, how well has this system been working for you?

[Kim Masi]

Originally Posted by Zyik

They put stickers on all of the team members. This sticker has the phrase, "Hows my Gracious Professionalism?" a phone number, and a number for the student. This allows you to report members of the team who are acting a little un-GP without making a scene. If it's just meant to be another, "hows my driving" joke, maybe it shouldn't be, its a good idea.

I thought this was a joke! although that's a cute idea, has anyone ever actually used it though?

Well going along with this idea, college football players have stickers on their helmets if they have a good practice, and often the leaders are chosen based on this system. It's a highly respected practice and is taken seriously. Maybe a similar idea can be implemented to a FIRST team?