FIRST Choice- Why do we have this problem?

[apples000]

I realize that this post is going to sound like a big complaining rant, which is really what it is.

I am really disappointed, angry, and upset that the people who have set up FIRST choice are unable to make it work. Last year, I was angry that our team was unable to get any items that we needed, but I said OK, next year, they won't screw up. But, they did. If andymark doesn't have the infrastructure to support such a high load website then don't use andymark.

Here's my problem. Our team scrounged money together all summer long to pay for the expensive registration fee, so we expect to get our money's worth. We were a little disappointed that we couldn't log in last year because we had a low team number, but we just don't have the resources and manpower to have somebody constantly refreshing a web site to get the first order in. We won't be there when the people at andymark figure out what's going on and restart the website, so we'll get absolute crap like generator cords for our KoP. Meanwhile, the team that has a guy refreshing the website every 5 seconds will get exactly what they want. In my mind, that's not fair.

The usual excuse of these people being "volunteers" doesn't apply here. People have been paid to set up this miserable excuse for a web site, and our students have worked their butts of to pay to use this awful site. FIRST needs to reschedule the opening and give everybody a few days to prepare again.