Over the past couple days, I found myself traveling to Denmark and dealing with a lot of airport people. Two events stick out in my mind.
The first was an interaction between a Northwest ticket agent and a passenger who voluntarily took an earlier flight to help NWA with an overbooked situation. In short, she did them a favor. And because no good deed goes unpunished, her bags were not taken off the flight and sent along with her new flight as promised, but rather kept on the plane so she would now have wait until her original flight came in. When she asked where her bags were, the gate agent kept asking her the same question: Have you voluntarily separated from your luggage? By her definition (and every other common sense definition) she had not. But, by the rules or policy of NWA, she had. She got more and more irritated by this rather stupid person who could not or would not deviate from the policy to employ common sense and help her out.
The second event happened in Amsterdam when the people in London forced me to check a carry-on. I was not staying in Holland nor was I leaving the airport. Yet, since my bag was on the other side of customs, I had to go through when I landed in Amsterdam. The agent asked me Are you staying for one day? I, of course, answered: I am staying one hour until I catch my flight to Denmark. He wrinkled up his eyebrows as if he did not understand and then asked again, Are you staying for one day? I finally understood that the only answers allowed were Yes or No. I answered Yes because No meant I would be staying longer. He stamped my passport. (I may get a letter from the Dutch government asking why I only spent an hour in Amsterdam, but I will deal with that later.)
Our advice: When creating systems for your volunteers, guest teams or other people you deal with, speak in a language they understand. Remove as much jargon as possible. Also, ask yourself if what you are expecting makes common sense. Most teams – especially newly formed ones – only know they want to play in your tournament and give you money for the experience. If they ask stupid questions it is probably because they know what they want, but just don’t know how to ask for it in a way that makes sense for the policy or within the jargon of a tournament. Be patient with them and they will remember you as the only one who stopped and really listened to them.