Insanity
Did I mention before that the insanity was about to begin? Well, it has. I have slept maybe 10 hours in the past 2 nights. I don't have any hope of more in the near future... TOURNAMENT SEASON has arrived...If you didn't know or couldn't remember, I referee women's lacrosse. All year long. Like seriously, we only have a short break starting the weekend after Thanksgiving until after New Year's. All. Year. Long.
And the summer is the worst.
Not for the quality or pay or any of that, just for the incredible amount of life that it sucks up and does not spit back out. That's because in addition to the time spent actually running on the field there is all this hidden background time spent scheduling. Everything. The Tuesday night league. The Wednesday night league. The 2, 1 day events this weekend which are small, only 10 officials Saturday and ~30 Sunday. Nothing. Piece of cake.
Then next weekend the 3 day long tournament at the beach. With 5 fields running ALL DAY from 8am - 11pm. Yes, 11pm. That is not a type-o. The logistics of constantly working 10 people at a time, with a water break or two thrown in, plus their room accommodations is nightmare to say the least. And we don't even have a schedule yet. Do you know how difficult it is to get some adults to commit to something when you can't exactly guarantee them what they're committing to???
The weekend after that is a nice 2 day tournament in Medford, NJ. Competitive. As in, there are score cards and winners and losers. People get a little tense when there are losers because they don't want to be one. Oops. It's like they don't want to accept that the reality that having one winner means there are a whole heck of a lot more losers and the probability of them being the one winner is not very high.
It can get tense to say the least.
So, in addition to making sure there are compatible bodies - because yes, referees are people and some people don't like or get along with other people and a cranky referee is not a nice thing to see - we have to make sure there are competent bodies on the field as well. And when we schedule this tournament we are totally out of area. And we don't have any rooms to offer people.
Either they come from here to a room at their own expense, they come for only one day, or they don't come at all. And the people in the Medford NJ area don't really know us. And we don't really know them. If we happen to get an e-mail and a positive response you're never sure what you're going to get in terms of competency; IF they show at all. By if I mean there have been years where a whole slew of people said they would then decided just not to come. I guess they found something good on the TV or something...
If you're keeping track that is 3 weekends in a row of tournaments. In June. I can't even let myself think about July yet. We currently JUST received the schedules for the first weekend. Last night I left my Mom's after 9. I had 2 martinis before I was calm enough to even consider going to bed. I am so going to be living without sleep because I don't think I could afford all that alcohol. Maybe I should quit my day job and open a liquor store?
When and if you do call and talk to me this summer please remember - whatever I say is under the influence of too little sleep and at least 1 martini...
posted by Ali @ 7:39 AM
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