| Saturday |
| It only gets worse |
Being falsely misled into believing that the role of Team Liaison Assistant only entails providing assistance to my international teams whilst empowering them to take responsibility of their own competition, I was not ready to spend a great deal of time in this position.
Taking a day off uni to attend a team leader meeting at the Melbourne Town Hall was already itself a massive effort. I haven’t been a very active person as of late, and if I had a choice between sitting on my bum in a daunting lecture or walking around the city, I would choose to sit – unless of course, if walking was integrated with shopping. Arriving at the hotel to pick up the Chinese synchro team, I realised I made a big blooper. Without utilising my specs which I should’ve, I glanced tentatively around the lightly lit hotel lobby overflowing with international athletes and assistances, wondering where my Chinese team was. It is rather unlikely that anyone would have difficulty identifying an Asian team, but I struggled. Not because I couldn’t see a bunch of girls with black hair, small eyes, dressed in red and yellow uniform, but because I didn’t recognised their international code name. CHI, which I have assumed the Chinese Team to be coded under all along, stood for Chile. How stupid I felt. I felt even more stupid after spending hours organising and compiling transport and training schedules for the wrong team.
Anyhow, not to be caught up with my silliness, I introduced myself to the CHN team (otherwise also known as PRC), and to my dismay, none of them spoke English. Nonetheless, with such an extensive history of studying at Chinese school, I managed to pull off with enormous effort an awkwardly strung together load of Chinese words. With a sigh of relief, they understood.
Finally arriving at the MTH, I acted host and guided and seated my team before venturing off once again, frantically search for my Macau and Korean teams who were no where to be seen five minutes before the commencement of the meeting. Shit.
Fingers crossed that they were somewhere in the room, there was still hope. A person with a strong European accent rose from his chair and announced a role call. Oh shit. For a moment, I thought I could get away without being identified as a bad team liaison assistant, but I was simply fooling myself. All the teams announced, including my Macau team, reported being present once their names were called, but silence proceeded Korea. I sunk into my chair.
That wasn’t the worst of it yet.
Yesterday was the last training day for all synchro teams before competition and I was yet to make contact with the Korean Team despite numerous attempts with leaving messages and voice mails at the hotel. After finishing my organisation of the other two teams, I made my way to the beautifully dull Sports Information Desk and asked if Korea had come by to collect paperwork. The French lady behind the desk jolted up with a smile, grabbed a pile of untouched paperwork from Korea’s pigeon hole and plopped it on the desk in front of me.
“They are the only team who have not come by at all,” said the lady with a strong accent, smiling, “I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Neither do I,” I replied disappointingly.
“Well, I hope they’ve handed in their routine summary forms today,” she said.
“Umm…routine summary forms?”
“Yeah, deadline’s 4pm today, that’s umm…in an hours time.”
“Oh no, crap. Excuse my French. Thanks for that.”
I dashed off into the city with only a vague idea of where the hotel is located. I really wouldn’t be surprised if I were to lose my way in the midst of the frantic rush. Russell street, Russell street, my mind was rattling away, where the hell is Russell street. I’ve been there billions of times. Shit, where is it??
I tram came to a halt at a familiar intersection. I looked around at road signs. Ohh, Russell Street . I hopped off with enormous relief and walked what seemed like miles up a hill until I reach Saville Hotel. I glanced at my watch 3:20pm. Awesome job! Okay, now where’s the team?
Huffing and puffing, I approached the old receptionist from FINA and asked to speak with the Korean Team Manager immediately. She understood my urgency, but was of no help. “Well, they left for the Crown Promenade about 10 minutes ago.”
Flustered I was and frustrated at this chasing game, I was in no mood for slow old people. I asked the lady when the next bus is due depart here to Crown. In the slowest slow-mo ever, she flicked through the manual as if she was analysing each page and struggled to read the twenty-four hour clock system. She eventually blurted out, “oh, you’re in for a wait dear, the next one won’t be till an hour later.”
Exhausted from watching the little old lady churn through those almighty pages of the transport timetable, I reminded myself not to ask another question or else I’ll be held back for another 10 minutes. I dialled Crown Promenade’s number and on the receiving on was another old lady volunteer. OMG. I have absolutely nothing against old people, but when you need to meet a deadline, they just seem to purposefully get in your way of everything. I tried to ask as little questions as possible, as that would demand too much of the old lady, so I simply and nicely asked her to keep the Korean Team there until I arrive.
Off onto another tram and another hike across a few streets and a bridge, my clock read 3:40pm, and the Crown Promenade was still beyond my sight – and that had nothing to do with whether or not I had my specs on. I could’ve burst out into tears of frustration and anger at my team’s disorganisation, which I do not take any of the blame for. But after some calming self talk, I let out a long sigh, shook my head and continued on my mission.
To cut a long story short, i eventually made it to my Korean team only to realise they didn't speak english, and our conversations comprised of slow, single english words, compounded with exaggerated gesturing. Not surprisingly, they didn't know about the routine summary forms, so i spent another two hours trying to sort it through with them, missing the deadline - but i cleverly contacted my supervisor and ensured that they were able to compete.
After what was already a very long day, i was starving and run-down, ready for some scrumptious free volunteer dinner. I was in anger and shock horror to find myself walking away from the counter with one single cold chicken wrap in my hand. They assumed that all volunteers wear sizes L, XL, and XXL, yet get by the day with a single wrap. |
posted by sciurine @ 12:32 PM   |
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Thoughts, ...flowing slowly and gracefully, ...awakening the senses, ...keeping you up in the night, I sometimes wonder why people write. To express? To reflect? To be heard? I write, to free myself from a world of thoughts.
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