A lot of people have said a lot of things about the housing/hotel reservation process for GenCon Indy 2007, but I thought I would share my own experience, just to show perhaps another perspective on the situation.
This will be the first year I attend the massive gaming convention held in Indianapolis. I’m really not much of a live-action gamer these days. Most of my pursuits of this manner are of the computer gaming variety. However, my old gaming group attended en masse last year and it sounded like it wasn’t too bad. Most all are returning this year so I thought, “what the hell, it’ll be a good chance to hang out, play some games, drink some beer…”
I want to pause a minute just to add that my most frightening nightmare is a room of shoulder-to-shoulder men ages 14-45, mostly unwashed, donned in “aren’t-I-cool” t-shirts (you know what I mean), attempting to outdo each other in their knowledge of obscure sub-culture trivia. Dude, if you quote some throw-away dialogue from Blake’s 7 to me, don’t expect me to act like I know what the hell you’re talking about or show you any measure of respect. You females better stop smiling too. We ALL know EVERY line from every Monty Python movie, please stop quoting the Holy Grail. (Flying Circus quotes are still ok…but strangely enough, not the Spam song). Oh, and Kes was NOT the coolest Star Trek character ever and Kirk can kick Picard’s French ass any day. Whew, I think my blood pressure just dropped a few points, guess that had been bottled up for some time…..
At any rate, in terms of registration and hotel reservations, I was pretty much told what to do by the group of people I was going to hang out with at GenCon. I trusted them and their information and to be honest, I didn’t feel like scouring the GenCon website for registration information. I meant to register or "buy the badge" or whatever on Sunday, but I forgot. It happens. Mrs. Greyjoy wanted to go shopping so we spent most of the day driving around town. By the time we got home I was tired and it was almost time for the Grammies. I was pretty pumped up about the Police reunion so I was a tad distracted. Finally, I recalled there was something I was supposed to do about 6am the next morning. I jumped on the computer while still wet from the shower and “bought the badge”. To be honest, this wasn’t the most clear-cut process in the world either. But I figured it out with my oversized brain and succeeded where many of you other lesser beings would fail. When I finished, lo and behold, there was a link asking me if I wanted to continue on and reserve a hotel room. Nervously, but with a certain sort of curious titillation, I followed the link. I found out I was able to reserve a room, so I did so and, quite pleased with myself went on my merry way. Although I had been told by a gaming buddy that room reservations didn’t start until 12 that day, I figured my buddy got it wrong or the time had been changed or I had misunderstood...whatever.
At any rate I emailed my group and told them they could reserve their rooms early. That’s when I first learned about the "glitch" (or THE Glitch as it has now entered into sub-culture lore). One of my buddies, who will be a vendor at GenCon, emailed me and let me know my reservation was probably invalid. “Invalid!?” I thought. “As invalid as your reputed heterosexuality.” and with that I began calling and emailing people in the frenetic fashion that only a solid middle-level, cubicle bound, bureaucratic administrator can muster. Well, as it turns out it was a darn good thing I mentioned it to my buddies AND that I had some friends "in the know". Apparently the “Glitch” allowed people to start registering at 12 midnight and not 12 noon as they attended. (Lets be honest here, this isn’t a glitch but more evidence that Americans have too much lead in their diets, not altogether unlike the “conversion error” that led to the loss of the 125 million dollar NASA orbiter, in other words, someone frocked it up). When it was discovered that some people had registered early, there was an outcry of “unfair!” from the gaming community, and the admins of GenCon decided, in the interests of “fairness” to wipe clean all reservations that had occurred, then restart the process at 2pm. This is the moment I began to get grumpy. Now, I didn’t receive official notification about the cancellation until 2:40! Now, explain to me how it’s "fair" that people weren’t notified until well after registration resumed that their original reservations were cancelled. This part is what really makes me laugh. This was tacked to the bottom of my confirmation email:
This will be the first year I attend the massive gaming convention held in Indianapolis. I’m really not much of a live-action gamer these days. Most of my pursuits of this manner are of the computer gaming variety. However, my old gaming group attended en masse last year and it sounded like it wasn’t too bad. Most all are returning this year so I thought, “what the hell, it’ll be a good chance to hang out, play some games, drink some beer…”
I want to pause a minute just to add that my most frightening nightmare is a room of shoulder-to-shoulder men ages 14-45, mostly unwashed, donned in “aren’t-I-cool” t-shirts (you know what I mean), attempting to outdo each other in their knowledge of obscure sub-culture trivia. Dude, if you quote some throw-away dialogue from Blake’s 7 to me, don’t expect me to act like I know what the hell you’re talking about or show you any measure of respect. You females better stop smiling too. We ALL know EVERY line from every Monty Python movie, please stop quoting the Holy Grail. (Flying Circus quotes are still ok…but strangely enough, not the Spam song). Oh, and Kes was NOT the coolest Star Trek character ever and Kirk can kick Picard’s French ass any day. Whew, I think my blood pressure just dropped a few points, guess that had been bottled up for some time…..
At any rate, in terms of registration and hotel reservations, I was pretty much told what to do by the group of people I was going to hang out with at GenCon. I trusted them and their information and to be honest, I didn’t feel like scouring the GenCon website for registration information. I meant to register or "buy the badge" or whatever on Sunday, but I forgot. It happens. Mrs. Greyjoy wanted to go shopping so we spent most of the day driving around town. By the time we got home I was tired and it was almost time for the Grammies. I was pretty pumped up about the Police reunion so I was a tad distracted. Finally, I recalled there was something I was supposed to do about 6am the next morning. I jumped on the computer while still wet from the shower and “bought the badge”. To be honest, this wasn’t the most clear-cut process in the world either. But I figured it out with my oversized brain and succeeded where many of you other lesser beings would fail. When I finished, lo and behold, there was a link asking me if I wanted to continue on and reserve a hotel room. Nervously, but with a certain sort of curious titillation, I followed the link. I found out I was able to reserve a room, so I did so and, quite pleased with myself went on my merry way. Although I had been told by a gaming buddy that room reservations didn’t start until 12 that day, I figured my buddy got it wrong or the time had been changed or I had misunderstood...whatever.
At any rate I emailed my group and told them they could reserve their rooms early. That’s when I first learned about the "glitch" (or THE Glitch as it has now entered into sub-culture lore). One of my buddies, who will be a vendor at GenCon, emailed me and let me know my reservation was probably invalid. “Invalid!?” I thought. “As invalid as your reputed heterosexuality.” and with that I began calling and emailing people in the frenetic fashion that only a solid middle-level, cubicle bound, bureaucratic administrator can muster. Well, as it turns out it was a darn good thing I mentioned it to my buddies AND that I had some friends "in the know". Apparently the “Glitch” allowed people to start registering at 12 midnight and not 12 noon as they attended. (Lets be honest here, this isn’t a glitch but more evidence that Americans have too much lead in their diets, not altogether unlike the “conversion error” that led to the loss of the 125 million dollar NASA orbiter, in other words, someone frocked it up). When it was discovered that some people had registered early, there was an outcry of “unfair!” from the gaming community, and the admins of GenCon decided, in the interests of “fairness” to wipe clean all reservations that had occurred, then restart the process at 2pm. This is the moment I began to get grumpy. Now, I didn’t receive official notification about the cancellation until 2:40! Now, explain to me how it’s "fair" that people weren’t notified until well after registration resumed that their original reservations were cancelled. This part is what really makes me laugh. This was tacked to the bottom of my confirmation email:
“A kind note about calling the hotel "just to be sure": Please do not call your hotel "to be sure" until after August 8, 2007. Please understand that processing your reservations from the Housing Bureau into the Hotel system will take a few days. Rest assured that if you have received a confirmation number already from the Housing Bureau, the hotel will honor your booking. Thank you for your consideration.”
Ha! Apparently not.
Just to add more fuel to the fire, it also turns out that the registration site is blocked at my workplace! Luckily the guy I was going share a room with was home and did it for us. And yes...I should have checked beforehand, but it never occurred to me. From postings on the GenCon forums, many other’s were also blocked from the site at work. Now, how is this “fair?”
What really started to get me angry were forum posts that were sort of accusing people who got in early of either duplicity or stupidity. Here is one post:
I got home at 12:10, fired up the laptop and tried to get in. Of course, that's when I find out it's been moved to 2pm. Then I go to the message boards and find out it's because a group of people took advantage of a glitch in the system??? *grrrrr*
Everyone's known for weeks, if not months that registration was at 12pm eastern. *shrug* Moving it to 2pm sucks for a good number of people who tried to take care of things over their lunch hours. I feel for everyone, I really do. But anyone who registered 12 hours in advance has no room to complain, since they knew it was a glitch in the system.”
This is only a sample, believe me there were plenty more. I can say with complete honesty that I wasn’t trying to "exploit" or “take advantage” of anyone or anything. I just wanted to register and go to Indy to hang out with friends and play games. I have to imagine most of the 200 or so people who got in early didn’t have any mischievous intent or thought they were "getting over" on the system. In fact, there was another thread on the forum that showed that many of those early birds simply read “12:00” and assumed “midnight”. As for railing against those who were angry and complained out their (our) registrations being cancelled…well…all I can tell you is that life isn’t fair. If you need mommy to cut the cake in equal portions for everyone so that your little sister doesn’t get two crumbs more than you, well then, fine. Vote for Hilary and let the fairness reign supreme. What you are missing is the fact that a registration is a legal contract that bind two parties into upholding their respective ends. Here’s another little angry gem:
“That kind of stuff happens, and I'm not really mad about it. Because, seriously, there is no debate here. This has been posted and confirmed for how long that the housing goes live at NOON today not midnight last night.
So those saying they'll be 'pissed off' because their reservation is wiped out when they already KNOW that midnight was not the correct time, is just absolutely ignorant. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but I am always amazed at people who don't think rules apply to them. They think 'rules' are just there for someone else's enjoyment I guess. Like people who decide to cut in line at amuzement parks. What, do you have some bonus perk on life that the rest of us don't? Do you have some 'free ticket to ride' that only you get to have?
Sorry folks, but to think anything other than the registrations getting wpied and done properly, and AS stated in the beginning, is just plain stupid. And to hear the people trying to justify why a computer mistake should mean they should get some complimentary registration before the rest of the world is comical at best.
Could we maybe use just a BIT of common sense? Wow. And here I thought gamers at least had some good mental skills. Funny how people can let you down on a daily basis!
Wow, that’s some deep rooted anger. My being upset doesn’t really have as much to do with the fact that I didn’t get a registration, it’s really more about the whiney, cry-baby “lets play fair” attitude that resulted in a decision that blanked over 200 people’s registrations. People, I might add, who did nothing wrong. Dudes and dudettes, I don’t “live” for this kind of stuff. I don’t spend hours upon hours on the GenCon forums and websites. I just wanted to go to have fun. I really don’t care about you, what Yu-gi-oh card you stole from your little brother, how many times you saw Star Wars or who you think the next captain of the Enterprise should be. If this is so much of a disaster in terms of organization that I have to reserve my room within 30 minutes of registration being open or get left out in the cold…well…this will be my last year.
As for what to do next year, I don’t know what to tell you really. I would suggest that the organizers look outside of their organization (organization! Ha! See how I made a funny?) at other examples and ask for help in designing their registration scheme. Of course, I realize this is somewhat unique in that they seem to use their own system for managing reservations, but I can say that Ive gone to the Neuroscience conference for the last 4 years and not ever had a problem (30-32k attendees). If I do this or anything else like it again, I will gladly pay full price to reserve the room ahead of time. If I had to summarize this experience, I guess I would classify it as just a tad bit...well...unprofessional. Maybe that’s harsh. "In need of some polishing" might be better, but in light of the language used in the posts above….well…..
3 comments:
You are just angry because you lack moral clarity. You hate goodness and morality because it exists.
- Tairy
I dont **hate** goodness and morality, Im just not speaking to them at the moment.
Well written article.
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