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So I went to Raleigh to try my luck in the Open Bracket. It was my first event, and I was quite nervous. On top of that the monitors were literally ginormous! The venue was awesome, and that Snoopy's Famous Hot Dogs down the street from my hotel was rather kick ass also! Other than the internet not working in the entire hotel I had an awesome time. Met some cool folks, and met some of the nerds I play with online in person.
So anyway I flew in Friday around 10:30 from Cincinnati. Upon arriving I waited for my buddy who I was sharing the room w/ to land. Once we landed we went to the hotel and onto the venue. When we get there the venue is pretty awesome. When you walked in you were overlooking everything which was a cool view IMO. Anyway, we walk in and get to the player area to warm up. But once we got there to warm up we were kicked off our machines for the WCS games which sucked because I ended up not even getting to warm up for day 1.
First I want to thank MLG for fixing the problem w/ the players area. Adding the benches was a big plus, as well as letting competitors enter and exit freely was awesome! Anyway I wanted to find out what was up with the brackets. So I went up the table where a dude with a fro and a girl were working on the brackets. When I was there I got to see the saw how unfortunate we(no-named competitors) are still treated at MLG..
So I'm up at the table where they have the brackets to see what's up and who I play. While I am standing there waiting for the chick to acknowledge me, 2 Quantic players walk right up to the table and start talking to her. Now there's nothing wrong with being friends but what happened next is what really made me feel upset and a little cheated.. As they are talking to the girl they ask about the brackets and who they have to play.. The girl begins to search the brackets while the Quantic players lean completely over the table to view the screen of her laptop. She doesn't say anything, just lets them see so they get to see who they play and can prepare accordingly. Now when I get up to the table I ask her about the brackets, she began the search with an annoyed look on her face.. Then as she is searching I began to lean over the table to get a look at the brackets.. When I do this the girl replies "I really hate when people do that, you need to stay back." She then told me players aren't allowed to know who their opponents are until it's announced which I thought was quite funny considering what I had just witnessed... I don't think its fair that some players are allowed to know who they play while many of us who are chasing our dreams have to go into the rounds blind.. This is a problem MLG really needs to fix.. I'll be at the next event and if she's still working for MLG then I'm gonna be quite sad 
I'm glad MLG fixed the player area, so now they just have to work on getting rid of the biased people who play favorites. Can't wait to see Championship Sunday!! ^^
 
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I hate the feeling knowing I don't really belong when other people are so comfortable. It's like flying first class at 18 when everyone besides you are 40 with nice suits. The employees are afraid to upset businessmen but not teenagers. I guess appearance is really important and for your case, MLG must have informed their staff to take "better" care of official teams.
It was nice to read your post 
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I'm sorry your MLG experience was ruined by you getting yelled at for doing something obnoxious. Guy with the fro was thundertoss btw.
I was also there Friday and Saturday, saw very few if any people leaning over to try and see the laptop screen. I asked politely who I was playing and was told just fine just like everyone else I saw.
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On August 27 2012 03:25 LuckyFool wrote:
I'm sorry your MLG experience was ruined by you getting yelled at for doing something obnoxious. Guy with the fro was thundertoss btw.
I was also there Friday and Saturday, saw very few if any people leaning over to try and see the laptop screen. I asked politely who I was playing and was told just fine just like everyone else I saw.
I asked politely as well.. Glad you like MLG playing favorites.
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
Next time buy a team shirt if you want first class service.
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On August 27 2012 04:00 T.O.P. wrote:
Next time buy a team shirt if you want first class service.
This. MLG will probably always be biased so the only way to let them be biased towards you as well is to act like you are on a big team :D
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Hi there.
My name is Kaila, and I run the SC2 info booth. I am an SC2 fan and a player myself. I have been running the brackets/info booth/odd jobs for MLG since 2008 and have been a community member since 2006, so I have been on both sides of the conversation in this situation. This is also my last time working at an event (so huzzah for you), as I will be going to BMT on October 16th. It's also been my least enjoyable one to date.
You have a point about the favouritism thing, but it goes both ways. It's really difficult to be forward with people who HAVE the team t-shirts on and/or are people you have a mild rapport with. They tend to start to feel enitled to special treatment and it becomes more awkward to tell them off. So yes, you being someone I don't know and have no prior experience with, it's going to be much easier to be honest about things I dislike.
On your point about the brackets and who you play, I know for a fact I have never, ever said that people are "not allowed" to know who you are to play in future rounds. For the entire weekend we were having bracket issues, I honestly didn't have visual represtation of the bracket until they went live on the website and had no way of prediciting how seeding would play out for advancements. The matches are listed in basically an excel sheet missing the formulas, and are organised by the station number and not by player seed.
Also, it's really difficult to tell when people are just standing awkwardly to look at the brackets, or waiting for my attention. I sit behind my desk for the entire tournament, from doors open to doors closed, and I generally try to acknowledge people and ask if they need help if I see them loitering, but if you really need help, it kind of helps if you at least try to voice as such. I apologise if you were left found wanting, but it's hard to keep things civil when you're not treated with basic manners or general appreciation by almost everyone you interact with. This job sucks, anyone who actually talks to me would know that because it is always my immediate answer. The only saving grace is being able to socialise with those who initiate conversation with me.
You know what's really cool? How you posted a complaint on here (asking for me to be fired), instead of growing a pair and actually saying something to me. Pretty on par for my treatment during the entire event; like I'm not an actual human being. This is honestly quite the thankless job, and I work really hard during the event to give accurate information to ALL competitors. Literally all of the information is written on the board and posted on the two screens flanking my pit of depression about 15 minutes before each round, which I have no control of and also use for reference. I am merely a supplementation for information that is already available literally next to or directly behind my seat. If it isn't, then I don't have it, because they don't tell me anything that isn't public.
So thanks for the constructive criticism, and I'm sorry that our one interaction where you rudely invaded my personal bubble left you so jaded for the weekend. Hopefully it will be a learning experience for you, and we can both come away from this agreeing to mutually dislike each other based on a less than five minute interaction of poor interaction. High five.
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So manner kail.
Thank you for your hard work.
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Yeah. Well played. I really feel your pain. I cant imagine that someone got annoyed by people repeatedly doing something relatively disrespectful. That comes as kind of a surprise.
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On August 27 2012 04:00 T.O.P. wrote:
Next time buy a team shirt if you want first class service.
ha ha ha.
As for the OP,
Did it ever dawn on you that the Quantic guys doing it annoyed her as well, but you were the final straw because everyone else was doing it to her prior so she just had to let out her frustration.
It's one thing to be polite it's another thing to know what to say at the right time as well to calm her down.
In other news, this isn't the first blog I've read about preferential treatment at events and I'm sure it won't be the last.
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On August 27 2012 07:33 Kaila wrote:
...
You have a point about the favouritism thing, but it goes both ways. It's really difficult to be forward with people who HAVE the team t-shirts on and/or are people you have a mild rapport with. They tend to start to feel enitled to special treatment and it becomes more awkward to tell them off. So yes, you being someone I don't know and have no prior experience with, it's going to be much easier to be honest about things I dislike.
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You know what's really cool? How you posted a complaint on here (asking for me to be fired), instead of growing a pair and actually saying something to me.
...
I'm confident your job sucks (or sucked, apparently?), and that you had many people treat you badly this weekend, but this, too, goes both ways: it's odd to see you complain about OP's inability to confront you, a stranger to him, in a position of authority (you were working the tournament), in the same post in which you attempt to explain or excuse your inability to enforce the rules fairly on the basis that you don't feel comfortable confronting people you know a little bit when, so far as I can tell, enforcing the rules is literally part of your job.
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My experience does not confirm this story.
She did, however, try to kill me as mafia, even though I came out as cop the next day!
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Well, for the OP, I don't think you ever could have known the extent of the issues kaila was having. Her job is to show people the bracket and explain it, for the entirety of the first day, she could not access the actual bracket, all she had was what the people behind the scenes could feed her.
As someone who originally approaches kaila in a manner that was also somewhat innappropriate manner, you should know that she is a very very nice girl. I walked up, full of press pass swag, and asked if she had the bracket, since there wasn't one online, on being told she didn't have it, I asked some questions about it and said that LP wanted to get it up since MLG didn't have it, which is clearly the wrong way to approach it. After we had a little bit of an argument, I made an effort to apologize. I didn't notice that you made /any/ effort to apologize for misbehaving. I presume that you never thought that kalia might be personal friends with some of the quantic players? I know for a fact that she's friends with a ton of people (now that I've met her).
In response to Kalia, I didn't know this would be your last worked event, are you coming as a spectator/ex-staff to more events? I really really enjoyed playing mafia with you, I pretty much just enjoyed everything this weekend as far as social interaction went.
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On August 27 2012 07:33 Kaila wrote:
You have a point about the favouritism thing, but it goes both ways. It's really difficult to be forward with people who HAVE the team t-shirts on and/or are people you have a mild rapport with. They tend to start to feel enitled to special treatment and it becomes more awkward to tell them off. So yes, you being someone I don't know and have no prior experience with, it's going to be much easier to be honest about things I dislike.
....
So thanks for the constructive criticism, and I'm sorry that our one interaction where you rudely invaded my personal bubble left you so jaded for the weekend. Hopefully it will be a learning experience for you, and we can both come away from this agreeing to mutually dislike each other based on a less than five minute interaction of poor interaction. High five.
this passive aggressive crap is a total cop out...
just because something is hard doesn't mean you should not do it.
i referee OHL hockey and if i got intimidated by some guy in a "team shirt" i'd be out of a job.
david branch runs the OHL properly and every player knows it... they break the rules they get suspended... they never get drafted and they have to find something to do other than play hockey.
its good though that you acknowledged that there is bias at MLG events and that you propagate it because to be objective and fair would be "hard".
in the heat of competition things get brutal. your organization must back you 100% in that regard.
when Roberto Alomar spit on that baseball umpire..everyone knew what was coming... despite the fact that Alomar was making 10+ million/year at the time... did Bud Selig back off because Roberto Alomar was "popular" ?
if MLG manaagement is not backing you or they themselves "play favourites" you should say so to get everything out in the open.
competitors in every sport always try to gain any small edge they can. it is up to the League to control this.... its what the league is getting paid to do... i now view MLG in a little lower regard after hearing several stories along these lines.
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On August 27 2012 07:33 Kaila wrote:
So thanks for the constructive criticism, and I'm sorry that our one interaction where you rudely invaded my personal bubble left you so jaded for the weekend. Hopefully it will be a learning experience for you, and we can both come away from this agreeing to mutually dislike each other based on a less than five minute interaction of poor interaction. High five.
There was no personal bubble invasion since you yourself made it public when you allowed other people to enter it. You expect the guys you don't like to telepathically know that it's ok for some, but not ok for others, to lean over to check the display? Hmm, didn't know telepathy was such a common thing.
Wow this makes me sick. You don't even notice that what you did was biased ... :D
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Bracket chick the mafioso :O
Lol speaking about brackets and preparing for your opponent ahead of time, it was kind of amusing when It's Gosu thought Anda was a terran rather than Massan the zerg. Gosu.Socrates totally cute though.
Sucks that they found out your race before you knew theirs
Oh god my sleep cycle is so fucked from MLG, time to pass the hell out.
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As someone who stood in the area near the info booth/stations 1 and 2 for quite a length of time and was able to watch the people milling about/periodically asking questions, I find all of this very silly. So many competitors AND spectators walk up to the info booths during the day and just stand idly by, staring at the brackets [which, by the way, are behind this girl's head, so it's probably difficult to differentiate between attention to brackets and attention to her at times] and I was continually astounded by how many people just stare at the brackets or wait quietly and impatiently without raising their voices.
OP didn't initially try to speak up to get her attention and instead let his own dissatisfaction simmer while waiting. He wanted to feel like a martyr, and so he became one. Had he thought about it for a moment before becoming irritated, he might have realized that a simple "excuse me" goes a long way. I saw many very polite people at the info booth this weekend -- and kudos to y'all -- and many whose brusque attitudes sent this same rude and entitled message. The "you're here to serve me" attitude is completely disrespectful. Yes, the booth is there to provide you with information, but so much of the information is conveniently laid out for you on the boards. Yes, she is sitting there in order to supplement the information on the boards, but she is a human. She can't be held accountable for the fact that OP hasn't yet learned how to be both assertive and polite. Previous post is right, although misdirected. Telepathy doesn't exist. Sorry.
Furthermore, I think that many of the computers being used by the info booth employees are their own personal computers. It's absolutely understandable that she might be less comfortable with a complete stranger coming up and trying to stick his head into her personal space or view her screen than someone with whom she's more familiar.
TL;DR: Treat the info booth folks with respect and they'll probably respond similarly. Also, grow up and learn to assert yourself in a positive way. It tends to get better results than the alternative.
PS -- I realize you said that you were polite with her, but standing silently and then becoming aggravated when she doesn't "acknowledge" you on her own is actually not polite.
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Am I the only one who thinks that Kaila sounds like a total bitch?
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1. It's the Internet and she is female. So yes.
2. I hope so. That's precisely how the world works and exactly how your average human being as well intentioned as possible would handle the situation.
Lol @ "this makes me sick". Yeah, two wrongs always make a right. How entitled you must think you are. I would exchange the words "be telepathic" in your post with "have the common decency"
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On August 27 2012 15:52 InvictusRage wrote:
I'm confident your job sucks (or sucked, apparently?), and that you had many people treat you badly this weekend, but this, too, goes both ways: it's odd to see you complain about OP's inability to confront you, a stranger to him, in a position of authority (you were working the tournament), in the same post in which you attempt to explain or excuse your inability to enforce the rules fairly on the basis that you don't feel comfortable confronting people you know a little bit when, so far as I can tell, enforcing the rules is literally part of your job.
That is a fair point, but I am not a rule enforcer. I am at the information booth, I am not a ref. My job revolves around clarifying and parroting of information which is readily available on the screens flanking me and (typically) online. A player could navigate their entire event without ever actually having to engage me. Players don't often show me the respect of someone in a position of authority, and many will argue or question anything I say.
I am not a perfect person, and there are plenty of pro and amateur players whom I have teased and called out on their poor behaviour. Have you never had a mild acquaintance where you end up censoring yourself in a moment of insecurity? For how much I really don't want to care about people's opinion of me, I can still have a moment of weakness. Responding to this thread is an example of those feelings. I have had that happen many times in my life and hate myself a little for it each time. Personal development is an on-going process.
Drazak - Not until next year at the earliest. I am cut off from the world oct 16th through dec 14th. I'll try to escape if they have an Anahiem event while I am at the DLI in Cali. Maybe we can succeed as Mafia one of these times.
Jimmy - My response to Invictus is relevant to your rebuttal; additionally, your references are all physically related and involve intimidation. I am known for having an unnerving angry stare, but otherwise I am not of a very dominating stature. Also, there have been no precedents where MLG has punished a player for mistreating or insulting event staff. If I have information, I will give it. It doesn't matter who the person is, the only variable that colours the interaction is how the person approaches me. I generally stick to the "treat as you wish to be treated" policy. I think a big issue is that people often don't notice their own lack in manners. I often have people approach me later on in the event once they realise they never thanked me or even really acknowledged me past an interactive search tool.
Dakalro - You seem to become sick easily, I recommend amping up your vitamin C intake if you decide to attend a live event. Please see my above responses. Also, your argument is reminiscent of the "legitimate rape" debacle. The only time it is okay for someone to use that logic is when they are under five years old and haven't learned the importance of personal space yet.
Tossuaway - Naw, pretty sure it is a common sentiment. Nice addition, though.
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EPT
