recball site marshals/refs - love em or hate em?

[evoonline]

heya all.

im guessing this is the right area of the forums for such a post.
im a punter woodland site ref and work my ass off whilst im there to ensure the kit works, people dont get hurt, deal with customer problems, protect myself and fellow refs and sort ingame troubles whether thats marker or fights breaking out

ive worked as a site ref for 3 years now (possibly longer. cant remember :X) and have enjoyed 75% of the times i have worked but you have those days where you feel 'why the f**k am i doing this?'. whether this is through constant goggle lifting, marker troubles, general pissing about, fighting and general arguing with our decisions and calls.

people come for a fun days paintballing and most people pay ALOT of cash to have a good day out but you have the 1 or 2 idiots who take things to far and either shoot refs or start fights in the field. i suppose its like every other job where you take the rough with the smooth but im sure it could be much smoother. i think the point im trying to make here is that tournament refs know (or should know) that anyone stepping onto their sup'air field understands the rules regarding goggles, markers, cheating, arguing, fighting etc. a regular site player turns up, listens to a safety brief, gets their marker and turns into a 12 yr old. ive taken alot of sh!t over the past couple of years and been in a few close calls regarding punter v punter fights and even yesterday a ref v punter fight :X

im not sure where im going with this but im just looking towards the other site refs on here or even customers of such days to give their two pence worth so i can figure out whether the trouble just follows me around.

thnx
DAVE 'evoonline' CLARKE

 

[evoonline]

ive also reffed tournament sup'air style paintball so i do understand both side of the reffing line thats drawn between woodsball and sup'air.

 

[Jimmothy]

I have been there, but i had too many of those 'bad days' so I quit. Its a good job at times, but you have to ask yourself is it worth it.

 

[Buddha 3]

I used to help out reffing punters on the site where I trained.

I rarely had any real trouble, though it did happen every so often.

Biggest problem was indeed people lifting their goggles, despite the warnings, horror stories and a display of what a marker will do to soft stuff during the instructional speech. Although I must say that the problem got a lot smaller after the site switched to Vforce goggles, which tended not to fog as much as the Scott rentals back then.

Anyway, I found that the best way is to set examples. I always gave somebody a warning, after that I had him sit out a game, after that you wouldn't play.
I found that the rest of the guys get in line pretty quick when they see someone get benched. Usually, after having missed 2 or 3 games, the offender would show enough remorse to be let back in the field. Only the monumentally stupid would lift his goggles again then.

 

[evoonline]

yea we do all that. safety is no1 and we stand for no messing with em but you have to turn your back every so often and short of superglueing the goggles to their head they will mess :X

 

[liam murray]

i used to be a site marshal(well attemted) but quit because i was lazy and could make the cut when giving a basic instruction! so credit to them its a hard job to do

 

[Dskize]

I used to help out reffing punters on the site where I trained.

I rarely had any real trouble, though it did happen every so often.

Biggest problem was indeed people lifting their goggles, despite the warnings, horror stories and a display of what a marker will do to soft stuff during the instructional speech. Although I must say that the problem got a lot smaller after the site switched to Vforce goggles, which tended not to fog as much as the Scott rentals back then.

Anyway, I found that the best way is to set examples. I always gave somebody a warning, after that I had him sit out a game, after that you wouldn't play.
I found that the rest of the guys get in line pretty quick when they see someone get benched. Usually, after having missed 2 or 3 games, the offender would show enough remorse to be let back in the field. Only the monumentally stupid would lift his goggles again then.

Somehow I imagine being built like a brick privvy helps in those situations..

 

[evoonline]

yea. i agree, being a big lad would certainly help with the whole authority side of reffing. im 6'2" and 13 stone, atheletic build but im no where near the size of some of our refs. i have a loud voice and it helps but some people dont listen. i dont like making people sit out but safety 1st.

 

[Jimmothy]

But those bad days are awful, I know, I have been there. The place where i marshalled didnt care enough for its marshalls and was more concerned about keeping the customer happy. We were never given dinner breaks or normal breaks for that matter. During the lunch break we had to go around making sure everyone was ok, and maybe had 2 mins to catch a quick bite to eat,then if everyone was ok we had to start on some clean up while hte punters finished there lunch! Oh the long hours aswell. Sometimes you can be done and packed away by 5, but that was very rare. Starting at 7.30 and finishing at 7 was starting to get to me, especially as you are not paid by the hour.

But the good times will come, when you get a nice group, they listen to you and you enjoy what you are doing. But when a stag group starts to kick off at you because one of there friends has been kicked out, and they are on the field with markers in there hand, thats where it gets a shi**y job, because they cant act sensibly and cant bring themselves to suffer the concequences of their actions. I cant believe the amount of times I have seen grown men turn into child like, irresponsible characters when given a gun. Sometimes that is half the fun of punter ball, which is good for thrm, however when it turns dangerous, its hard to control, and sh*t for us.

Anyway rant over, if you feel like your having more bad days than good, then seek alternstive employment and then quit. I felt much better for it, but it was hard been in the job for over a year and to leave all your mates behind. Thats the only thing that was difficult for me.

But your always going to have a bad marshalling day, its part of the job

 

[evoonline]

i completely understand that and the reffing is but a hobby more then anything. i work fulltime then ref instead of sleeping :X in my spare time. i love the job but some of the punters are ******s and obviously dont put any thought into what the refs go through before shooting the sh!t out of us. just bugs me.