If it makes you feel better, Apotheos, I looked Porkfry in the face and asked him what his screen name was. I felt like pretty much the biggest doofus in the world. Houn even caught it on video! lol
Wow. Seriously? I was going to go ahead and post about how I was told I couldn't stay and watch something, and then later heard how amazing it was by people who apparently had better connections than me. I was going to talk about how any time I attempted to ask an Enforcer something about general policy, the answer was always a curt "No" and a move along stare. I was going to talk about how the couple of times I tried to joke with an enforcer, I got punk ass responses. But now I don't feel I need to.
Tyler, thanks for proving my point for me. Thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart, you dirty elitist fuck.
Well it was all in humor, but I forgot that sarcasm and jokes were taken seriously on forums. Forgive me.
I was totally happy that I wasn't mentioned in any of your examples!! yay!!!
From a serious standpoint though.
It does suck that you were treated the way you were. Everyone that I interacted with was found to be both personable and well versed. I was entertained by the comradery of people I didn't even know come up to me and strike up a conversation. I loved it and treated it as such.
It's extremely surprising that you got the responses you did. I know that such a response would not have been given by any of the enforcers that I worked with.
It's also unfortunate that you didn't get the names of the folk you had complaints about. We take that stuff extremely serious, especially since PAX wouldn't exist without people like you, and therefore Enforcers wouldn't exist either.
I do apologize that you got the misunderstanding perception of what my reply was.
Cheers mate.
P.S. I edited my post as to show no hard feelings.
If it makes you feel better, Apotheos, I looked Porkfry in the face and asked him what his screen name was. I felt like pretty much the biggest doofus in the world. Houn even caught it on video! lol
Porkfry's was the first button I got. I walked up to Info Desk and he was standing there and asked me if I was doing buttons (I had a couple on my lanyard by that point), and it was like wow, you look just like you do in the comic.
netcrusher88 on
My Visa card got stolen the other day. Now it's everywhere I want to be.
My run in with one particular enforcer was pretty lame and completely unnecessary. Basically I was meeting up with my friends at the Harmonix Panel, mind you, one of them is in a wheelchair from being in a really bad car accident last winter (almost lost her legs) where some guy jumped the median and gave her a nice head on collision which sent her and her child to the hospital.
from from left to right you've got the WALL, and EMPTY SPACE, said GIRL IN WHEEL CHAIR and then the regular chairs. I'm standing behind the wheelchair (so people can walk between the wall and the wheelchair if they need to get by) and i'm there for a good 5 minutes or so before some Enforcer comes over and tells me I need to move. Not her, not my friends, just me.
He then tells me i'm totally ok to stand by the wall o.O or about 10 feet away to the right where there are a bunch of people standing.
every 5 minutes a new person comes in and stands in the general vicinity of where I was standing, (give or take 5 feet) and is told to get lost.
20 minutes later, everyone is allowed to stand there, no reason given.
*shrug* anyway I just told him "I'm here with my friends" and his response was "I don't care"
thats nice you stupid fuck, I do care. next time give me a valid logical reason and don't come off as such a power tripping jackass.
that said, the rest of the enforcers seemed ok, except I guess when I left the penny arcade comic panel, I already had a door open and my foot through the door when a guy inside told me I needed to exit through his door.....
of course I saw no reason to take the 10 steps back in to the room, 3 doors over, and then back out, when I could just take one more step and be out of there, which I did. Sorry, block the doors off if you don't want me to use them, Oh wait, you can't that's probably a fire hazard. o.O
c'mon people, don't harrass people who are just trying to watch panels or leave the room, there is no reason for it.
One thing that I really liked about the Enforcers who had to do unsavory jobs like line mgmt and forcing people to move is that, in my experience, they always gave reasons. When you're in a position of authority, sometimes it can get tiring to explain yourself to people who should just obey, but it makes things go so much more smoothly if you make that extra effort.
This was in stark contrast to a WSCTC employee named (I think) Kristen who seemed to be in a high level position. She came over to the line entering the Raven Theater for the Casual vs. Core panel and the very first interaction she had with us was to yell at us and take a really negative attitude while asking us to move over. She started bitching people out pretty hard. No reasons given, just "Move now or I'll shut down the whole convention." Wow. An Enforcer stepped in and explained that another hall was getting out early and needed the space to get by. We all moved happily at that point. Ironically, the exiting hall never even walked by there, so the WSCTC employee's concern was moot.
If you had a bad experience with one or more Enforcers, I wholeheartedly apologize for them in their stead. The vast majority of us bust our asses to make sure everyone is taken care of, because we know that, without you, there would be no PAX. Without you, we have no meaning.
This is why, every year, there is an Enforcer who suffers catastrophic injury to themselves. One of our guys in Expo will be down for a while with an ankle injury. Last year, I tore my Achilles. But we work through this pain because we want YOU to be happy.
Apparently, some of us have failed. And I cannot apologize enough.
100% with what 435 said. Most of us bust our asses to make sure everyone has a good time, but occasionally someone goes on a power trip and gives everyone a bad name. In a crowd so big, it's bound to happen (we're up to 400 strong now), and humble apologies to anyone who had to suffer.
In response to the rest of this thread, thank YOU guys. If it weren't for the awesome attendees I meet each year, the Enforcer title would not be worth the effort. You guys make PAX awesome for us.
Thought I'd add my thanks. This was my first PAX (and I'm local, so I have no excuse) and it seemed to go off without any major problems. Small ones, to be sure, but those were usually dealt with quickly. I was really impressed by the folks running the Raven theater on the 2nd floor. I didn't catch her name, but there was one lady I swear was in there all weekend. I suspect she slept on the floor.
Have to chime in here as well. The Enforcers were AMAZING! I truly admire your patience and dedication to helping out the attendees. As well, the Enforcers who were stuck in the same session room, all day long, (FallenEverdark WAHOO!) were fantastic! SPECIAL thanks to the Enforcer who gave me the CHIP button. You rock and Chip's Challenge rules!
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! You all were amazing!
Thanks guys. It was a very long hard weekend, and I promise, I did not sleep on the floor on the convention center, I had a nice room at the sheraton. But i was the room manager for Raven, so I was there until Sunday when my Overlords determined I had been working TOO hard, and ordered me to rest. I love PAX and love all of you for coming. I may have seemed curt or rude to a lot of people due to the nature of my job, but give me a chance to explain.
We were caught off guard, especially in my theatre. I didn't realize how busy and popular my panels would all be. A line formed for almost all of them, and since I had little to no way to gauge how long those lines were, I had a very cut & dry seating pattern. And if you caused issues by asking to sit next to so & so, I would quickly say no, because in most cases we didn't have time to work around that. It makes the enforcers lives so much easier if you just cooperate in situations like that. Sometimes it was unnecessary to be that cut & dry, and if that was the case, I always apologized and let attendees rearrange themselves if possible. It sucks if you don't get to sit next to your friend/family/wife/husband/whatever, but we haven't got the time to work around everyone wanting to sit together. Especially in theatres like Wolfman & Raven, where there is no standing room allowed. We do our best for people in a special needs situation, which I will address after this next quote, but really, we have a job to do, don't make it harder for us.
My run in with one particular enforcer was pretty lame and completely unnecessary. Basically I was meeting up with my friends at the Harmonix Panel, mind you, one of them is in a wheelchair from being in a really bad car accident last winter (almost lost her legs) where some guy jumped the median and gave her a nice head on collision which sent her and her child to the hospital.
from from left to right you've got the WALL, and EMPTY SPACE, said GIRL IN WHEEL CHAIR and then the regular chairs. I'm standing behind the wheelchair (so people can walk between the wall and the wheelchair if they need to get by) and i'm there for a good 5 minutes or so before some Enforcer comes over and tells me I need to move. Not her, not my friends, just me.
He then tells me i'm totally ok to stand by the wall o.O or about 10 feet away to the right where there are a bunch of people standing.
every 5 minutes a new person comes in and stands in the general vicinity of where I was standing, (give or take 5 feet) and is told to get lost.
20 minutes later, everyone is allowed to stand there, no reason given.
*shrug* anyway I just told him "I'm here with my friends" and his response was "I don't care"
thats nice you stupid fuck, I do care. next time give me a valid logical reason and don't come off as such a power tripping jackass.
that said, the rest of the enforcers seemed ok, except I guess when I left the penny arcade comic panel, I already had a door open and my foot through the door when a guy inside told me I needed to exit through his door.....
of course I saw no reason to take the 10 steps back in to the room, 3 doors over, and then back out, when I could just take one more step and be out of there, which I did. Sorry, block the doors off if you don't want me to use them, Oh wait, you can't that's probably a fire hazard. o.O
c'mon people, don't harrass people who are just trying to watch panels or leave the room, there is no reason for it.
I can't speak for this specific instance, but sometimes we are just trying to make sure something isn't a fire hazard like people standing in a theatre or something, but later find out its not as big an issue, but we often err on the "better safe than sorry" mentality. I'm sorry you feel like you were targetted or something, but its just not the case. If an Enforcer wanted to be a douche and all "holier than thou" they, number one, would do so a lot more openly, and number two get weeded out pretty fuckin fast. We don't accept that kind of attitude here.
And Loser4Now, I really don't know who you dealt with, and while I am sorry you had such a poor experience, I am not going to apologize on their behalf, because judging by your quick to flare responses to most peoples attempts at humor or sarcasm, I think you might just be quick to be offended. Gamers in general are wry people, but the Enforcers have nothing but TONS of love and respect for attendees as long as we get the same in return. Why the hell would be bother breaking our bodies for days on end for a convention if we didn't want you to have a good time?? And the comparison to the Sith REALLY hurts, as someone that travels across the country to work my ass off, I am truly deeply offended. I adore the community that has come up around this con and to think that I, or any of my comrades, would ever act like that is upsetting. I'm not saying that we don't have our share of bad apples, but they are surely not in such great numbers as you have described. We are a huge family and we treat PAX as our biggest family get together, our christmas/thanksgiving/whatever. I have never been a part of such a loving and hard working family, and the idea of you saying such awful things about them makes me angry to say the least. I'm not about to get into a giant argument, and again, I'm sorry you had such a poor experience, but I am not convinced it is the Enforcers fault.
I just want to chime in. All the Enforcers above me have said all that I could've said. But again, we're all very sorry that any of you had a negative experience with any enforcer at any time.
Well I would like to say thankyou to all the folks that have come here to praise my fellow enforcers and I. We greatly apperciate it.
With that I would like to also offer an appogly to anyone who felt they where rudely treated over the weekend. There really is no excuse for it. All I can ask is that you please do not judge enforcers as whole by the actions of 1 or 2.
Anyway I had a great time. I was working the BYOC desk with BigRed and I must say it awsome to meet all of you that came by to drop off buttons or who where taking part in BYOC. It really made me realize I should be more active here as there seems to be some really awsome ppl here. Can't wait to see you all next year.
FallenEverdark, Googalash... you two were notably very cool and easy to work with.
FallenEverdark... thanks for raiding your pirate booty and giving me your buttons. Your seating mgmt was perfect... authoritatively getting the job done, but not overbearing. You did great!
Googalash... thanks for helping the Buttoneers out so much behind BYOC. You looked so tired on Sunday on that Sumo, I felt bad for you. Way to hang in there!
Googalash... thanks for helping the Buttoneers out so much behind BYOC. You looked so tired on Sunday on that Sumo, I felt bad for you. Way to hang in there!
Oh man the button thing was soooooooo awsome. I hope to god you are planning to do it again next year. Evertime someone brought a button by I was thinking "damnit why didn't I find out about this sooner so I could have made buttons".
Anyway yeah sunday was not good for me I was not feeling well at all but I knew there was stuff to be done so I made my best effort to power through that day. Hopefully I did not offend/upset anyone in my totaly out of it state.
FallenEverdark, Googalash... you two were notably very cool and easy to work with.
FallenEverdark... thanks for raiding your pirate booty and giving me your buttons. Your seating mgmt was perfect... authoritatively getting the job done, but not overbearing. You did great!
Googalash... thanks for helping the Buttoneers out so much behind BYOC. You looked so tired on Sunday on that Sumo, I felt bad for you. Way to hang in there!
Awww, thanks, I got a lot of flack from attendees for splitting up their groups, I felt bad, but I just couldn't make exceptions for one person and not anyone else. And no problem w/ the pirate booty. Tis why I brought it.
We do our best, and it's nice to know our hard work is appreciated.
I'd also like to say thanks to my fellow enforcers, and to the attendees as well, for also being kewl pplz
Yea, this stuff is really appreciated by us. PAX is, for a lot of us, literally the hardest thing we've ever had to do. There's very little sleep, food and water is an afterthought at best, and often times we're surrounded in little behind the scenes problems sufficiently that it's difficult to see anything else.
But it's all for the glory of pax, and a huge part of that is the quality of our attendees.
So thank for the , and allow me to send some 's right back at you all!
This feedback, good and bad, is super useful for us -- thanks and plz continue!
if I could get giant robotic arms that would let me hug sixty thousand people at once, totally would sign up for it. pax annually (and soon semianually!) renews a sense that humanity is naturally fun-loving and cooperative
Have to chime in here as well. The Enforcers were AMAZING! I truly admire your patience and dedication to helping out the attendees. As well, the Enforcers who were stuck in the same session room, all day long, (FallenEverdark WAHOO!) were fantastic! SPECIAL thanks to the Enforcer who gave me the CHIP button. You rock and Chip's Challenge rules!
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! You all were amazing!
Chip's Challenge rocks so hard!
I'm happy you liked mah button
And in response to things said above:
PAX was the hardest thing ever this year, but I wouldn't miss it for the world. I friggin' love this con.
I'm going to throw a public thanks here to all the attendees out there for their 's at us. I'm glad to hear that PAX wasn't difficult at all for you guys XD
See you again next year!
Also, I'm really, REALLY hoping that I wasn't the one contributing bad experiences that caused Loser4Now to loathe The Black as much as he does. I had to turn waaay too many people away from Wolfman for my tastes
I know I was working that Harmonix panel, and I never told anyone I didn't care. I actually worked pretty hard to keep the exits and walkways open (you know, fire code and all) and to give people multiple options for where to move to if they unfortunately had to move. I tried to walk up and down and take inventory of open seats so I could tell people "there are still seats open over there" and whatnot.
Much for all of you guys. Sorry some of you had to move -- and I hope the other male Serpent Theater Enforcer was also being as polite as I was. I know once the panel started I think I was spending too much time running to the back, then back up to Mateo at the sound mixer, trying to improve the sound so attendees in the back could hear better. (Sorry Mateo -- I hope I wasn't too annoying, but I really wanted everyone to be able to hear in the back.) I think all that ended up distracting me from fire code stuff, so if it looked like people were being allowed to stand in walkways or exits, that wasn't deliberate.
So, to summarize, much for attendees. We all worked hard to make the panel enjoyable, and I'm happy that we were successful for nearly everyone. See you guys next year! :-)
mspencer on
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I was turned away from theaters, even after waiting for more than an hour, on multiple occasions, and still I know that you were all doing the best you could. It's not your fault that everything was so popular, so thank you for making it all as manageable as it was.
Especially the ones at the PC Freeplay booth. You guys kept things moving efficiently and fast even under high stress with the lines and what not. . . .
I'll take it - Thanks!
And this year we broke more than 10K attendees through the PCFP area (quick math: about 18% of the attendees played in PCFP).
Mad props to the enforcers. Thanks for helping with the Fallout 3 booth.
Dear lord your welcome. Great prizes wish I had gotten a puppet. Those things were awesome during final round
To everyone else:
Thank you so much for your show of support as a first year enforcer this thread means a lot to me. Your shows of support is wonderful. Seriously you guys rock hard.
i think i'm finally ready to be an enforcer next year, after half a decade of pax! when do applications start?
Keep an eye on PAX web site come Jan/Feb. Around that time is when recruiting will open up and a post will go up there. Though a large number of us come back year to year so there may be limited slots.
If you become an Enforcer, dyaballikl, you should still bring the CTS hat and cardboard tube.
VThornheart on
3DS Friend Code: 1950-8938-9095
0
thejaxxExpo Zone LeaderTukwila, WaRegistered Userregular
edited September 2008
I, myself, wanted to say thanks for the compliments and feedback. I had a great time again this year seeing many people. Including ones who remembered me from the previous PAX's and even ones that I had just mentioned PAX to during my run in's with them in my line of work.
Everyone saying 'Thank you' after getting an answer to a question, or being understanding when something wasn't available anymore, or the numerous other things my coma like brain can't think of right now, reminded me of why I take a week off work and do this every year.
I had nothing but good experiences with the enforcers, although I have to admit to not really interacting with them that much (besides talking to BR at BYOC a few times).
I did some button trading with a few, and chatted with the Dr. Who guy (I think he was an enforcer) when BR made him a target of the scavenger hunt (much to his dismay). Seemed like nice people.
I remember trading buttons in Expo, but I totally don't remember running into you the second time while I was Doctoring it up (specifically anyway, I do remember talking with a few people around that time), weee lack of sleep impairs memory!
Also, to clarify for everyone, I didn't really mind BR tossing me on the scavenger hunt, it was just fun acting sarcastically frustrated at such a random act.
--
Thank you all, and much for everyone (Bruce, the rest of the WSCTC staff and exhibitors too)! You guys and gals are some of the best attendees anyone could hope for, it really feels like one giant extended family, everyone has some different interests, but there is an underlying sense of welcomeness and belonging that really does make it feel like home (a very busy home).
I know I tried to be as friendly as possible, I never feel good about having to ask people to, or worse, tell people that they need to move. I realize there were times that I may have let the smile slide off, or forgot to add a humorous quip in there somewhere to lighten things up, and for those times I am sorry. I hope that everyone I encountered are just as understanding as, well, almost everyone seems to be. Still, for anyone who had a bad experience with me, or any of the Enforcers, I am sorry.
Again, you all make this worth while, you are why PAX is still here and why it is flourishing, if you weren't all so awesome as you are... I'd rather not think about it. Suffice it to say, I already look forward to PAX'09, and seeing everyone there (though I could use a little sleep first).
I know I was working that Harmonix panel, and I never told anyone I didn't care. I actually worked pretty hard to keep the exits and walkways open (you know, fire code and all) and to give people multiple options for where to move to if they unfortunately had to move. I tried to walk up and down and take inventory of open seats so I could tell people "there are still seats open over there" and whatnot.
Much for all of you guys. Sorry some of you had to move -- and I hope the other male Serpent Theater Enforcer was also being as polite as I was. I know once the panel started I think I was spending too much time running to the back, then back up to Mateo at the sound mixer, trying to improve the sound so attendees in the back could hear better. (Sorry Mateo -- I hope I wasn't too annoying, but I really wanted everyone to be able to hear in the back.) I think all that ended up distracting me from fire code stuff, so if it looked like people were being allowed to stand in walkways or exits, that wasn't deliberate.
So, to summarize, much for attendees. We all worked hard to make the panel enjoyable, and I'm happy that we were successful for nearly everyone. See you guys next year! :-)
Hey, there was someone looking for you at PAX, so I busted out my wifi and looked up the schedule. Did she find you at Serpent Theatre?
I remember trading buttons in Expo, but I totally don't remember running into you the second time while I was Doctoring it up (specifically anyway, I do remember talking with a few people around that time), weee lack of sleep impairs memory!
my g/f and I were walking back from the Main Theatre and saw you and another Enforcer come out a little door (I think it might've been to prize redemption). I was like "Hey, we're just going to follow you for a bit" because our teammate wasn't there, then we ended up just taking a picture without him. That scarf/outfit was quite awesome
As someone who saw his fellow enforcers put their entire handheld game collections up to borrow (with the assumption that we'd probably lose some), I can't help but be a little hurt by your comments, Loser4Now. This was both my first PAX as well as my first time Enforcing, and I got none of the clique impression you seem to have come away with. Everyone I worked with was so awesome, friendly, and helpful to both myself and attendees, I can't even fathom how formed such a negative evaluation of us. I suppose it's your right to hold whatever opinion you want but, before you go badmouthing us in public, please take a moment to consider the fact that we essentially donated a significant chunk of our weekend (if not all of it) to making sure PAX is possible. We were there to make sure the con was safe and fun, not to give you a wedgie and steal your lunch money.
EDIT: Fixed a typo. As much as I like giving wedgies, it wasn't my job at PAX.
I remember trading buttons in Expo, but I totally don't remember running into you the second time while I was Doctoring it up (specifically anyway, I do remember talking with a few people around that time), weee lack of sleep impairs memory!
my g/f and I were walking back from the Main Theatre and saw you and another Enforcer come out a little door (I think it might've been to prize redemption). I was like "Hey, we're just going to follow you for a bit" because our teammate wasn't there, then we ended up just taking a picture without him. That scarf/outfit was quite awesome
Thanks.
I do remember that and we had been talking with people working Prize Redemption, I just didn't seem recognize you (or I don't recall recognizing you) from earlier in the day. How embarrassing.
Posts
That being said, there are always bad apples, and they are usually weeded out as fast as possible.
Maybe you had some bad experiences with these, maybe you just caught some at a bad time.
I'm sorry you had that experience.
Let me assure you that I, along with all the other enforcers I know and trust, will treat the attendees as well as they possibly can.
Well it was all in humor, but I forgot that sarcasm and jokes were taken seriously on forums. Forgive me.
I was totally happy that I wasn't mentioned in any of your examples!! yay!!!
From a serious standpoint though.
It does suck that you were treated the way you were. Everyone that I interacted with was found to be both personable and well versed. I was entertained by the comradery of people I didn't even know come up to me and strike up a conversation. I loved it and treated it as such.
It's extremely surprising that you got the responses you did. I know that such a response would not have been given by any of the enforcers that I worked with.
It's also unfortunate that you didn't get the names of the folk you had complaints about. We take that stuff extremely serious, especially since PAX wouldn't exist without people like you, and therefore Enforcers wouldn't exist either.
I do apologize that you got the misunderstanding perception of what my reply was.
Cheers mate.
P.S. I edited my post as to show no hard feelings.
Porkfry's was the first button I got. I walked up to Info Desk and he was standing there and asked me if I was doing buttons (I had a couple on my lanyard by that point), and it was like wow, you look just like you do in the comic.
from from left to right you've got the WALL, and EMPTY SPACE, said GIRL IN WHEEL CHAIR and then the regular chairs. I'm standing behind the wheelchair (so people can walk between the wall and the wheelchair if they need to get by) and i'm there for a good 5 minutes or so before some Enforcer comes over and tells me I need to move. Not her, not my friends, just me.
He then tells me i'm totally ok to stand by the wall o.O or about 10 feet away to the right where there are a bunch of people standing.
every 5 minutes a new person comes in and stands in the general vicinity of where I was standing, (give or take 5 feet) and is told to get lost.
20 minutes later, everyone is allowed to stand there, no reason given.
*shrug* anyway I just told him "I'm here with my friends" and his response was "I don't care"
thats nice you stupid fuck, I do care. next time give me a valid logical reason and don't come off as such a power tripping jackass.
that said, the rest of the enforcers seemed ok, except I guess when I left the penny arcade comic panel, I already had a door open and my foot through the door when a guy inside told me I needed to exit through his door.....
of course I saw no reason to take the 10 steps back in to the room, 3 doors over, and then back out, when I could just take one more step and be out of there, which I did. Sorry, block the doors off if you don't want me to use them, Oh wait, you can't that's probably a fire hazard. o.O
c'mon people, don't harrass people who are just trying to watch panels or leave the room, there is no reason for it.
http://www.myspace.com/Shaukdotdj
This was in stark contrast to a WSCTC employee named (I think) Kristen who seemed to be in a high level position. She came over to the line entering the Raven Theater for the Casual vs. Core panel and the very first interaction she had with us was to yell at us and take a really negative attitude while asking us to move over. She started bitching people out pretty hard. No reasons given, just "Move now or I'll shut down the whole convention." Wow. An Enforcer stepped in and explained that another hall was getting out early and needed the space to get by. We all moved happily at that point. Ironically, the exiting hall never even walked by there, so the WSCTC employee's concern was moot.
Enforcer approached it really well.
This is why, every year, there is an Enforcer who suffers catastrophic injury to themselves. One of our guys in Expo will be down for a while with an ankle injury. Last year, I tore my Achilles. But we work through this pain because we want YOU to be happy.
Apparently, some of us have failed. And I cannot apologize enough.
In response to the rest of this thread, thank YOU guys. If it weren't for the awesome attendees I meet each year, the Enforcer title would not be worth the effort. You guys make PAX awesome for us.
Get off my lawn.
Thanks guys.
We were caught off guard, especially in my theatre. I didn't realize how busy and popular my panels would all be. A line formed for almost all of them, and since I had little to no way to gauge how long those lines were, I had a very cut & dry seating pattern. And if you caused issues by asking to sit next to so & so, I would quickly say no, because in most cases we didn't have time to work around that. It makes the enforcers lives so much easier if you just cooperate in situations like that. Sometimes it was unnecessary to be that cut & dry, and if that was the case, I always apologized and let attendees rearrange themselves if possible. It sucks if you don't get to sit next to your friend/family/wife/husband/whatever, but we haven't got the time to work around everyone wanting to sit together. Especially in theatres like Wolfman & Raven, where there is no standing room allowed. We do our best for people in a special needs situation, which I will address after this next quote, but really, we have a job to do, don't make it harder for us.
I can't speak for this specific instance, but sometimes we are just trying to make sure something isn't a fire hazard like people standing in a theatre or something, but later find out its not as big an issue, but we often err on the "better safe than sorry" mentality. I'm sorry you feel like you were targetted or something, but its just not the case. If an Enforcer wanted to be a douche and all "holier than thou" they, number one, would do so a lot more openly, and number two get weeded out pretty fuckin fast. We don't accept that kind of attitude here.
And Loser4Now, I really don't know who you dealt with, and while I am sorry you had such a poor experience, I am not going to apologize on their behalf, because judging by your quick to flare responses to most peoples attempts at humor or sarcasm, I think you might just be quick to be offended. Gamers in general are wry people, but the Enforcers have nothing but TONS of love and respect for attendees as long as we get the same in return. Why the hell would be bother breaking our bodies for days on end for a convention if we didn't want you to have a good time?? And the comparison to the Sith REALLY hurts, as someone that travels across the country to work my ass off, I am truly deeply offended. I adore the community that has come up around this con and to think that I, or any of my comrades, would ever act like that is upsetting. I'm not saying that we don't have our share of bad apples, but they are surely not in such great numbers as you have described. We are a huge family and we treat PAX as our biggest family get together, our christmas/thanksgiving/whatever. I have never been a part of such a loving and hard working family, and the idea of you saying such awful things about them makes me angry to say the least. I'm not about to get into a giant argument, and again, I'm sorry you had such a poor experience, but I am not convinced it is the Enforcers fault.
With that I would like to also offer an appogly to anyone who felt they where rudely treated over the weekend. There really is no excuse for it. All I can ask is that you please do not judge enforcers as whole by the actions of 1 or 2.
Anyway I had a great time. I was working the BYOC desk with BigRed and I must say it awsome to meet all of you that came by to drop off buttons or who where taking part in BYOC. It really made me realize I should be more active here as there seems to be some really awsome ppl here. Can't wait to see you all next year.
FallenEverdark... thanks for raiding your pirate booty and giving me your buttons. Your seating mgmt was perfect... authoritatively getting the job done, but not overbearing. You did great!
Googalash... thanks for helping the Buttoneers out so much behind BYOC. You looked so tired on Sunday on that Sumo, I felt bad for you. Way to hang in there!
Oh man the button thing was soooooooo awsome. I hope to god you are planning to do it again next year. Evertime someone brought a button by I was thinking "damnit why didn't I find out about this sooner so I could have made buttons".
Anyway yeah sunday was not good for me I was not feeling well at all but I knew there was stuff to be done so I made my best effort to power through that day. Hopefully I did not offend/upset anyone in my totaly out of it state.
I love you so much!
Awww, thanks, I got a lot of flack from attendees for splitting up their groups, I felt bad, but I just couldn't make exceptions for one person and not anyone else. And no problem w/ the pirate booty. Tis why I brought it.
I'd also like to say thanks to my fellow enforcers, and to the attendees as well, for also being kewl pplz
But it's all for the glory of pax, and a huge part of that is the quality of our attendees.
So thank for the
if I could get giant robotic arms that would let me hug sixty thousand people at once, totally would sign up for it. pax annually (and soon semianually!) renews a sense that humanity is naturally fun-loving and cooperative
Chip's Challenge rocks so hard!
I'm happy you liked mah button
And in response to things said above:
PAX was the hardest thing ever this year, but I wouldn't miss it for the world. I friggin' love this con.
I'm going to throw a public thanks here to all the attendees out there for their
See you again next year!
Also, I'm really, REALLY hoping that I wasn't the one contributing bad experiences that caused Loser4Now to loathe The Black as much as he does. I had to turn waaay too many people away from Wolfman for my tastes
Hrmm...a smilie at the end...guess that means I have to be happy today at work. See what you Enforcers are doing to me?
Much
So, to summarize, much
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK
QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
I'll take it - Thanks!
And this year we broke more than 10K attendees through the PCFP area (quick math: about 18% of the attendees played in PCFP).
Next year! Keep your eyes peeled come January or so. We have a LOT of returning enforcers so there's a limited number of slots, though.
Dear lord your welcome. Great prizes wish I had gotten a puppet. Those things were awesome during final round
To everyone else:
Thank you so much for your show of support as a first year enforcer this thread means a lot to me. Your shows of support is wonderful. Seriously you guys rock hard.
Keep an eye on PAX web site come Jan/Feb. Around that time is when recruiting will open up and a post will go up there. Though a large number of us come back year to year so there may be limited slots.
Everyone saying 'Thank you' after getting an answer to a question, or being understanding when something wasn't available anymore, or the numerous other things my coma like brain can't think of right now, reminded me of why I take a week off work and do this every year.
Look forward to see you all again next year!
Now back to letting my feet heal.
I remember trading buttons in Expo, but I totally don't remember running into you the second time while I was Doctoring it up (specifically anyway, I do remember talking with a few people around that time), weee lack of sleep impairs memory!
Also, to clarify for everyone, I didn't really mind BR tossing me on the scavenger hunt, it was just fun acting sarcastically frustrated at such a random act.
--
Thank you all, and much
I know I tried to be as friendly as possible, I never feel good about having to ask people to, or worse, tell people that they need to move. I realize there were times that I may have let the smile slide off, or forgot to add a humorous quip in there somewhere to lighten things up, and for those times I am sorry. I hope that everyone I encountered are just as understanding as, well, almost everyone seems to be. Still, for anyone who had a bad experience with me, or any of the Enforcers, I am sorry.
Again, you all make this worth while, you are why PAX is still here and why it is flourishing, if you weren't all so awesome as you are... I'd rather not think about it. Suffice it to say, I already look forward to PAX'09, and seeing everyone there (though I could use a little sleep first).
Hey, there was someone looking for you at PAX, so I busted out my wifi and looked up the schedule. Did she find you at Serpent Theatre?
my g/f and I were walking back from the Main Theatre and saw you and another Enforcer come out a little door (I think it might've been to prize redemption). I was like "Hey, we're just going to follow you for a bit" because our teammate wasn't there, then we ended up just taking a picture without him. That scarf/outfit was quite awesome
EDIT: Fixed a typo. As much as I like giving wedgies, it wasn't my job at PAX.
Thanks.
I do remember that and we had been talking with people working Prize Redemption, I just didn't seem recognize you (or I don't recall recognizing you) from earlier in the day. How embarrassing.