Swim Team Volunteering - it helps if you are nice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our swim team was like this too. Parents did not warm to us because be daughter showed up and could swim. She was a threat. Swimming is not my daughter’s main sport so I just kind of laughed.

LOL

You all laugh but I could totally see one of the moms on my kid’s team acting like this. I have kids the same age as her girls and I’m so thankful I have two boys so I don’t have to deal with it.

Most would love to get anther fast kid on their team. Even at the same age, it improves the relay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. A lot of you are terrible at reading comprehension. Thank you to the people who get it. Thank you also to the jerks who proved my point.

1. It was not a meet. It was a social event. The shifts were named “set up”, “monitor event”, and “clean up”. I signed up for “monitor event”.
2. I showed up and said “I signed up for the monitor event shift, how can I help?” And I was snapped at “the real work was set up” and I was given no further instructions. The kids were making spirit items for an upcoming meet. I watched for a few minutes to see what kids were struggling and helped them. I stayed to clean up because it appeared no one else was going to do it.
3. I don’t need a long discussion. Once the event was running and kids were occupied, an adult could have said “are you new?” Or “who is your kid?” Or anything to acknowledge that I was not some random adult who wandered off the street.
As I was carrying tables or taking out trash at the end, someone could have said “thanks! See you next time.”
4. I volunteer for all kinds of school and preschool stuff. I am capable and responsible. I show up early and I humbly observe and take direction from experienced parents to learn how things are done. I manage a team at work and I’ve been a program manager for a large consulting firm - I know a thing or two about running a team volunteer or otherwise.

I don’t need a welcome wagon. I don’t need new best friends. I just want to be treated like a my presence is welcome instead of being snapped at for the offense of doing literally what I was asked. The cherry on top was having to listen to the team coordinator gossip / complain loudly about the lack of volunteers while I still had paint under my nails from volunteering.

You clearly do need the welcome wagon. EVERYONE there is a volunteer, OP. Why do you specifically need to be thanked, when everyone is volunteering?

+1
OP, You realize volunteering is a REQUIREMENT for swim team right? Also, did you ever thank the main people for everything they do every year? Do you thank the swim team rep for showing up to every single meet and pep rally and other social event the entire summer? I hope you do because that's so much more than what everyone else does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. A lot of you are terrible at reading comprehension. Thank you to the people who get it. Thank you also to the jerks who proved my point.

1. It was not a meet. It was a social event. The shifts were named “set up”, “monitor event”, and “clean up”. I signed up for “monitor event”.
2. I showed up and said “I signed up for the monitor event shift, how can I help?” And I was snapped at “the real work was set up” and I was given no further instructions. The kids were making spirit items for an upcoming meet. I watched for a few minutes to see what kids were struggling and helped them. I stayed to clean up because it appeared no one else was going to do it.
3. I don’t need a long discussion. Once the event was running and kids were occupied, an adult could have said “are you new?” Or “who is your kid?” Or anything to acknowledge that I was not some random adult who wandered off the street.
As I was carrying tables or taking out trash at the end, someone could have said “thanks! See you next time.”
4. I volunteer for all kinds of school and preschool stuff. I am capable and responsible. I show up early and I humbly observe and take direction from experienced parents to learn how things are done. I manage a team at work and I’ve been a program manager for a large consulting firm - I know a thing or two about running a team volunteer or otherwise.

I don’t need a welcome wagon. I don’t need new best friends. I just want to be treated like a my presence is welcome instead of being snapped at for the offense of doing literally what I was asked. The cherry on top was having to listen to the team coordinator gossip / complain loudly about the lack of volunteers while I still had paint under my nails from volunteering.

You clearly do need the welcome wagon. EVERYONE there is a volunteer, OP. Why do you specifically need to be thanked, when everyone is volunteering?

+1
OP, You realize volunteering is a REQUIREMENT for swim team right? Also, did you ever thank the main people for everything they do every year? Do you thank the swim team rep for showing up to every single meet and pep rally and other social event the entire summer? I hope you do because that's so much more than what everyone else does.

Team Rep here, we have to plan the summer season throughout the year and we run a winter program. Granted there are a few meetings in fall and winter, but around February we start hiring coaches, picking suits, team gear, etc. There is a lot to run a team. I do it because I want the process to be good. We have so many people helping and taking leadership of things.

We do have parents that hide in corners, but we engage them. We try to be nice about it too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our swim team was like this too. Parents did not warm to us because be daughter showed up and could swim. She was a threat. Swimming is not my daughter’s main sport so I just kind of laughed.

LOL

You all laugh but I could totally see one of the moms on my kid’s team acting like this. I have kids the same age as her girls and I’m so thankful I have two boys so I don’t have to deal with it.

Most would love to get anther fast kid on their team. Even at the same age, it improves the relay.

I mean yeah this is how normal people think. But an ultra competitive mom sees it as a threat to her children’s top spot on the ladder.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The Ladder is the publicly posted times sheet broken out by age/gender/stroke. Its so you know what time you need to be selected for A meets.

What does your summer swim team call the official list of times?

Ours doesn't post since some of the times used from B meets are not "real" times. B meets tend of have officials that don't properly call DQs. So if a kid is not legal and they see it that basically highlight that fake legal time as something not to consider. I have seen it happen. I saw a breaststroke event a kid did butterfly kicks 1/3 of the pool and it didn't get called and was a "legal" time that was far from legal. You can't put that in the ladder it would ruin your seeding. We use A meet times as our main time and try to put in legit B times.

Is that NVSL? One of the reason that volunteers get burned out is that meets (including B meets) need qualified stroke and turn judges as well as referees and starters and three timers per lane so that the times count. If only A meet times counted, most of the kids at our pool would never get a time or a chance to improve because each age group has way more swimmers than A meets have slots.

THIS. B meet times absolutely count and the entire point is to improve times in order to make the cut for A meets. The cut is not subjective, it’s the top posted times, based upon “the ladder” or official times which all these “experienced swim moms” claim not to know about.

Our summer swim team has a huge mandatory volunteer requirement that you cannot pay your way out of. We have (no kidding) 10 “board members” who do not have to volunteer at meets because they are exempt. They just stand around in their cliques and chit chat while the rest of us sweat and run ourselves ragged.

That would infuriate me. We have team reps who end up showing up for setup and staying through take down working as hard as anyone. We don't have a volunteer requirement both to encourage families to get their kids swimming at meets and because we usually can get enough volunteers even, but having them and then people exempting themselves would never fly at our pool.

What is wrong with you? Those 10 board members are probably doing an incredible amount of work behind the scenes. I'm not one of the "leaders" but I know enough to understand the volume and tediousness of the work that has to be done that you don't see. Our main swim rep spent at least 80-100 hours before the season started creating the calendar, just making sure we booked the space with the pool manager, coordinated with the other clubs in our division, doing required training and meetings for the league, recruiting stroke and turn judges, interviewing and hiring new coaches, creating a survey to figure out what families wanted for the new swim season, consulting with the pool board and public health guidance on covid protocols. The list goes on and on. Another parent spent 20-30 creating the swimtopia, and another one worked on updates to meet manager - both of which are thankless and really boring jobs that require a lot of detailed work. Our B meet rep contacted a half dozen pools to figure out which ones might be interested in swimming against our pool and worked to figure out a schedule and ground rules for how the meets should work. Each pool has its own quirks about how they think they should work. Then he had to communicate that to our pool families. Not to mention ordering supplies like ribbons, replacing any signs or chairs that were broken last year. My head hurts from thinking about all the things they are doing and I for one am glad they are doing it.

If I have to sweat it out for 4 hours for all of our 6 B meets doing something mindless like timing while they walk around supervising that is fine. FWIW at our pool our reps also come early, and they are there moving chairs and sweating it out with the rest of us. They even stay late to pick up the TRASH that you and your kids could not be bothered to pick up because they want to be respectful to the people maintaining the pool.

OP is unbelievable.

Not to mention dealing with parents. By far the worst part of being a team rep is all the whining parents.

people really have no idea what goes into a successful summer swim season. I know I had no idea until I became a team rep. Planning starts in February. At our pool we have people in charge of certain areas (social events, data, website, merchandise, b meets, officials) and all of them do a ton of behinds the scenes work. The team rep doesn't just show at once a week to the A meet to get a good view.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our swim team was like this too. Parents did not warm to us because be daughter showed up and could swim. She was a threat. Swimming is not my daughter’s main sport so I just kind of laughed.

LOL

You all laugh but I could totally see one of the moms on my kid’s team acting like this. I have kids the same age as her girls and I’m so thankful I have two boys so I don’t have to deal with it.

Most would love to get anther fast kid on their team. Even at the same age, it improves the relay.

I mean yeah this is how normal people think. But an ultra competitive mom sees it as a threat to her children’s top spot on the ladder.

That sounds toxic. So glad our team isn't like that at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our swim team was like this too. Parents did not warm to us because be daughter showed up and could swim. She was a threat. Swimming is not my daughter’s main sport so I just kind of laughed.

LOL

You all laugh but I could totally see one of the moms on my kid’s team acting like this. I have kids the same age as her girls and I’m so thankful I have two boys so I don’t have to deal with it.

Most would love to get anther fast kid on their team. Even at the same age, it improves the relay.

I mean yeah this is how normal people think. But an ultra competitive mom sees it as a threat to her children’s top spot on the ladder.

This sounds like misogynist hot nonsense to me. Or jealousy on your part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thinking back a few years when DC first went on swim team I can say that for sure there were some snippy snappy moms. I remember one in particular. She had a rigid system for the job she was doing and if people didn't follow her system, which wasn't really dependent on the adults helping her but the children, she was not very nice.

Never really got upset about that because I could tell it was a very difficult job.

Was it clerk of course? If so I can understand that. It's a stressful job sometimes particularly at time trials and B meets when there's a lot of kids... especially during IM which is always deck seeded in our league. If the system breaks down it's chaos. The kids don't always show up when they're supposed to, they don't always stay where they're supposed to, and some just hover over you repeatedly asking what heat or lane they're in while you're trying to line up another group of kids. I've not been snippy with adults but if the same kid who is old enough to know better asks me 5 times what heat they're in when I am clearly dealing with a different event, it's hard to maintain a friendly tone when asking them to hold on a minute.

Probably ribbons

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree. It was similar at our pool in McLean, but I'm an extreme extrovert and got through it. I don't know why it's so hard for people to be friendly.

Hah! I endured one season of summer swim at a McLean pool before the kids just switched to year-round club. It was truly miserable.

[Anonymous]

OP- sorry you had a negative experience at your first volunteer event. I hope you give it another try.
I love our summer swim experience. I have done most jobs (oldest in HS now). I have never felt the way others on the thread describe their experience. Our pool has been D2-D5 over the years, so a pretty competitive group, but the vast majority of volunteers are awesome.

If you are a new parent, I agree timing is the best option. Also the food/snack bar area. Most people are standing in small groups and willing to talk. You may have to take the initiative though.

Asking that volunteer coordinators roll out the welcome mat for each volunteer coordinator is asking too much. You don’t know their background or skills and they are, for better and worse, volunteers themselves.

I volunteer at 3 schools and multiple other sports. I do not find summer swim team any different, except they need A LOT more volunteers.

[Anonymous]

Try being non-white and volunteering. Swim team folk are very cliquish to the point of being rude. The comparison to PTA is spot on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Umm just defending volunteer coordinators here. I work full time, don't even particularly like swimming and just want people to show up and do the job they signed up for. I'm so exhausted from managing my kids, our enormous swim team and my actual job. [b]Sorry I couldn't be there to pay you on the back. Feel free to take over my role and then you all can comment[b].

Thanks for being Exhibit A for what OP was talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t even. Every year like clockwork these posts show up after the first week of swim events.

Poor op. She stopped ignoring the emails and complaints about lack of volunteers and signed up. She showed up and not enough people talked to her. Got her feelings hurt because someone said there weren’t enough volunteers and now has deemed them all cliquey. And she hasn’t been able to break into this “major” role she envisioned with these people she doesn’t like after her first event. Did I miss anything?

Hey, obnoxious swim mom has entered the chat! Just continue to sit with your Yeti of wine and gossip with your swim mom friends. Did I miss anything?

NP. I think you missed who the obnoxious one actually is. (Hint: look in the mirror).

Nope. PP was right the first time.

P.S. Pro tip, martyr mommy “leaders”: Don’t tell your setup volunteers to arrive at a time that, if they arrive 5 minutes earlier than YOU requested, will make them “late.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If there was any doubt how b-itchy swim team moms are, one need only read this thread.

*thunderous applause*

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:If there was any doubt how b-itchy swim team moms are, one need only read this thread.

I find it no b-itchier than the rest of DCUM. What exactly do you object to?

If you have read through this thread and do not understand the problem, then you in fact are part of the problem.

DCUM is always much b-itchier then in real life.
People don’t agree with OP and her complaints don’t make a lot of sense. But I’ve seen some horrible threads and there is nothing super offensive here.

A lot of us know exactly what OP is talking about. The veterans treat you like a moron for not knowing what’s going on but sure as hell aren’t going to explain anything!

OP didn’t even ask! It’s unclear what she doesn’t understand.
I love the poster who said their team had mentors/buddies for new members. I think that’s a great idea.

She said no one but the lifeguards and some kids spoke to her the entire 90 minutes she was there.

So no. She didn’t ask. Did she approach them?
I guess I would be considered a veteran parent. No one came and approached me. I approached people and asked questions I didn’t understand. People aren’t mind readers.

You aren't helping your case. You don't sound friendly or welcoming at all.

I’m very friendly. If someone approaches me, I will gladly answer questions or chat. But - yeah - I’m not gonna roll out the red carpet and fall over myself offering to answer questions I am unaware they have. If a volunteer is more work than they bring to the table, it’s not worth it.

ROFL. Clearly self-assessment is not your strong suit.