11th National Library Technicians Conference

Yellow sleeve, blue sleeve: A technician and the Olympic experience

Janette Telford Australian Catholic University - MacKillop Campus

Abstract

During the Olympics I worked as a yellow sleeve and the Paralympics I worked as a blue sleeve.

As a yellow sleeved person (Spectator Services) I was a group leader volunteers to service a section of the Olympic stadium which could include ticketing, ushering, back of house and athletics areas. The range of duties they were required to perform, develop and monitor rosters for breaks and rotation of staff from various sections.

Some of the difficulties I encountered with the rosters were: How do I place 4 volunteers into 5 volunteer positions? How do I contact my supervisor via the radio in a crowded and loud area? Where have all my staff gone? What is dinner or lunch? Where is the lost property? Where are the Lost people?

Can anyone relate to this?

During the Paralympics I was a blue sleeve (Administrative Services) person in the Library which was located in the residential area of the Paralympic Village. Some of the duties included answering reference queries, lending and viewing videos of pre-recorded paralympic events and organizing the copying of videos for the athletics and officials. This also necessitated a crash course in non-verbal communication.

Introduction

Imagine being woken up at some early hour of the morning after an entertaining day and evening at the Adelaide Library Technicians Conference to be told that Sydney had won the bid to host the Olympic Games in 2000. This was the first hint of my involvement in the games.

This paper is about my Olympic and Paralympic experiences. It is also intended to give some insight into how the skills of a library technician can prepare you for just about anything.

During the Olympic Games I was a yellow sleeve (Customer Service) person. My job involved staff meetings, customer skills, rosters, communication, supervision, lost and found. Does this sound familiar? There were three levels of responsibility; team supervisor, team leader and volunteer. My job was a team leader at the Olympic Stadium, which involved the Opening ceremony, Closing ceremony, and Athletics. I imagined that I would be working and even seeing some of the athletic events in the stadium, but as usual I was wrong. To put it simply the Olympics I endured and the Paralympics I enjoyed.

I first heard about applying for the Olympics and Paralympics from an advertisement on One Umbrella's home page. I dutifully applied and forgot about it. Around this time I also began doing casual work at the Stadium in event services. Eventually I was interviewed for a position at one of the two libraries that would be operating at both the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The libraries were the Olympic Village Library and the Main Press Center Library. During the interview I mentioned that I was working at the Stadium and that I would be probably be working there during the Olympics. I was invited to work at the Paralympics in the Olympic Village Library and was overjoyed.

I was then asked to interview for the Stadium. I was again successful and anxiously awaited news about the position I would fill and the final roster. When I received the roster I thought they had made a mistake as the roster stated that there were two commencing times. The morning roster commenced at 5:00 am and the afternoon roster commenced at 1:30 p.m. I was down for 4 morning shifts and 5 afternoon shifts. The supervisors in charge of my area phoned me and said to ignore the original roster and another one would be sent to me with the correct times. I was greatly relieved as I was not looking forward to leaving home at 3:30am. When the new roster arrived it was for 3 morning shifts and 6 afternoon shifts which was much better.

The next interesting events were the training, receiving the training manual and venue visiting. The training they said would be on the job. There was just one manual but it was approximately 7 inches or 18mm thick containing information on everything and everybody and how to officially solve problems.

Olympic stadium

Staff meetings
Before the commencement of each shift we had a team leaders meeting. This usually lasted for 1-11/2 hours depending on whether there was any special information to deliver. Then I had to collect my radios make sure that they worked, contact my supervisor and find my allocated area where hopefully awaited the volunteers. If I was on the morning shift then I had to hand over to the afternoon shift all the equipment and to notify them if there were any problems for that area. On my first shift I was on 24 hours and this continued for the whole of the games.

Customer and communication skills
The stadium is divided into North, South, East and West stands and the seats go a long way up. I was in the stands a few times and each time we had the same problem. Vertigo. Spectators would stop, unable to move and there by block the aisles. I had to be very diplomatic in handling these spectators. Sometimes they would not admit that they had a problem and yet not move from the middle of the aisle. Luckily there was a reallocation table set up with alternative locations. By the end of the games we nicknamed the allocated section the vertigo area. The main problem was that I had to send a volunteer or go myself with the spectators to the reallocation desk. This meant that my area could not be maintained, the queues would start again and no problems would be solved. Sometimes spectators were reallocated to the opposite side of the stadium and someone had to escort them past the accreditation areas. Another area that required diplomatic skills was the stadium non-smoking rule. When necessary I had to ask spectators to stop smoking or move to an allocated smoking area. If I had a problem, and there were a number, I had to try to contact my supervisor. I was very lucky that I was able to work both opening and closing ceremonies and have a great view. I was allocated the top of the South Stand (where the material in the opening ceremony flowed down over the spectators). If any of you have been to the Stadium you must realise that there are 12 flights of stairs to get to level 3 and then another 12 flights of stairs to get to level 6. I soon realised that if there was a problem or relief for meal breaks in any of the aisles I had to go down to level 3, find the correct aisle and climb again to level 6. I supervised 6 volunteers those evenings. After the opening ceremony I found muscles in my legs I never knew existed. Luckily by the end of the games my legs were used to the climbing. At the beginning of each shift I was assigned a radio. The radio would only let me hear my own section of the stadium and it was difficult to hear most of the time because of outside noise (i.e.: spectators cheering for the events). The next problem we had to solve was advising spectators politely but firmly that unless they had the correct accreditation you were not allowed into that area. For example: A husband of a very famous American athlete was not allowed into the athlete's area because he was banned from the USA team. The first day, he was removed from this area and he bought a ticket to sit with the spectators. The next day we were advised, via the radio, to keep on eye on this gentleman. Some took it too seriously and followed him like a shadow from the moment he entered the stadium. We eventually found out that he had purchased a ticket and was finding his way to his seat. Imagine the entrance gates with thousands of spectators all lined up and wanting to come in at the same time. After each session the cleaners had to come through and pick up all the rubbish hence it was important to listen to the radios for when the gates were to be opened. Everybody tried to come in at the same time and if you were short handed then the queues were even longer. At the beginning there was a volunteer on the outside making sure that the spectators were in the correct area to begin with and that they actually had tickets and not receipts. Somebody also showed them how to bend their tickets so they could be easily torn at the gates. This all required good communication skills and someone with a loud voice and a good sense of humor. Also spectators in wheelchairs or with strollers were shown to a specific gate to enter. Without correct accreditation the area was off-limits. Volunteers for the food outlets had been issued incorrect accreditation and the arguments and lost tempers over this lack of communication were great. Eventually this was solved but not after a lot of headaches. Also VIP's sometimes entered the wrong gate and had to be escorted to the correct area. This included passing the dreaded media entrance. This area was especially congested by spectators who turned the wrong way after entering the stadium and then had to walk all the way around to the other side. The volunteers checking accreditation had to be very tactful when dealing with these problems.

Rosters
Another problem occurred when the New South Wales Government decided to give all volunteers a seat to the athletics, etc. What they failed to anticipate was if you gave free tickets away the volunteers would be unable or unwilling to come for their rostered shift. Instead of having 200 volunteers we ended up with between 100 to 150 each session. This was very trying with 5 aisles but only 4 volunteers. One way of handling this situation was to station myself in the middle of the aisles so that I could help all the volunteers. In the end I was very skilled at seeing hand signals over the heads of the spectators. Another challenge was volunteers who would simply disappear when they had a break and not come back. I was lucky because this only happened to me once but on the opening ceremony. My volunteer arrived, went for his break, appeared two hours later then disappeared again when asked to help at the entrance gates. I later found out that he had gone shopping at the Megastore across the road.

Supervision
Each area that I was allocated had to be supervised. This meant that if I was on the morning shift that I had to wait until the evening shift arrived. Some of the areas that I was given I had to rotate the volunteers so that a) I remembered I had volunteers there and b) so that the volunteers would not be too bored and stay awake (unlike the supervisors). For example my area was the ramps leading to level 6 on the east and west. Volunteers were stationed at the doors so that spectators would not enter. I relieved a volunteer so that she could have the meal break. Unfortunately I sat down and next thing I knew was someone from Canadian Broadcasting asking if I had had a nice sleep. I never sat down again during my shift unless it was for a meal break. It was important to rotate the volunteers so that they didn't have the same job all the time eg gates and not see anything. Again there was always the possibility that the volunteers would not come back when rotated to a new task. An average working day was 10 to 12 hours depending on whether it was a morning or afternoon shift. By the end of the fourth day a lot of the team leaders were in tears with stress and failure to solve some of the problems. One of the jobs that seemed to follow me around was blocked toilets. As the toilets became blocked I had to either station a volunteer or myself at the entrance until the plumbers arrived. We discovered that an OUT OF ORDER sign was simply ignored. By the end of the games the plumbers were really worried about where I would be stationed and they would have extra crews standing by.

Lost and found
During the Olympics many items and spectators were lost and found. With regard to the lost items it was very similar to cataloguing. Each item had to be described with location of where the item was found and also a description of the item. Items had to be individually placed in plastic bags and the description placed on the front of the item. The items were then sent to a central place where an index was made of each item according to the description of the item. I never realised how may different shades of red or blue there were with regard to umbrellas and jumpers. For example we had an average of 75 umbrellas per session per day handed in at the lost and found. Don't forget that we had to patrol our area before we left and individually write out each item. We had an average of 350 items per session per day. With regard to lost and found spectators the information had to be communicated accurately over the radio. For example: a wife was separated from her husband when they left their bus. Hours later the wife went home because the husband had the tickets. The only way we found out this was by ringing the person's home and the wife answered the phone. Luckily this only happened once or twice each day but you had to describe the person that was lost.

Paralympics
I was a blue sleeve (administrative) during the Paralympics. The roster for the Paralympics was civilized from 2:00pm-10:00pm. I had already seen the village during orientation day. When I first went to the library there was no one around except for the gift bag section on the other side of the room. This was where the paralympic athletes and officials received their complimentary bags. All they had to do was show their accreditation and cross their names off. When the gift bag section closed it was used as a gathering point by competitors to watch the competitions on the television.

The library consisted of videotapes of events, books, magazines and CD's. None of these items were allowed out of the library but there were CD players available for use in the library. The main countries that used the CD's in the library were Nigeria and South Africa. After about two days we knew these competitors by name and made them feel at home. There was also a computer that listed all the countries, athletes, officials and events for the Paralympics. This was used by the competitors to see who else was in their race.

A few days after the Paralympics commenced there was a major problem. Someone had stolen Bruce from the Canadian team. The theft took place one evening while the Canadian teams were at a function hosted by the Ryde Municipal Council. The Olympic Canadian team had originally brought Bruce in one of their containers and had it strategically located on the roof of a 3-metre-high container. Bruce is a stuffed 220-kilogram moose with antlers. It was also dressed appropriately for the weather at the time. There was an immediate major investigation and police secured the area.

The library was asked by the village newspaper to do some research into 'moose'. After finding and printing photos and information the 'reporter' went away very happy and our information went to press. We later found out a ransom note was left behind and that the colours of green and gold were involved. The next day a second ransom note was left giving hints that the perpetrators were either home-grown or very eager to win on the track. Posters were circulated all over the village offering a reward for the return of Bruce with no questions asked. After much thought and deliberation it was between Australia, Ireland and South Africa for responsibility. The moose was eventually found painted green and gold and stripped of all its clothing. It was then anchored down firmly with a guard on it at all times.

The library also held video copies of all events that were recorded and catalogued according to date, event and time. These were mainly swimming, cycling, athletics and sailing. The competitors usually were able to communicate which day they competed and which event. We located the video for them and showed them the viewing room. There were also two rooms for athletes to view their own tapes. The main room for viewing videos consisted of about 20 video players and TV's with ample room for wheelchairs and chairs per station. This area was used a lot by competitors during the games. One evening while the Mexican wheelchair basketball team was in one of the group rooms all the power points blew on one side of the building. We were able to communicate via sign language to the Mexican competitors that there was no power, contact the electrician and have full power again in a matter of hours.

If English was not their first language then there was a lot of hand waving and sign language when competitors came into the library. One competitor, from Russia, taped a number of races from our tapes on to a hand video camera with only sign language and a competitor list. This competitor we later realised won the men's marathon for his group.

When the competitors spoke no or little English we used the telephone translation service. We assumed that the translators would be across the road where the translation section was but we found out differently. On one occasion I had trouble communicating with a Bulgarian competitor so I used the telephone. I asked if the translator could come across the road to the library only to be informed that the translator lived in Perth and was sitting down to dinner. All my skill and patience came back.

In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed the Paralympics and appreciated the great learning experience of the Olympics. Both jobs were very difficult but surprisingly both opportunities to use my skills as a library technician.