Fun day

Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Today my shift starts at 7:30am and I am to work until 4pm. I don't think I mentioned that yesterday my shift was from 10:30am until 11pm...By the time I take the bus to Kirk's work and collect my car for home...it is probably about a 90 minute trip (one way). LUCKILY, I have some great friends in Vancouver that are letting me crash at their house (it is an 8-minute drive from Kirk's work) on the nights I work late and then have an early morning shift...this allowed me to have 6 hours of sleep last night, rather than 4 hours if I had come home to Langley. Last night I meet another volunteer on the bus from Kelowna...we get to talking and it turns out she works with BUD! My boss from Bridges (when we lived in Kelowna)! What a small world...she takes my photo and emails it to him with a hello from me...

So, I wake up bright and early today and leave my friend's house at 6:30am...it gets me to UBC by 7:29...too close for comfort so next time I do this (Thursday morning)...I'll make sure I leave an extra 15 or 20 minutes earlier.

The early shift is a little different. There are less of us team leaders (only 3 today) and less hosts in general. We have a meeting together at 8am, and they even do a draw to give three pairs of tickets away to tonight's men's Russia vs Latvia hockey game. I'm surprised they include us team leaders in the draw, but I guess it's because we are volunteers too! Three hosts win tickets and they are VERY excited to say the least. It is awesome they do this. I wonder if it's a daily morning ritual? It's a great idea!

I am given section "TRAIN 10" for the morning and it's an interesting area...and all on the same level. My 10 hosts are AMAZING and are all very positive and enthusiastic...spots they are stationed at include the media entrance, near the broadcast post, at the athlete entrance, outside the IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) lounge, the Olympic family/friends lounge and entrance, outside the changerooms, etc. The hosts are mostly just checking for accreditation and making sure they only let people through that have the right passes.

Almost immediately I send them for their 15 minute breaks (on rotation) and continue to redeploy from post to post so they all get a chance to see different things and meet different people. One of the hosts is from New Zealand which is pretty neat ... At noon there are more hosts being redeployed and everyone will get a new team and location.

I end up today being "Delta 10" which is a position that roams and helps wherever needed...it was interesting today since I got to see quite a bit of the USA versus Russia women's hockey game. It was 6-0 when I left my shift (they let me go a bit early at 3:45pm)...I was so busy I didn't take my lunch break until 3:30 today...I vow to make sure I get my break in a little sooner because that was a long day without food! Mostly today I helped spectators with issues...finding seats or even finding items they left out at security...I also helped one family of 5 (two parents and 3 kids) get seats together. For some reason they were spread all over the stadium and they had to sit their two eldest kids (ages 13 and 11) together by themselves with a walkie-talkie they brought from home. I told them I'd work on getting them seated together, so found the right supervisor and we were able to get them all in one spot by the first intermission. Mission accomplished!

Tomorrow I start at 10:30am (working until 11pm) so off to bed I go. Maybe I'll get caught up on some missing zzzzz's.