Enforcers at PAX make an 8 year old cry
Yesterday at the main stage for Rock band free play I was hanging out solo, finding people to get onstage with. I met up with this guy and girl, Emily and Steven, and we played with another guy one round, then told a guy that wanted to sing we would be his band. A mom with a small kid approached us...the boy was obviously very shy. The mom asked if we would possibly go through with her son playing guitar. All three of us were like, awww, of course! So we're talking to this kid, who's adorable. "So, do you guys like Rush? Tom sawyer is my favorite song. I play it with my dad all the time." He even had that cute little kid lisp. We wait, and talk with this kid, who's totally excited to get up on stage...we do our song with the singer guy, and the enforcers tell us that was the last song.
All three of us begged these guys to let this poor kid play onstage...there weren't a lot of people around, so no one would have claimed unfair treatment or anything, if they didn't get to go after us, as well. These enforcers had been waiting around for a while, and had made no announcement about it being the last song. The kid starts crying...all the enforcers said was, well, pax was over at 6 p.m., and it's 6:03 now. I was really shocked. That isn't what bothered me the most. The enforcers get onstage, and I'm thinking, ok, they have to start shutting down, that's understandable, I'm sure they have to get out of the convention center. Except then these enforcers started playing rock band. Right in front of this poor kid who's crying into his mom's shoulder. All around us, in the free play rooms, other enforcers were unplugging stuff...but these guys/girls decided to play? A couple of them had been going through the line already and had played a few songs.
I don't know if Jerry and Mike have a party for the enforcers the Sunday night of pax, or something like that, and that's why they were playing a song. I was just really surprised, and didn't think this whole episode fit what I think of as the point of PAX, to be welcoming to everyone, etc. Those girl enforcers were really rude about the whole thing. (A girl with pink hair, and another with an affro/mohawk.) It broke my heart to see this kid not get to do something he'd obviously been wanting to do all weekend. His mom even went over and asked really nicely. Nope. But, hey guys, let's rock out right in front of her crying kid!I just can't imagine this being ok with the PA guys, although I know they can't be in 2 (or 15) places at once.
Video games don't ruin kids. If Pac-Man ruined us as kids, we would all be running around in darkened rooms, eating magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.
- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989
Maybe you could send a message to Mike and Jerry, or even link to this story on their forums to see if it will illicit a response. I don't really see something like that flying right by them. Granted, in the grand scheme of things it isn't really a huge deal, but to that kid it could have been.
Good luck if you decide to pursue it.
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I agree, I think sending a note along to Penny Arcade is the way to go.
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Copy and past to P-A. That is some really sad stuff and kind of makes me angry.
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I sent them an email similar to the above post. When these conventions get so huge, I'm sure it's hard to make sure all their staff are doing the right thing. Plus I saw a few enforcers that seemed to have big heads. Maybe the PA guys will realize that.
Video games don't ruin kids. If Pac-Man ruined us as kids, we would all be running around in darkened rooms, eating magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.
- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989
Right, LiteraryGamer - huge events make it inevitable that something like this will happen. To be fair, as I was checking my stuff out of BYOC, I heard one of the Enforcers being almost interrogated about how quickly people would be getting out of the room, when 6PM rolled aorund. The staffmember at the convention center really wanted people out of the room, not getting their stuff together at that time.
I think that logistics, management, big heads and a dash of confusion played a role... All that said, saying no to another round of the game for an adorable 8-year old seems particularly harsh.
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I can understand them being strict about clearing people out, but then playing right in front of the kid was a jerk move.
It occurs to me that calling their volunteer staff "Enforcers" is a pretty good way to give some people swelled heads.
This is a good example of how multiple interests work at conventions. CC staff usually wants things to go as planned, because late shows and whatnot add more pay hours to their staff.
As things scale up for PAX, they're going to have to deal with a lot of similar bad PR moments, long lines, and general Congoer dissatisfaction. They should look at how similar Cons handle that aspect. ComicCon, Anime Expo, Otakon, and so forth.
"Personally I'm looking forward to buying a PC with a 128 core processor integrated with 32tb of memory in about 10 years time. Shortly there after Will Wright's Spore 3 will become self aware and annihilate humanity in a nuclear holocaust."
Nothing says don't mess with kids like a bloody head on a fence post!
In all seriousness, severe douchebaggerie.
Ego trip on adults, not kids.
A swift blow to the genetalia is in order for these phenoms of Draconian dickwadism.
*Legion* wrote:
PSN: BoogleGWJ
Exactly - having a hard deadline for shutting things down is fine. Having your own Rock Band session in front of a crying kid, not so cool.
This kind of thing, Gabe and Tycho can't really control. They are probably several steps removed from the selection of individual Enforcers, who are as I understand it basically just PAX attendees who volunteer to work the show (which is very cool of them).
I'm not sure what they can do in response to this story, other than add a line like "Don't be dumbasses when it comes to little kids" to the Enforcer training sessions (or whatever they have).
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
Xbox Live: Fedaykin98
Easiest way to deal with it: Contact the kid and invite him to a ROCK BAND 2 game (or some similar public display of Rock Bandery) as an apology.
For the Enforcers, revoke their ConPass for the remainder of the event, reminding everyone that their personal actions reflect upon PAX and PA as a whole.
They would also do good to invite back Enforcers who show a good, level head, dealt with situations in exemplary ways, etc etc. Some kind of Good Worker incentive, so that they'll serve as good rolemodels for future Enforcer-hopefuls. Basically, make it clear that they want Enforcers that wish to contribute to the PAX experience, not cheapskates that want preferential treatment (or whatever perks they get for volunteering).
They'll need to lock down a grand communication plan as well, because a Con serving 30+k people goes to crap really quickly if information isn't disseminated to volunteers on the ground as efficiently as possible.
"Personally I'm looking forward to buying a PC with a 128 core processor integrated with 32tb of memory in about 10 years time. Shortly there after Will Wright's Spore 3 will become self aware and annihilate humanity in a nuclear holocaust."
Pfft, like that's hard.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
I gotta say, I wouldn't want to be those enforcers. I've talked to the PA guys online a few times, and they seem pretty levelheaded... but they seem like they'd flake out about something like that.
St.Hillary wrote:
Commence your hatred, gentlemen.Yes, if you noticed specific Enforcers behaving inappropriately, please let the volunteer coordinator (klindsay@penny-arcade.com) know. The volunteer organization is highly organized, and the Enforcers are specifically told not to be jerks to *any* attendees (even the "difficult" ones). Rest assured that this will be dealt with appropriately. Also, if you have the kid's contact information, please send that along as well.
As for the rest of you, I would personally prefer that you not dogpile on the volunteers (all 400 of them) as a group. It's easy to be judgmental when you're not part of that group, except that some of us are. I'm one of those volunteers, and we work *very hard* to make sure as many people enjoy the experience as possible. Did you know that almost all of the hardware and games available at Freeplay were loaned to PAX by the volunteers?
Oh!!!! there we go, it was THEIR Rock Band Guitars... stupid kid.
J/K.
There's always a few rotten apples in every bunch, no need for dogpillin' as Trap says.
I think the post originates because most of us never would've expected this kind of behaviour.
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I don't dog on the group, merely the specifics.
*Legion* wrote:
PSN: BoogleGWJ
Right, most of the staff was great...that's why I was so shocked. I sent an email to Mike and Jerry. It's not hard to single out who it was, since they both had pretty stupid *cough* I mean, unique hair styles. The rest of you guys did a great job!
Video games don't ruin kids. If Pac-Man ruined us as kids, we would all be running around in darkened rooms, eating magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.
- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989
The volunteer co-ordinator sent me this letter:
Hi Ashley,
I'm Kristin, the volunteer co-ordinator and the one responsible for
all of our Enforcers. Gabe sent me your email right away when he saw
it, and I wanted to apologize personally for the behavior that you
witnessed.
You aren't the first person to bring this to my attention, in fact
ANOTHER Enforcer took me aside yesterday to tell me that he saw this
sad situation unfold. I think that after a very long week of setting
the show up, working all through PAX, and finally hitting that 6pm
mark on Sunday, some of our volunteers were so tired that their
judgment was completely off. You are absolutely right: we shouldn't
be shoving people out the doors at 6pm no matter who they are, but the
fact is that this this little guy definitely shouldn't have been
victimized like that.
Once again, I apologize. I will be talking to the people responsible,
thank you for the description... it makes it easy to know who I should
address. I know that having this happen on the very last day has the
ability to taint the whole PAX experience for you, but I hope that you
had a great time at the rest of the show, and this won't be your
lasting memory.
We'll do all that we can to make sure something like this never
happens again. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have
any questions or additional comments. Thanks for letting us know!
Kristin
I'm glad she took the time to get back to me, and even if those partucular people aren't reprimanded at least they'll be more aware in the future. I wouldn't expect less from the PA group.
Video games don't ruin kids. If Pac-Man ruined us as kids, we would all be running around in darkened rooms, eating magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.
- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989
Good for them. What a graceful gesture.
"Three blokes go into a pub. One of them is kind of stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." - Bill Bailey
I didn't expect any less. It would be cool if someone knew who the kid was. I'm sure Jerry and Mike would send the kid a signed print or something like that. It'd be nothing for them and really put a good ending on PAX for the poor kid.
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Bummer. That's completely unrepresentative of the Enforcer conduct I've seen during the past two years.
I've consistently seen Enforcers working their asses off in highly stressful, demanding situations with big smiles and amazingly positive attitudes. I'm sure they get burned out, and I'm sure some may be jerks, but for my part I've been absolutely amazed at how polite and helpful they are, under circumstances that would make most people cranky and irritable. And they do all this for free.
One particular enforcer completely saved my bacon last weekend by spending 20 minutes helping me troubleshoot some highly unusual network issues. Without my asking.
It's a tongue-in-cheek name, and I think the Enforcers know it. Most of the ones I encountered didn't seem to be taking themselves to seriously - even if they took their responsibilities very seriously.
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Good to see that the behaviors described in the initial post do not permeate throughout the entire organization.
Your combination of interstellar vocabularies amuses me to no end.
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Pharacon wrote:
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Yeah, I've heard from PAX attendees that the enforcers are across the board awesome. Actually, I'm willing to bet that even those two aren't normally asshats. Volunteering at a con is _hard_.
St.Hillary wrote:
Commence your hatred, gentlemen.I'm trying to picture Momgamer as anything other than a real nice gal, but I'm failing.
Does that really make it easy in a group like the PAX crowd?
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Take people who are generally nerdy and antisocial in real life, give them some power and this is what you get sometimes. Sad really, I hope they do address this.
Syldar wrote:
If there was a GH:Metallica, I wonder if you would have to play at the expert level at the start then work your way through the years to the easy mode - just like the real band did!
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was amused by that.
wordsmythe wrote:
This is the painful truth, I'm a senior member(8+ years working with them) of Anime Central in Chicago IL and I've seen my fair share of the IRT (incident response team) members try to powertrip. Incidently I am also on IRT as a shift supervisor. I tell my team time and time again not to pull crap like that because we are just on of the many "faces" of the convention. I could rant for hours about people that want to play "military" and what not but I'll refrain from doing so. I really hope this is addressed by P.A. There is no reason for this but the only way to get around it is to hire professional security guards.
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literarygamer: Big props to helping out like this. Yea, there's probably not much they can do for the poor youngin at this point, but at least the responsible parties are being dealt with.
Coldstream wrote:
Great to hear something was/is being done about it.
I don't think anyone would cross Momgamer... at least not after the first attempt anyway.
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