The Never-Ending Ramblings...

A second Sunday Entry

How could I forget? Tomorrow at around eleven, I get to train Steve! Yep. The city finally agreed to let me hire someone. It’s only been ten weeks since Marquis quit. Huge long story there, but I’ll never post it in this blog. At least Steve knows about the computer.

I know Lucia will want me to help run this site during some of the MTA tournaments. Now that Steve is on. I still don’t know. Laney always gets so busy in the summer, and I do want some weekends open. Sarah will need help with her tournaments since this will be the first year she actually runs them. I’m supposed to train her on TDM this Friday.

I finally learned how to schedule the draw sites and times! Every time T. or M tried to explain, it was during a big group lecture o through power point, and I just didn’t get it. Adam and I went to Atlanta one day, just to learn. He still doesn’t know. But last weekend, at the CDW, I took Jerry’s and Joyce’s class o n Advanced TDM. It was Sunday, and I was sooooo tired. Armed with a huge cup of black coffee, I entered the room late. All the seats were taken but one. To my surprise, they had laptop computers set up at all the tables. We had to share them.

I felt bad, drinking coffee next to a laptop. God forbid I should actually spill any. (Like Saturday morning, when I sat down at a small table w/ two guys – one hit the table with his leg of something and the motion spilled my coffee everywhere. I was irritated but just smiled, especially when he said he was sorry.)

Anyway. Where was I? Oh yeah, I know Jerry and Joyce. They are excellent tech people. Extremely organized, well educated, and great at explaining their software. I thought it was great to have the laptops. Hands on experience always works better for me. Touching something, sorta brings it all into to focus. So now I know how to schedule the times.

In the beginning, a year ago, I hated TDM. Tournament Data Management. A software application used to run tennis tournaments. Before TDM, we used TMS. It was great, easy to learn and I never had any trouble running it.

Not so with TDM. The application was filled with trips and bugs and became a monster to me. It made me feel inept, incapable and incompetent. I wrote a letter to the tech team, the GTA office and even to our section office saying so. I was tired of people insinuating that the mistakes were mine. I was too tired, and probably not running the system correctly. Infuriated, I shot that letter off, saying that the tired tournament director is the audience TDM must perform for. Furthermore, I NEVER had this much trouble with TMS.

TDM has come a long way since then. It is now an awesome program. However, it does not like my work computer. Forcing me to update it at home when ever I run a tournament at my facility. Thank goodness, my next tournament is at JDS! I can use Carl’s computer there. Or Lucia’s.

What the hell am I doing? Thinking about work on my last little bit of the weekend?