Table of Death

Rusty Kettle said:

So do table captains track whether a box number comes across the table on a sheet? Like do they mark that number down by writing the number or mark an x next to a list of numbers?

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Actually Tom, the Table Captains do BOTH.
They write down the box number and then scratch out the number on the overall number list.

The Turn-in table tray-builder looks at the numbers scratched out to determine what table a box can go to.

Often, but not always, a REP oversees the Turn-in table tray building.

fnbish said:

People really don't use the word "persnickety" enough I think.

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It is a good word :biggrin1:.

Rusty Kettle said:

The reason I ask is wouldn't it be possible to barcode all the boxes and use a scanner to collect that data. There is probably a way if that barcode comes up twice a computer could alert you to that. Just a thought.

I know a scanner can enter data into excel but not sure if you can make it alert you if a number repeats itself.

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I know the PNWBA uses a barcode/scanner system, I'm not sure if it has that capability but hopefully someone can chime in who does know.

Not to stir this all up again, but basically it seems that a mistake happened. The result being that teams that got the short end of the stick has no recourse (Oops!, our bad, better luck next time). Isn't this why we value KCBS competitions, so this type of stuff doesn't happen and to ensure fair results. There should be a system in place to prevent this from happening again.

According to pnwba website they do use a barcode system. It unfortunately doesn't explain it. At the very least something could be done to eliminate errors or at least make it much more difficult for errors to occur by implementing a barcode system.

From the sounds of it being a TC is a hard job and you could easily have an error. An electronic system to help the TC's do their jobs better might help reduce some of the stress of being a TC.

It may help create some trust between cooks and judges and reps.

Pig Headed said:

Not to stir this all up again, but basically it seems that a mistake happened. The result being that teams that got the short end of the stick has no recourse (Oops!, our bad, better luck next time). Isn't this why we value KCBS competitions, so this type of stuff doesn't happen and to ensure fair results. There should be a system in place to prevent this from happening again.

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It isn't that there isn't recourse. This should be looked into, but the notion that "there should be a system in place to prevent this from happening again" will 100% fix the situation can be misleading. There are systems in place across all companies/industries/etc. Sometimes those systems do fail. When they fail people go back and revisit them to see how it could be improved. I can't agree more there. Things can always be improved.

My issue here is how The BBQ Brethren "Comp Forum" is now becoming a place to publicly out and humiliate reps/judges. And actually scratch that word "becoming" because this forum is absolutely now a place to publicly out and humiliate reps/judges. I think there should be a public forum for everyone's job and when they make a mistake they get outed online, screamed at and called to answer for their "heinous" crimes on top of them answering to their boss.

People should be held accountable for when they do their job incorrectly, but there normally are "procedures" to deal with such a thing. I'm sure everyone who violently screams (or passively/aggressively screams with what seems like "polite" written statements when they aren't ) here hasn't screwed something up at work and I bet they were glad they if they had ever screwed up there wasn't a forum for their job where someone could "out" them and string them from the internet gallows.

Around here at The BBQ "Brethren" it's "do wrong at a comp even once and you are inept, an idiot, moron, completely lacking skills to accomplish anything in life because you couldn't foresee a bump in the road". You could have never met the person before in your life, but they must be a dumb ahole who doesn't care about their job or doing KCBS/comp teams right. Reps are just their to screw teams and don't love bbq and making comps great.

KCBS needs to fix some things. I just don't think the pitchfork approach gives much time to assess what happened and give someone the benefit out of the doubt to see if they did do something wrong and then let them be held accountable if they did.

Do one wrong at a contest and people want you fired and never to be a rep again. Maybe those that say that should have the same mentality about their own jobs. One strike (whether big or small) and you are out...............on top of being humiliated in an online forum. Gotta keep the humiliation part in there, because you know that makes the person wronged feel better.

Some reps might actually suck. But all I've met want to put on a great contest and I'd have a beer and a shot with any of them. If they mess up they should be held accountable and fix the issue, but maybe less screaming for heads to roll.............I could be in the minority there I suppose :doh:

Well the end. Off my pedestal and whatnot :doh:.

Wow, it seems that I packed a whole lot of unintended bitterness in my post. I can assure you that that was NOT my intent.

Pig Headed said:

Wow, it seems that I packed a whole lot of unintended bitterness in my post. I can assure you that that was NOT my intent.

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Ron, no that whole post wasn't just for what you had said. Sorry if you think it was all directed at you. It wasn't.

Most of what I said was more of an "in general" and because I quoted your post it could definitely seem like I was piling on you. Sorry for the confusion.

Phil i agree it shouldn't be moderated.Was just making the observation that there's more and more of the rep bashing and calling for heads to roll. If you or other people think I mean negative things about the forum from what I said I can't do anything about that. So maybe the comp forum will become just that even more. Just stating what I see similar to saying "the sky is blue". I simply observe the comp forum becoming the epicenter for humiliating kcbs reps. I accept that (while not liking it) and know I can choose to not come to the comp section.

So consider what I said my "rebuttal".

bbq.tom said:

Actually Tom, the Table Captains do BOTH.
They write down the box number and then scratch out the number on the overall number list.

The Turn-in table tray-builder looks at the numbers scratched out to determine what table a box can go to.

Often, but not always, a REP oversees the Turn-in table tray building.

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We get quite a few small contests around here with 4 tables and if the reps leave it up to a tray builder/TC's then your gonna have teams hit the same table twice,IMHO.

The reps that I have been around that does an excellent job will hold the pork and brisket boxes until all is turned in. While not the best for the cooks, some of us understand the process and adjust our turn ins for it....just my 2 cents.

Burnt at Both Endz said:

We get quite a few small contests around here with 4 tables and if the reps leave it up to a tray builder/TC's then your gonna have teams hit the same table twice,IMHO.

The reps that I have been around that does an excellent job will hold the pork and brisket boxes until all is turned in. While not the best for the cooks, some of us understand the process and adjust our turn ins for it....just my 2 cents.

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FWIW, we did a 25 team, 4 table contest yesterday. I double checked and all 25 teams hit all the tables. It does require holding pork. Brisket takes care of itself if everything else has been done right, but could still mean that the first turn in waits for the last one (each TC has to wait on the 6 or 7 boxes that aren't crossed off of their lists).

Burnt at Both Endz said:

We get quite a few small contests around here with 4 tables and if the reps leave it up to a tray builder/TC's then your gonna have teams hit the same table twice,IMHO.

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Sounds like your tray builders/TCs are inept and derelict in their duties!

Two sets of REPs in the SE use me as their tray builder because they know that this won't happen when I'm in charge of the Turn-in table. It's not rocket science or advanced algebra to make sure teams don't hit the same table twice (unless the numbers require it; i.e., 25 means that one and only one hits twice).

bbq.tom said:

It's not rocket science or advanced algebra to make sure teams don't hit the same table twice (unless the numbers require it; i.e., 25 means that one and only one hits twice).

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How do they have you build the trays if in a 25 team contest one team hits the same table twice? In CA we would either run 5 tables with 5 entries each, or 4 tables where 3 tables receive 6 entries and 1 table each round will receive 7 entries.

shorter thread:

Sorry cooks, accidents happen. We are all volunteers and do it because we love bbq. Sorry you spend $1000's to cook contests. You really can't expect us to get everything right. You should be thankful we do it at all. Please dont complain about it.

DawgPhan said:

shorter thread:

Sorry cooks, accidents happen. We are all volunteers and do it because we love bbq. Sorry you spend $1000's to cook contests. You really can't expect us to get everything right. You should be thankful we do it at all. Please dont complain about it.

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And add to that, the rep from the contest came in to the thread but didn't explain what happened, only that they took offense at what was said.

Seems to me that it should have been easy to point out where the error occured and explain why it did and admit that there was an error that will be double checked for the next time. As far as I can see, the cooks here don't want someone never working a contest again, they just wanted to know why something happened and if there was going to be something done to ensure it doesn't happen again.

MikeJ65 said:

FWIW, we did a 25 team, 4 table contest yesterday. I double checked and all 25 teams hit all the tables. It does require holding pork. Brisket takes care of itself if everything else has been done right, but could still mean that the first turn in waits for the last one (each TC has to wait on the 6 or 7 boxes that aren't crossed off of their lists).

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The reason behind holding all the brisket boxes is so that everyone has a level playing field, instead of one tray being released minutes ahead of others, while the others may have to wait for the very last minute. Not perfect, but the best that a rep can do to insure fairness.

A 4 table contest is diffidently a different animal than a 50 team contest....

It's been 9 months since my last contest, and it's threads like this that reminds me why I don't miss it.

Red Valley BBQ said:

I can tell you that table 315 got entries from all but two teams. I was the highest overall team (9th) that didn't didn't have an entry on that table, and the other was 12th overall. I agree with you that there is a possibility that they could have had their fair share of poor entries. Unfortunately, I do not have that table on my score sheet so I cannot comment on what their average scores were for the day.

It has been my experience that the ToD will often change with the categories, i.e. table 111 is the ToD in chicken, table 222 is the ToD in ribs, etc. This is the first time I have seen only one table score consistently low across all four categories.

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Yes, that is the question. If a the TOD rotates for each category, then the reason can probably be attributed to the worst teams hitting those tables. If in this case it is the same for each category it is more likely judges who are scoring lower.

I would love to have access to all the competition data to run queries to see how often each of these things happens. That would show whether or not the TOD is as big a problem is it is perceived to be.