Toxic Paddock: Part 1

Champion

I was recently inspired by the returning Australian Supercars Champion, Scott McLaughlin’s comments on, how he was going to celebrate his Championship with close friends and family and avoid the ‘toxic paddock’.  Now having worked ‘in and around’ the Motorsports paddock for the last few years, I felt it was time to share some of my own experiences of this observed toxicity. Congratulations, Scott. Here are some examples of the absurdness I encountered. In isolation, one might not consider these to be of any great significance, however they’re adding up to the overall ‘de-professionalization’ of the sport and industry.

“I don’t know what I did to piss him off, but he is apparently… stupid”.

Petty Shit

As a mountain man, a gunslinger, I was ready for it. I finally made my way. I finally made my way from the ‘wild west’, rust belt, of back-marker Xfinity teams, and what have you, to civilization, to the ‘promised land’. A mecca of Motorsports stood before me. It was a lot of things and nothing at all depending on your perspective of it. In fact, it was spring in Concord, North Carolina.

There was opportunity in the air, I could smell it, or at least I thought I could. It was more likely last night’s trash I brought in from ‘home’ and threw into the cans at the workplace. Perk of the job, when they are paying you absolute peanuts. You tend to forgo modern, civilized, essential services, like waste removal when you are one of the underlings of our industry. Having taken out the trash, it was time to do what any good cowboy would do, so I put on my hat… It was time to go to work.

Well, try to go to work, anyway. I didn’t last too long with these jokers. Here is yet another company in this world that provides a service that truly benefits our sport, giving fans and non-fans alike, an opportunity to get a taste of what the racing experience is all about, yet the organization itself is a total meat-grinder. One example, in particular, comes to mind.

So in this example, there was a challenge involving the team communications devices we used on a day-to-day basis. They weren’t always charged and ready to go when necessary. This was a source of frustration, and understandably so. The ‘two-way/walkie-talkie/push-to-talk’, whatever you call them, radios we used, would dock in a charger that stayed in the merchandise trailer, which doubled as a base-of-operations. Now, I’m a technically minded person, and I took a look at this thing. This charger holds about 10-15 or so, handsets. I noticed that the handsets did not sit snuggly in their respective slot, so in order to make sure they are charging you had to be mindful when placing the your handset in the slot. This is a bad design of the product here with loose slots, but nothing we can’t get over. Now, with people being people, coming and going, new people all the time (especially if you insist on operating a high turnover organization; kiddie wages, no training, etc). Whether anyone likes it or not, at the end of the day, the ground crew are going to come in drop the handsets in the charger, take off home, get something to eat, play some Fortnite, and not think about it again until they come into work the next day. Well this caused many members of staff and senior members of staff to become very vocal, particularly the supervisors; ‘Captain Boat Payments’ and ‘Ms. Obese Affirmative Action’. The Captain was a real tough guy; I would love to see his credit rating. I watched in astonishment as member of staff after member of staff walked into the trailer and started shouting, crying, and moaning, usually with raised voices about the radios not charging.

How emotional. They kept saying how everyone should do a better job of this. Well the solution is simple, that you add a procedure to the checklist of the team member that closes up the trailer at the end of the work day. Before they leave for the night, they spend what would honestly only take less than half a minute to look over each handset in the charger and make sure they are charged ready to go for the next day. The important thing here is that the two-way radios are ready to go for the next day. Not whether everyone has good walkie-talkie bedside manners. That’s called ‘getting over it’, or the ‘greater good’.

This is really embarrassing for these people, truly pathetic, and very immature. I guess they do not realize that there is more to being an adult than just having a job. I’ve met a lot of children with jobs. These people should be ashamed of themselves. Is this common behaviour around here? Motorsports, ‘The South’, America? I wonder. This is straight out of the dark ages. These unenlightened, unreasonable people can’t figure it out, and get over it. Or get over themselves, for that matter. Stop! Think! Are you a half-wit? Use your brain. Stop being so emotional and try being reasonable. Being reasonable means,  you are able to reason. That’s actually what it means. Can you reason a situation? Emotions have a place in this world, but there is nothing emotional about how you store your radios. Pull your heads out of your backsides and join the 21^st Century; you are a few years late, and your holding the rest of us back.

It wasn’t too long after this incident (and another in particular) that I realized I am wasting my time here, and I was being disrespected. Not to mention the fact that I was overqualified. I have an Associate’s Degree in Spatial Information Services, among other qualifications, and have worked with Surveyors and Engineers, building highways and digging mines. On top of that, I remember while getting my metalworking ticket down in Greenville South Carolina, one of my classmates was surprised to learn I already had an Associate’s Degree. Yes, my young, presumptuous, American chum, as it turns out, I did in fact have a life before I met you. Well, I said he was young, so in the spirit of that popular Boomer phrase “Give me a break!”, ok Boomer, we will.

I wonder if those clowns running that side show are still out there somewhere endlessly shouting, pissing and moaning, about how their walkie-talkies are not sitting in the charger properly.