Aroo?

Last Sunday Yati and I went to volunteer at Spartan Race Super. It might have been a bad choice.

We were sent a pdf file containing the general details about what we have to do as volunteers a few days prior to the race. Because the race was taking place in Klang, Yati put the night at my place as it was nearer to the location.

As we had to sign in at 5am, we woke up at 4am and had a light breakfast before heading out. We almost got lost along the way. When we got there, I parked the car at the directions instructed and we headed into the race area. We signed in and got our Volunteers t-shirt, breakfast and refreshments. The instructions said to wait for our manager named Helena or something like that but she wasn't anywhere to be seen. Later a lady in a blue "STAFF" shirt instructed us to go in and look for Douglas. Together with another three others, Yati and I headed in and we found a meeting area just in front of the Bag Check area. The Volunteers Guideline said that we can leave our luggage in the Bag Check but on the located we were told that we cannot do so, so we carried our bags with us.

After eating our breakfast, we were instructed to line up and we were assigned our positions. The guideline said that we would be briefed at 5am but we were not briefed about anything at all and by the time we were allocated our positions, it was already 6am and they were already flagging off the first wave of participants. Yati and I were put into Zone 4 but along the way we suddenly were changed to Zone 5. It appeared that there were not enough volunteers so one person was assigned to one station. Yati was assigned at the Tire Flip while I was put at this unnamed obstacle that looked like a joke.

The task on my obstacle was simple, there was a row of tires lined up in a row and the task was to take one tire from one end to the other. Easy enough. The problem was that some of the participants don't want to cooperate because when one side of the tires were "empty" they had to go to the other side to get it. In the end I just piled the tires and told the participants to pick one up and go around the row of tires and put them back in the pile. Why did this obstacle look like a joke? Compared to all the other obstacles, this was nothing. It was simply a product placement, evident with the huge Goodyear banner behind the obstacle.

The layout for the obstacles were barely planned out as well. Looking at all the obstacles we passed by, there was no shelter of any kind for us volunteers. We had to sit out in the sun and brace it's scorching rays. It was a lot worse as the current season was hit by El Nino and heat waves along with the start of the spring solstice and equinox whatever. Earlier in the morning it wasn't too bad because the weather was cloudy but around 11:15am, I was dehydrating under the sun in the open field.

Our shift was set to be from 5am to 12pm. We were to be replaced by the afternoon shift at 12:30pm latest. But it was 1pm and no one came to replace us. Our zone manager soon came by in his 4WD and apologised that they were extremely busy. He handed me a cold can of 100Plus and a cold bottle of water. I quickly gulped down the 100Plus as I was dehydrating under the scorching sun. After another two hours of scorching hot sun, another guy in a 4WD stopped by and called me over to his car. He wore the blue "STAFF" shirt but he looked like someone from the international team. He checked with me my shift and passed me a bottle of water and food and told me that if no one came to replace me in half an hour, I can just leave. I continued to watch over the station and about twenty minutes later, he came back with Yati in his car and beckoned me to get in. I quickly packed up all my stuff and got into the car. He told us that the management team had a major screw up and he's pulling us out because it was unfair towards us. He also mentioned, "it's their problem" so maybe my hunch about him being from the international team is right. He dropped Yati and I back at where we came from and the two of us made our way back to the entrance to sign off. After doing so, we ate our lunch and I sent Yati back home. The two of us were terribly sunburnt.

On Facebook, several other volunteers voiced out their respective problems they faced during the job. Turns out that Yati and I were considered lucky already as some other volunteers had a worse experience than us. We received a formal apology from the management a few days later and we were promised our race credits for the next race.

For me it wasn't so much of hell volunteering at this race. During my job, some participants showed concern for me being unprotected from the sun's heat and I also saw a bunch of my friends who participated in the obstacle course. Those were the small things that kept me going. A major downfall to this is that I don't get my second piece to the completion of this trifecta's set of medals.