Vancouver 2010: Day 9

Happy Day 9 of the Olympics!

Everyone keeps asking me: 'So Julie, if you don't have a credential and if you're not living in the Olympic Village, what do you do all day?'...so I thought I'd take some time to explain how this all works:

Olympic credentials are very limited and each country can only receive a specific number of them. The people who receive credentials as part of the U.S. Figure Skating Team are: 15 athletes, 9 coaches (remember that each of our skaters/teams have their own personal coach so we use a lot of our credentials on our coaches), 3 team leaders/managers, one team doctor, one team physiotherapist, two media staff members, one president and one executive director. All of these folks (except for the two media staff members, the president and the ED) live in the Village. Then there are lots of other people here on behalf of U.S. Figure Skating including me, a few of my co-workers and a skate technician. We also have several U.S. officials here on behalf of the International Skating Union (ISU). So when you include the assistant coaches that are also here and each athlete's agent, there are about 56 people here for the U.S. Figure Skating Team. Then, every athlete has AT LEAST six family members here...some have over a dozen, which means we're technically supporting roughly 150 people in Vancouver.

With so many friends and family, board members and VIP's, it is easier to understand why me and my other non-credentialed co-workers are here to support our skating family. Here is what my days usually look like:

6:00am - Wake up and get ready (Remember I'm living in the house we are renting which is about 2 blocks from the figure skating/speed skating venue and our U.S. Figure Skating Olympic Office)

7:30am - Open up the office (which is actually a small private school). Turn off the security alarm. Turn on both of the TV's. Turn on both of the laptops. Make coffee. Make hot chocolate. Update the medal count (see picture below). Print and post recent stories about our skaters. Refill our table of USA 'stuff' (pins, noise makers, beads, etc.)

9:00am-ish - Depending on if it's a practice day, we may already have had some visitors by 9am. Each visitor (mostly friends and family) usually has several questions or needs to pick something up. Tips on how to get into the venue, directions for how to get on the bus/train system, addresses for all of the special houses downtown, hours of the Olympic Superstore, distributing practice or event tickets and answering questions about ticket availability are all a part of how we support the F&F.

12:00pm - Usually about this time Bob mans the office and I go grab some to-go lunch. Then when I get back I re-do everything I did at the start of the morning (make more coffee, etc.) I also check my email and actually work on things that I do on a daily basis when I'm in CO. My AMAZING intern, Liz, is still in CO right now and has been handling the vast majority of things for me while I'm gone (organizing the World Junior, World and Spring Teams...all of which compete in March). So fortunately, I haven't had to deal with any major issues back in CO yet.

1:00pm - Things usually start to pick up at the office especially on an event day. Everyone stops by to check their email, catch some Olympic coverage, grab a Diet Coke or just to say hi. The afternoon flies by!

4:00pm/5:00pm - We usually close down the office at about this time. Then we either go across the street to watch the event or we go downtown to watch or we find tickets to something else or we just hangout downtown and take in the atmosphere.

Every day is different which makes life very interesting! You never know when someone will have an extra ticket or a VIP pass to something. You just have to be ready to change your plans and GO!

I am very thankful that I had so many unique jobs in high school and college! Opening up the office reminds of me of working as the house manager at the Ted Man Concert Hall, making coffee reminds me of working at concessions stands both at HCC and the racetrack, answering questions all day reminds me of working at JCPenny's, washing laundry at the house reminds me of working for the women's basketball team at the U, making a bulletin board for the medal count reminds me of student teaching and driving the van reminds me of driving the water truck for Curbside! Like I said before, you can never underestimate the impact of those odd jobs you had growing up! :)

An update on the compulsory dance front: our teams are currently in third, fourth and fourteenth. We are expecting them all to move up after tomorrow's original dance so be sure to watch!