Profiles
A True Confession
by A. Burner
The events in this report actually happened. Names have been changed to protect the ridiculous.
Tell the hippies who you are.
I and my fellow campers are experienced burners, leadership even, and we were bringing a new fun camp to Euphoria 2019 Radical Resilience. I registered us for placement and all was well. We wanted to village with Camp [redacted], so I put that in the registration.
Tell us what happened.
About a month before Euphoria, our Benevolent Placement Overlord™ asked all the Theme Camp Organizers to double-check our space requirements. The placement map had been released, and I thought our placement was a little unfortunate. [Ed. note: It was, for several reasons.] I emailed our Benevolent Placement Overlord™ to see if we could be moved. I even suggested an empty space, which I thought was helpful. [Ed. note: It was.]
What was his response?
He was very reasonable about it. He said that changes were possible up until he had to recreate the map for printing.
So did he move you?
He did. Not only that, but he noticed that I had asked for a space only 20x20 feet—for eight campers and a bunch of equipment. He wondered if that were correct and of course it was not. I quickly did a site plan and figured out we actually needed 40x40.
Well good—all’s well that ends well, right?
After he moved us, my co-campers decided they’d rather be closer to the Effigy, so I emailed our Benevolent Placement Overlord™ again and asked if he could move us again.
Did he?
Yes, but he did point out that we were moving next to the two loudest sound camps in the burn. That was fine.
So, all’s well that…
Then my co-campers realized that we were moving next to the two loudest sound camps in the burn.
You didn’t.
I did. I emailed our Benevolent Placement Overlord™ again and asked to be moved back.
What was his response?
His email was, and I quote, “I laugh and laugh and laugh.” He moved us back.
Did you know at the time that every time your Benevolent Placement Overlord™ moved you, he had to go back and renumber the street addresses of every camp on every street affected, then change those addresses in the database, then double-check the driving directions for every camp on those streets to see if they were still accurate (because of left/right issues depending on the turns), and then reprogram the calculated results in the database fields if they weren’t?
Oh god.
Yeah.
We owe him a brownie, don’t we?
So what did you learn through this experience?
Always make a site plan, even if you’re asking for a tiny space. [Ed. note: instructions here.] If you’re villaging with another camp, make sure you’re all asking for the same kind of placement. Also, decide on a name for your village before you register. Make sure that you specify which of your placement issues is the most important, for example, next to your friends or centrally located. Believe your Benevolent Placement Overlord™ when he tells you there are no trees.
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