Oh, the sordid topic of coin!

It's been a week since I sent a difficult email, and while most of the responses were roughly what I expected, there were a couple that surprised me emotionally. It's worth some time to expound on it a little.

In case you missed it...

Dear derby friends,

I am trying two new strategies this year in the perpetual battle for sanity through peak derby season.

First, I'm making my calendar public. If you use Google Calendar, you can add derby.flu@gmail.com and see what I have booked. I haven't filled in everything later in the year, but it's got stuff I've committed to for the next few months, and I'll be trying to keep it up to date.

Second, as much as I love working with all of you, I can't go see all of you as often as I did last year unless someone pays for my travel. I'm setting my reimbursement rate for regular bouts and double headers at $10 per 50 miles, which will cover gas and tolls if neither skyrockets unexpectedly this year. I'm always happy to carpool (especially with Bettie, but there are many other talented officials nearby) to make it worth your leagues' money.

Those of you who want to work with Bettie but don't want to pay my exorbitant prices can work out your own deal with her, of course. :)

See you around the track!

In general, the leagues I work with often have responded positively, or at least sympathetically. Many already offer a travel stipend, though in some cases I'll be asking for more money because their customary rate doesn't actually cover my travel. (Sometimes, not even one way.) I think the weird part is the asking (well, demanding), not the amount.

I suspect I'll get fewer invitations to work far-flung bouts. That's okay too; I have a hard time saying no, and I spent too much time on the road last year.

A few of you came to me with specific questions. I answered a lot of them privately, but I got a repeat and decided a public post might help settle things a little better.

Curiously, no one's said anything about the calendar, though one league did share their internal officiating calendar with me.

 

Which leagues have to pay, and for what kinds of events?

First, I want to point out that I sent the email to a bunch of individuals who I expected to hear from as part of the bout staffing negotiation from their respective leagues (or who will know who to pass it on to, as these things sometimes change), not as the individuals themselves. I'm sorry about any confusion there.

CT RollerGirls is my home league. By providing me with the benefits of membership as an official there, they've covered my travel to all their home bouts. Among those benefits is their policy to pay my travel expenses when I go with them to an away bout. If they're paying, you don't have to.

Not every league does that for their officials, but I like it as a policy and am using it as my model. I will occasionally travel with other leagues as if I were one of their refs; I expect they will make the arrangement to cover my travel expense, and I don't care whether they supply the money wholly on their own or share the cost with the host league.

Scrimmages are part of my professional development, and my expenses are not the responsibility of the host league. Tournaments (from WFTDA Playoffs and ECDX down to the smaller regional things like ESS and All 8) are similarly exempt; I apply knowing that I will be there on my own dime.

Closed/private bouts are trickier, especially as the line is blurred between a closed bout and a big, formal scrimmage. My rule of thumb is this: if you're calling it a bout, so am I.

 

We can't afford you, but we really like having you. Is there any way we can convince you to come help us for less/free/beer/homemade chocolate chip cookies/our undying gratitude/whatever?

Vertical stripes are not very slimming; please don't offer to pay me in homemade chocolate chip cookies. Or beer.

I came up with $10 per 50 miles by looking at the average cost of gas, the approximate mileage of my car, and the tolls I pay to go to most nearby leagues. Then I rounded up a little to make a friendly number that I could keep all year, because my cost estimate doesn't account for carpool weight affecting mileage and assumes the price of gas won't go up.

I have a little room to negotiate between my asking rate and my actual expenses, especially for leagues that don't have toll roads between here and there. I've sketched out some real-cost estimates, and only found one case where my rate is more than about $10 high. If that $5 or $10 really makes the difference for your league, you can ask, and I'll consider it on a bout by bout basis. I'm about to drop $400 on car repairs next week, though; don't hold your breath. And when the price of gas goes up in summer, that wiggle room goes away.

To those leagues that already offer a stipend to officials (thank you!), what do you feel you're paying for: their time, their travel, or both? I'm not setting any price on my time. It's there for free if you'll cover my travel (but I still won't turn down extra cash, of course). As I suggested in the original email, make a similar deal with someone who lives near me, and the travel cost looks a lot easier spread across 2 or 3 officials.

One trusted friend pointed out that there's a subtle difference between saying I can't go without money or I won't go without money, and some aspect of professionalism hangs in the difference. I mean "can't", not because any one particular bout would put me in financial trouble, but because all of them together would, and I have to draw the line somewhere. We who staff our leagues' home bouts talk to each other too much for me to play favorites.

For the record, "Ian, we can get so-and-so to give you a ride if you'll come for free" is probably not going to work. Whoever's providing the transportation gets the money for hauling me around, even if they are willing to do it for less than I'm asking. The cost of my participation is to cover the travel expense of me and everyone with me at a rate I consider fair. Trying to negotiate like this tells me you don't think all of us together are worth that much money.

 

What if, philosophically, we were paying you exclusively for your time and don't care about your travel?

That's far more mercenary than what I've proposed, and it raises some serious ethical issues. I don't care how your league justifies the expense internally, of course, but I need it to be clear you're not paying me to make calls (and certainly not in favor of one team or the other), you're covering the cost of me getting to and from your venue so I can be objective and fair, and any extra goes back to fund my tournament habit.

For a while last year, I considered setting up Ian Fluenza as a consulting business. I killed the idea when I looked at what I'd have to charge for my time and travel. I figure my skilled labor is worth a good bit more than minimum wage, and the current federal mileage reimbursement rate is 56.5 cents per mile (that's $28.25 for 50 miles, to compare, and it doesn't include tolls).

 

What if a league pays you and no one else?

Leagues are free to make whatever arrangements they want with other officials. Is it awkward if they hand me a pile of cash in front of the others? Not for me, but I'd feel really bad for the league representative who had to do that.

 

Are you saying every official should do this?

The current state of roller derby is not a good environment to expect to make money as an official. If that's why you're here, you're in the wrong place.

Every official should evaluate the time and money it takes to stay involved, and weigh it against the personal enjoyment and any financial goals they have for themselves. As much as I complain about the general lack of officials, I'd rather have a few people who are sustainably happy than a bunch of people who are grumpy because they're not getting their money's worth in fun. Make your own policy, and if I ask you to help me at CTRG, I'll take your requests to my league leadership in good faith.

I still really enjoy officiating, and I intend to keep it that way. That was threatened when it started to impact my personal finances in a way that wasn't sustainable. So this is how I'm trying to find a new balance. It is an experiment. It might fail, but I need to know that, too.

Personally, I hope it succeeds and spreads. It helps make continued involvement possible for people we don't want to lose (I hope you consider me among them), and it creates a financial incentive for leagues to keep thinking about recruitment, training, and retention of their own officials, despite the fact that all three of those are almost intractably difficult.