Work Day One -- Five Days to Opening

So today was a great first day at work. At the end of the day after we had closed down the VCC (Venue Communications Centre) my deputy manager even told me what a great job I had done and that my broadcasts had been clear and well done. I think I'm going to like her.

As it was Sunday, I had to take the first #49 bus this morning to get to the Stadium and get checked in by my 8:15 a.m. start--or so I thought. There was no traffic. I was plenty early.

At security I had trouble at the magnatometer as they did not ask me to remove my jacket like at the airport. Of course with a hundred different pockets in this practical Olympic volunteer jacket the hundreds of zippers set off the alarm and I had to be wanded. Tomorrow I'm sending my jacket through the x-ray with my knapsack.

At checkin I was welcomed by a smiling woman who told me that I was the first workforce member that she had checked in as this was her first day too. She gave me a shift card to record when I work, my meal ticket, and the daily Stadium newsletter The Stadium Star. Cute. (The poor person who has to find enough news at the Stadium to fill a newsletter every day.)

Every day Workforce checkin will mark my attendance card. Certain milestones days like day three are marked as days when they will have thank you gifts for the volunteers. We are hoping they will be gold medal hockey tickets.

Coke had a mountain of Dasani bottles at checkin. We were told to help ourselves.

I made my way to the VCC and met the manager and three of my colleagues. Our manager is from Boston (he did the same job in Salt Lake City in 2002), our deputy manager is from Vancouver, and my colleagues for today were from North Vancouver, Peterborough Ontario, and Columbus Ohio.

The woman from Columbus is a junior Olympic groupie as she volunteered at the last Winter Olympics in Torino Italy. She brought pictures to share of the 2006 volunteer uniforms and the athletes' village where she worked. (In 2002 they gave the volunteers shoes!)

Everyone was interesting to talk to. The VCC is a great environment for talking and bonding as we manage our talk groups around a large board table.

Today was a relatively slow day. Most of the morning was quiet as there was an evacuation drill at the Stadium. I wish there had been more time to practice my radio talk and protocol before tomorrow which we have been warned will be busy as it is the first of the two dress rehearsals for the Opening Ceremonies.

As the Security Command Centre is located in our building there were always dozens and dozens of police officers around. They have gathered police from all across Canada to help the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) and the Vancouver Police. In the lunch room today, not only was I surrounded by police officers from Ottawa, Trenton, Chatham, Toronto (all in Ontario) and Montreal but I have never been in a room with so many guns in my life. No one is gonna fool around with our building.

Lunch was good with a choice of soups and fresh sandwiches. They had lasagna on the menu for dinner. Brand new upright coolers full of every Coca-Cola product you can imagine were part of the service.

In the middle of the afternoon we received a call that there had been a spill over in the Stadium and the SCW folks (Snow, Cleaning & Waste--oh the acronyms!) were looking for volunteers to help. Our deputy manager asked if anyone wanted to go over and help. Since the VCC was relatively quiet (except for the Super Bowl playing on our brand new plasma HD TV from Panasonic -- thank you Panasonic, an official supplier to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games) four of us put on our jackets and proceeded across the street to the Stadium.

After signing in we took the elevator to the fourth level. On the way up we were with were two guys wearing Bell Canada jackets speaking Russian with a very thick Russian accent. Not quite what we would expect from Bell Canada. We asked them where they were from and--surprise--they said "Russia." So now we had to learn their whole story. It turns out they are from the telecommunications company in Russia that will supply telecom services in Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics. They are here to work with the Bell Canada team to learn how to help put on an Olympics. Cool.

So we spent a couple of hours inside the bowl of the Stadium helping with clean-up. It was very exciting. Unfortunately my confidentiality agreement prohibits me from telling you what I saw or what we cleaned up in the Stadium until after Friday. However, what I can tell you is, they have done lots of work in the Stadium, it looks fantastic and the Opening Ceremonies are going to be a blast. Being able to have the ceremonies indoors for the first time gives them lots of opportunities to use technologies that could not be used outdoors. Of course, while the Olympic torch will be run into the Stadium on Friday and used to light something inside, the Olympic flame must also burn outside so that all the city can see it. How are they going to do that? Stay tuned.

After work I walked with one of my colleagues down Pacific Avenue through Yaletown to the Burrard Street Bridge. She was crossing the bridge to Kipsilano where she is staying but I wanted to see the Vectorial Elevation lights in person. (This is the light show I programmed the other night.) There was a low cloud cover this evening so the light show was fantastic. It is like the fountains in front of the Belagio Hotel in Las Vegas; you want to just stand there and watch. Of course when you know the technology that someone somewhere in the world used the Internet to program the lights to move that way it is even more amazing.

As we walked through Yaletown I was amazed to see that people had the Olympic rings in lights on the balconies of their condos. Oh the spirit!

The last thing I saw downtown this evening as I was about to descend into the SkyTrain station was a woman standing on the sidewalk a block away from the huge Canadian flag that is wrapped on the old Hotel Georgia (see a previous post) proudly holding up her full sized Norwegian flag so that her partner could take her picture with the huge Canadian flag in the background. The world has arrived.

P.S.  Thanks to everyone who has left comments on my blog and sent e-mails with comments and best wishes. It is wonderful to hear from everyone and makes it more of a joy to share my experiences. Keep the cards and letters coming.