My response to my Youtube haters

I'm sure many of you have seen my Olympics+20 piece here - and I have had some really negative feedback on Youtube. Quite frankly, it didn't surprise me that I would get some negative feedback, after all, when you put something out there in the public domain, you must be prepared for all kinds of reactions: negative and positive alike. I would like to take this opportunity to address some of the negative feedback I've received from my haters.

Now the primary criticism I've received is the fact that I am arrogant - that I felt that the role of a "venue entry team member" was "beneath me", that I had a bad attitude and didn't understand volunteering. Some even went as far as to suggest that the whole reason why I was rejected as a translator was because I had not been humble about my linguistic skills and that I was trying to use the Olympics as an opportunity to "show off" the different languages that I speak. The strongest criticisms came from 2012 Olympic volunteers who felt really insulted that I considered some work 'beneath me' when they were quite happy to do menial tasks despite being highly educated and highly skilled. I could do another Youtube video at some stage but I would like to write a response on my blog to begin with.

 

1. The Olympics is not a charity event

Firstly, the Olympics is not a charity event. Pardon me for stating the bleeding obvious but it needs to be said. Let me remind you why it is a commercial event and how unusual it is for commercial events to depend so heavily on volunteers. May I remind you please: the Olympic tickets are very expensive.

Now I have spent over £3300 (S$6450, US$5152, €4177) on tickets so far and that's just for myself. Now imagine if you were a father who had to buy tickets for your wife along with two or three children for a couple of events, we're easily talking about each family who wants a proper Olympic experience spending in excess of £10,000 - that's a lot of money. That's the kind of budget that a family would spend on a wonderful holiday somewhere beautiful and needless to say, if you're poor, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to experience the Olympics in person. You'll be watching it on the television at home.

I was there. The tickets weren't cheap...

To give you an idea of some of the prices of the tickets: the most expensive tickets were for the opening ceremony and they cost up to £2012, four times the price at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. and double any previous Olympic opening ceremony price. For the closing ceremony you can expect to pay up to £1500. For something like athletics at London 2012, you have to pay £725 for the best seats (compared to £98 in 2008 Beijing). In comparison, at 2008 Beijing, tickets for athletics finals in Beijing started from 200 yuan (£5.80), around a tenth of the minimum price demanded for London. For swimming and gymnastics - a top price ticket will cost you £450 - and that could be for a session that lasts less than 2 hours. Like I said, it doesn't come cheap at all. There are some cheaper tickets available from £50 but for those tickets, don't expect to see anything - you will be relying on the big TV screens to help you follow the action because you will be so ridiculously far away with a cheap ticket.

Let's compare this say, to a West End musical, a very popular choice of entertainment for tourists in London. The tickets for those productions are not cheap either - let's take Mamma Mia for example. A top price ticket will cost of £67.50 on a Saturday night and for that ticket, you will be in the front row. Whilst this may come across as a bargain compared to the Olympic tickets - do note that there are no volunteers in the production of Mamma Mia. Everyone involved from the cast to the crew are paid commercial rates for their work and they are trying to make a profit after paying everyone.

Now compare this to the opening ceremonies of the Olympics - most of the performers are unpaid volunteers though I wonder how much big stars like Danny Boyle, Daniel Craig and Rowan Atkinson were paid for being a part of it. Now when most of the people taking part are doing it for free, it is astonishing that people are still paying a lot of money to be there - it seems that the volunteers have no subsidized the production one bit, no the tickets are still prohibitively expensive. Why is this so? My explanation is that the full time members of staff - namely people from LOCOG - are paying themselves such high salaries and a lot of the revenue from ticket sales are spent on the LOCOG pay roll despite the involvement of a large number of volunteers. This stinks of corruption and I regret that I had supported this corruption by spending so much money on the Olympic tickets I bought.

Now the Olympics wouldn't have been possible without the financial support of the corporate sponsors. I work in marketing, I know all about sponsorship. Sponsoring a corporate event is not the same as donating money to charity, I am not saying that these corporate sponsors have never donated a penny to charity - I am simply saying that their sponsorship of the London 2012 is anything but charity. This can hardly be compared to the 1948 Olympics when it was dubbed the "austerity games" - there is plenty of money going into the 2012 Olympics. The sponsors are so protective of their involvement that they are censoring any other non-sponsor brands: the police are forced to empty potato crisps into paper bags to avoid having the "wrong" brand on show whilst the O2 arena has been temporarily renamed the "North Greenwich Arena" because O2 are not a sponsor at the Olympics.

The Olympics is a Pepsi free zone as Coke is a sponsor. 

In any case, the athletes taking part often have corporate sponsorship or at least are funded by their governments to train and take part in the Olympics. The volunteers at 2012 are not 'subsidizing' the sporting efforts of these Olympic competitors in any way - the only people are they benefiting are the sponsors and organizers. So no, you're not helping some talented but desperately poor Ethiopian or Sudanese runners make their dreams come true by volunteering at the Olympics, let's be clear about this.

All this commercialism might have been tampered with a bit of good will by the sponsors and organizers - for example, by giving poor students from deprived families free tickets to watch some of the events. Do they do that? No. There are plenty of empty seats and it is a disgrace and a scandal. As an ultimate insult to dispel any notion of charity as part of the Olympics, LOCOG ripped down a sign for a company that was selling products for charity even though it was not even in the Olympic park. How ghastly is that. Such is the true nature of the Olympics for those of you who are waxing lyrical about Olympic ideals.

Now despite knowing all this (I am not naive), I was still happy to volunteer and offer my brain power to make the London 2012 Olympics a success - why? Because the Olympics was always the focus of every gymnast's dream (I am a former national champion gymnast) and it would've been extremely fun to have been a part of it, even if it meant working hard for nothing (whilst giving up income I could've earned on those days) to make some people very, very rich. Don't forget: there are plenty of people who are paid a lot of money to organize the Olympics, such as Sebestian Coe. He's not a volunteer. Oh no, he's earning a big fat salary as an organizer. 

Olympics ideals or corporate profits?

I have volunteered many times in my life - it is not something I boast about but I have done more charity work that most people in my lifetime. I have been giving my time, effort and money to worthy charities over the years - all I want in return is that warm glow in my heart to know that I have made a difference and in a tiny way, I have made the world a slightly better place. I don't even need anyone to shake my hand or say thank you - such is the nature of altruistic volunteering for a charity, something which I have done a lot of. Now I believe that it is necessary for someone to get something out of volunteering - even if it is no more than that warm glow in one's heart that is quite hard to describe.

Let's get real here. You cannot realistically expect someone to do something without any motivation. You have to offer them one of the following if you want them to work hard for you day after day:

a) money
b) valuable work experience
c) fun fun fun fun
d) a warm glow in one's heart

I chose to go as a spectator rather than a volunteer. 

Since LOCOG was unable to offer me money, valuable work experience or that elusive warm glow in my heart that I get from altruism, well, I was hoping to have a fun experience volunteering at the Olympics. However, a fun experience means being close to the gymnastics action as it happens (given that I am a former national champion gymnast)- not directing visitors half a mile down the road near the bus stop or train station. If that is your idea of fun, then fine good for you, I hope you have fun helping tourists at the train station or directing traffic in the car park. But if it not my idea of fun and I hope you can respect that.

2. I'm not just a linguist, I have excellent sport-specific knowledge

I think the viewers of my Youtube video have forgotten something. I was (and still am) a freaking good gymnast. I was a national champion back in the 1990s. I am also an excellent gymnastics coach and still coach the University of London gymnastics club. I know a lot of people within the gymnastics community including world class gymnasts (current and retired), top coaches, gymnastics media experts and whilst I am not gymnastics royalty - let's put it this way. There are many people who are big stars in gymnastics and would be considered gymnastics royalty - I know many of these people. They are amongst the friends I have made over the years. I'm not just some guy who did gymnastics at school years ago - I am a lot more than that.

A photo of my vault from a long time ago when I competed for Singapore. 

So I am not just an amazing linguists who speaks all these languages, I am also a gymnastics expert. Modesty aside, I have been talking to some of the paid members of staff at the gymnastics event and they have been astonished that I have not been chosen as a volunteer for the gymnastics event - but one of them (a broadcaster) did offer me a logical explanation which I shall share with you:

"All the important roles where you have serious responsibilities - that's given to paid members of staff. Such is the nature of organizing a major event, the organizers simply do not trust volunteers with anything important in case they mess it up, such is the nature of accountability. You can't hold a volunteer accountable or responsible for mistakes as you're not paying them - but when someone is a paid member of staff, then yeah you can trust them with doing some really important tasks. Quite frankly, you're overqualified in so many ways to be a volunteer as the volunteers are not really asked to do more than very basic menial tasks - using their muscles rather than their brains. If you wanted a more meaningful role, you could've come to me back in like 2010 or 2011 and we could've worked something out and you could've been working alongside me. I could've paid you a decent salary for your time and your language skills would've been so incredibly useful to my team."

I suppose if you were somebody who hasn't done much sports before or if you haven't competed internationally before - then you might be happy just to be involved in any capacity, such as directing traffic in the car park. Take a look at Rachel Onasanwo - the "happiest" volunteer at the Olympics. Hats off to her. 

 

3. I did have a lengthy interview which was misleading

Prior to my London Games Maker Team interview, I had filled in a very long form to give full details of all my relevant skills. During the selection day event, my interview lasted longer than all the other applicants given the extensive experience I had and just writing down all the languages I spoke took a while and that was even before we came to my achievements in gymnastics or the relevant work experience I have had. The fact is, they did (at least initially) show great interest in the relevant skills I possessed and were at least (at that stage) very excited about interviewing me.

That was misleading to say the least. I wish they could've been a bit more blunt and told me at that stage that all meaningful jobs with any kind of real responsibilities were reserved for paid members of staff and that I was going to be offered menial work at best - I would said, thank you very much and then had the chance to then approach the various broadcasters or gymnastics bodies involved to try to get some paid work. But instead, I was left waiting until April (when the Olympics took place in late July) before being given a menial task as a volunteer - leaving it way too late for me to try to apply for paid work. I tried believe you me, oh I tried and all my friends in the gymnastics community tried to help me. But the standard reply was, "Alex your credentials are out of this world, you're brilliant but why did you approach us so late? Why didn't you come to us six months ago? It is too late for us to get media accreditation for you at this stage."

Plenty of paid work available at the Olympics actually. 

Indeed, one of the foreign broadcasters told me about how difficult it was for them to work with a small crew at the Olympics - it would've been very expensive for them to fly more people from halfway around the world (flights, hotels, expenses for meals etc) to London and how it would've been so much easier to have employed someone like me as I have a British passport and live locally in central London; but unfortunately I had approached them too late because I was messed around by LOCOG.

4. I did manage to get paid work as a translator in the end

I was messed around (to put it mildly) - and ironically, I did manage to get some paid work as a translator in the run up to the Olympics with one of the sponsors where I used my various language skills. I did talk to them about my experience with LOCOG and their response was, "We wouldn't rely on volunteers to translate anything, it's too important a job. That's why they do the stuff they is not important and we're paying you to do the translating because we are paying you to do a professional job. You don't come cheap, translators are never cheap - but that's just the way it is when it comes to foreign languages." Heck, if my 'arrogant' attitude was such a problem, how is it I was able to get paid work as a translator then eh? 

I managed to get paid work as a translator in the end!

5. Something for nothing - my media world experience

I did work a while in media when I was on a hiatus from finance and let me tell you why I am not afraid to say NO. Let me explain my area of expertise when it comes to media.

I have done some acting roles and am one of the few Chinese actors you do see on British TV - but I have worked behind the camera far more than in front of it. I am an award winning playwright and my writing skills have been in demand - as a gymnast and a former professional dancer, I am also in demand as a choreographer and fight/action/stunt co-ordinator. Lastly, because of my amazing language skills, I am always roped in as a language consultant as well if the script involves a foreign language or two.

When I started out in media, I used to give away my time and ideas for nothing. I was just so happy to be out of finance - I am comfortably rich anyway and was just happy to have fun. It did get to the point where I realized that people were taking advantage of my goodwill left, right and centre. Friends were telling me, "dude, don't give it away for nothing. Charge them. Refuse to work if they don't pay you. You should start staying no to some people."

 

It was at that stage that I realized, they're right. People are taking advantage of me. There was this director - EM - whom I had worked with a few times. He asked me to help him in his latest film - he wanted me to do some many things and in return, he didn't have any money to pay me. He said, "I will give you a nice part in the film." When I looked at the script, I was like, what nice part? It's a vapid, meaningless role. This is bullshit. I'm not interested, you have to rewrite the script and give me a better part.

He then went all diva on me, telling me that I am trampling over his creativity. And I was like, shut the hell up and listen to me, either you listen to me and give me something I want or you can pay me for my time and I will work for you. You can either buy my time with cold hard cash, or you can try to buy it with good will and right now, I don't sense any good will so I suggest we start talking figures and settle on a price. And he was like, "Fuck you! You will regret this when I become a super famous director!" And I was like, "EM, I'll take my chances. Given your attitude, I'd rather be at home looking at porn on the internet than working for you for nothing."

EM was unreasonable, he was asking for a lot and offering little in return. 

When you start giving stuff away for nothing, there will be people like EM who will gladly take what you have to offer and take advantage of you. If you do not say no to people like EM, you will give and give and give and get little or nothing in return. Now I am not saying that you shouldn't ever volunteer - but you should be selective whom you give to. Please, choose a deserving charity who are doing some good in the world, so at least you can walk away with a warm glow in your heart after giving. But people like EM and LOCOG will only leave you with heartburn and heartache, rather than a warm glow.

So there you go. Hindsight is 20-20 and I wish I knew then what I do now, but such is life. I am writing this blog to share this knowledge with others who are thinking of volunteering and I hope this information would help them manage their expectations. So much has happened since, I've had kind messages of support (particularly from within the gymnastics community) and I've had hateful messages from people accusing me of arrogance, who tell me that I should've been grateful to have been allowed to be involved in any capacity at the Olympics, even if it meant doing menial work. I could've just gone away and kept quiet - but you know me, that's not my style. That's why I am speaking out and it's not that I am actively discouraging people from volunteering - I just want to help manage their expectations by sharing my story with the world. Thank you.