Give the Gift of Direction

It's almost the Christmas season, and Black Friday, which marks the start of the holiday shopping season, is fast approaching. It's not my plan to partake in much Christmas shopping this year, but if it were, and if I had the bank account capable of supporting it, I would purchase GPS navigation systems for select teammates. It is, by far, the most needed automotive accessory for my teammates, and probably the rest of the world. One of the most frustrating, but necessary responsibilities of a captain is to provide navigational directions to teammates who are clueless, hopelessly lost, or stuck in traffic with no inkling of alternatives. To prevent total line up overhauls and the forfeiture of match points, it has become an expected and regular task.

The frustration experienced by the navigator (me) and the directionally challenged (the teammates) during these "Where in the World is Diego" excursions is enough to make me scream and hang up the phone. If you want to see peeved, then you should witness my facial expressions when I get the "Help! I'm hopelessly lost" call. During the entire conversation, I silently pray to prevent from swearing aloud. When it's all over I'm too frazzled to play my match in a calm state, and those teammates who've been lost and in fear of defaulting a match are equally frazzled. If I were the captain for my current team (thankfully, I'm not), then this would have been the case on Saturday when a teammate got stuck in traffic on the way to our match. Fortunately, she was not alone; the other team was dealing with the same situation for at least one of their team members. Unfortunately, I wasn't familiar with the area so I couldn't help; instead she had to endure her father's poor directions given over the phone while driving at a break neck speed to make it to the facility on time.


I'm convinced everyone has someone like this in their lives; for all I know, that someone could be you. We may all encounter unfamiliar territory or a situation that requires us to seek an alternative route. Be the person who enhances everyone's travel experience, recognizes and accepts navigational limitations, and reduce everyone's frustration level by purchasing a GPS navigation system. For the sake of others, if you or a loved one is directionally challenged or a road warrior, then do us all a favor and invest in a GPS system - the best navigational tool invented since the compass and the map.

To help you in your buying endeavor, here is a link to PC World's Holiday Gift Guide to GPS - http://bit.ly/5qQqTc . Happy navigating!

Journey on!

Quet