The Accommodations & Operations Room Team: A Peek Behind the Curtains
by Warren Wee
The team behind SIMC2.0 has been hard at work optimising the participants’ experience; let us get a behind–the–scenes perspective to showcase their diligence and experience.
SIMC2.0 has been an amazing event so far. Most would give praise to the incredible opening ceremony, or the difficulty of the challenge, but one of the cornerstone aspects of this event is, in my opinion, neglected by many. This aspect is the unseen work done by the unsung heroes of the event: the Accommodations & Operations Room Team.
If you are a participant or Student Programme Liaison (SPL), you would know that the operations room functions as something like a customer service counter. If you have any issues, you will approach them for help. However, some of their duties may be unclear to all of us, so I sat with a student in the operations room to get the lowdown of their duties.
“We help with checking in, loaning of items (e.g. thermometers or water bottles), taking care of sick people, and doing the logistic parts,” he explains. “We are basically the first point of contact for the guests if they have any problems.”
The Sunday right before the event started was when they were at their busiest. This student mentioned that he had to usher 9 schools to their accommodations in the morning. That is not the full extent of their duties though. If anyone were to fall ill or get injured during the event, they would perform first-aid on them and monitor them to ensure their recovery. It was a rather tiring experience for them, but the numerous interactions with others broadened their perspectives and made it worth it for them.
However, this is merely the forward-facing aspect of accommodations. Looking towards the accommodations portion, things are also hectic there. Mr Joseph Giri and Mr Jeremy Yeo were once again put in charge of this. With the international participants staying at Acacia College (in NUS U-Town), Mr Giri brought up that the venue being external has led to its own unique set of challenges.
Furthermore, unforeseen circumstances like last minute cancellations made it more of a frantic scramble than the ideal. He shared with us a story regarding this issue:
“In the past, we’ve had somebody doing registration, registered as a male, arrived here and then realised it’s a girl! Never picked up the fact that it was wrong in the registration and we scrambled to fix it up. Thankfully, we didn’t have that problem this year.” He laughed it off shortly afterward.
On what he had learnt through this position, Mr Giri had this to say:
“I guess the most interesting thing I am learning over time is that different people have different skills, different abilities. Learning to sort of lean on and depend on other people’s skills, while I do the things that are within my skillset.”
While participants may remember the competition questions, the ceremonies, or the results, Epigraph would also like to give a shoutout to the Accommodations Team that has worked in the background to maintain the smooth programme flow. From handling logistics to caring for the participants, their work forms the backbone of the entire event. Though their contributions may often go unnoticed, SIMC2.0 would not have been possible without the dedication, teamwork, and resilience of those working behind the curtains.