Mellowing in my old age or just going with the flow?

This has been a unique basketball season for me thus far. See, I'm still without an assistant and I also lost one of the best spotters (a person who calls out the plays/action on the court so that I can input the stats) I've ever had.

Consequently, I've had a constant rotation of spotters this season. I'm not 100 percent sure, but I think I've only had the same spotters twice. It's been a constant rotation.

Surprisingly, I've been relatively calm about all this.

You see, I can get pretty high strung when statting games.

No, make that intense. To the point that I pretty much except, no demand perfection from my spotters.

I need them to be my eyes while I'm typing away on the laptop, inputting stats.

Fortunately, no one has ever quit on me. I guess they either liked me enough to put up with my grumpiness or enjoyed the sport and working the games enough to stick around.

Call me a perfectionist - which I am, I guess, but I just wanted the stats to be perfect, flawless, correct the nth degree. After all, everything we do in sports information depends on and hinges upon statistics.

However, I softened a bit this basketball season. Actually, I softened quite a bit. So much so, that others have noticed.

I really can't explain why. Don't know if I've mellowed in my old age or what, but I have been very relaxed this season, especially in dealing with the spotters.

The spotters I'm working with this season are green. And when I say green, I mean they've never done this before. I have run through the "what a spotter does" speech at least a dozen times already, and we're just now to the halfway point in the season.

Or this could just be a case of me going with the flow. I realize that I don't necessarily have the most experienced help, but yet I truly am grateful for the help I do have and receive. So, I have lightened up.

Honest, I have.

I've had the stats progrom lock up on me and have to reboot the laptop during a game. Didn't miss a beat and was able to guide my spotters through what to do without missing a thing. Also, one of my spotters had pop spilled on her lap during game - even though I STRONGLY SUGGEST no drinks on press row without a lid, and we breezed through cleaning things up without any further incident.

To be honest, I'm not sure what the point of my sharing all this is. Not sure there is much to be glean from this except maybe this: "This is a great job. There's no other profession like it. Enjoy it, have fun and smile."