Hello, so this past weekend I refereed at a paintball field. They were holding a weekend long scenario game. Keep in mind, we were outside both days in the middle of Florida (temps ranged from 95-110 all weekend) running around in the woods. This wasn’t any small field either.
A little context, my family and the older couple that own and run the field have very tight ties with each other. My family has helped this field in any way that we can and we play on a competitive team that is based out of that very field. My dad used to basically run the field for a bit longer than 10 years before this point. I’ve reffed, worked and volunteered for this field sporadically over the course of past 10 years myself. Reffs have always been paid like shit so they’ve always had an issue keeping a consistent reffing team together. Also, all pay from this field was under the table pay.
Basically this team that I play on decided to gather 4 of us to reff this huge game for this field since they had no one. This next weekend we have a huge tournament at a different field and we figured that even that extra little money we’d get from working at the field for the scenario game would be a good idea since playing tournament/competitive paintball can get very pricey very fast. Any money helps in that department. Especially since one of the players and the reffs this past weekend is still in high school so any extra money he earns goes a long way.
So, we reffed and worked out asses off making sure the game goes smoothly and without issues (which can get hard since you’ve got a bunch of overheated people getting irritated at each other). First day (Saturday) we had already broken up two confrontations between players. Rest of the day goes by and we finish up picking up and taking out all the trash (as it’s a rule that reffs won’t even see their money until the games are over with and all the trash has been cleaned up and removed from cans into the dumpster). We do this and almost immediately we get called into the office.
Basically, what we were told that if they were to pay the reffs the amount we were promised, the field would have not made any money off the scenario game. So they weren’t going to pay us and they left it as that. No compensation for anything and basically we were reeled into reffing Sunday as well. But they were able to pay the gun tech (who played the scenario game most of the day) and the person who is supposed to take care of the rental equipment and chronographing everyone who brought their own markers (who basically sat in his truck telling other people what to do and handed off the chronographing duties to the reffs).
It’s just infuriating because everyone who reffed this past weekend have at some point in time have bent over backwards to help out the field whenever asked. We all took this referee gig with the agreement that we were going to get paid to have extra money for the tournament. And now we’re getting told that we aren’t getting paid a single cent for our work. It’s irritating because we’ve viewed ourselves as some type of secondary family and I feel like those relationships are being taken advantage of. And when I think of the current prices of things vs what the field gets them at cost I just feel like there’s no way that they didn’t have enough money to pay us for the weekend (although summers is usually the very slow period for the business since it’s just too damn hot out to play for the majority of people).