Quiz Pet Hates #2

Depending on where and how you quiz you may never have noticed this before but I am sure anyone quizzing for any length of time has noticed it, perhaps not happening to them, but to others.......and what I am talking about is “The Pitying Quizmaster”. A situation in which the quizmaster will in someway aid a team who he knows, or thinks, are going to fair badly for some reason.

My personal example’s are typical ones. I am 25 and my girlfriend is 22 (I hope I have her age right!), see picture to the left on the top of the blog. Although we do play with other team members on a regular basis, most of the time it boils down to me and her. So we walk into the quiz, especially new ones, as usually the youngest team and the smallest one. In most quizmasters this brings out a few simple reactions......

a)      They sometimes will not even offer us a quiz paper assuming we are not there for the quiz. It surprises me that even quizzes we go to  every week, or every other week, do this. New quizmasters always have the same reaction and try to downplay our efforts.

b)      Coming round in the interval suggesting answers,, asking us if we have “any blanks” on the sheet or in some strange way, apologising to us.....”Sorry about the 60’s questions?” for example.

c)       Marking up....which is my pet hate and something I intend to post about separately as it grinds me so much.

And the same thing always tends to happen near the end, especially at new quizzes. If someone else is marking they will say something like “Very good considering there is only the two of you” or if its a pitying quizmaster he may say “It was hard tonight, its tough with just two”.

 Now really I am quizzing alone as my girlfriend isn’t into quizzing at all, but imagine I did go alone, the pitying would surely increase!

I can see why the Quizmaster does this. Part of his “job” is to ensure that the quiz is popular, so to do this he/she needs to set about making everyone feel welcome to encourage them back the following week. But why so many quizmasters take pity on us and offer us help and feel the need to comment about certain issues is beyond me. I am obviously there for the quiz, my pens are on the desk, I am eyeing up the quizmaster as he hands the sheets out and my entrance money is on the desk.

Don’t get me wrong, I like some chat with the quizmaster, talking about the quiz and general chit chat but when the quizmaster does his “rounds” and simply pities us....thats a pet hate!