I’ll admit it, there are very few things I remember from High School Physics. And I changed majors to avoid it in College, so… But what I do remember is Schrodinger’s cat. The below is from Wikipedia (credit to Wikipedia).
“Schrödinger’s cat: a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor (e.g. Geiger counter) detects radioactivity (i.e. a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison, which kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality collapses into one possibility or the other.” – Wikipedia article on Schrödinger’s cat
Now you may be wondering what the heck a quantum physics principle has to do with racing. The simple answer is that right now, I have a Schrödinger’s Packet.
As I mentioned in a prior blog post, a Race Organizer (‘ROX’) decided to change the race from a physical one to a virtual without any other options. This is the ONLY Race Organizer (RO) or Race Director (RD) that I’ve seen do this. Yes, I have lost about 10 races for 2020. However, every single other one was immediately refunded/deferred or transfer options were provided.
When they materially changed the race contract, I was disappointed. But I said ‘I’ll make the best of improvising with the race gear’ (as they had promised delivery prior to the original race date). That didn’t happen — the packet wasn’t shipped until the Monday afterwards. I did try to resolve this with ROX, but eventually had to file a dispute.
They do have 30 days to dispute the dispute. And I do have another couple of weeks before the virtual race ‘ends’. Given that the dispute could be undone, I’m viewing this as a Schrödinger’s Packet.
And for the record, I am not opening the packet until everything is finalized. Once the credit is final, I will reach out to ROX and ask how they want to receive it back.
It’s disappointing that I had to go through all of this. HOPEFULLY ROX will learn from this and offter better options in the future. But in the immortal words of Burgess Meredith , “You can wish in one hand and crap in the other and see which fills up first.”
