"Fire at Will... Wait. Where's Will?"

The 2008 Season of the Maryland Renaissance Festival was this weekend. I work at MDRF; I'm an Archery Wench. The traditional system has 6 people assigned to Archery at the beginning of the season. The idea is that people tend to quit, or get fired, or leave however they may leave. I mean, there are certain times that six people are really needed, but a good 75% of the time we really only need three. Which makes it good for us when we need breaks, but usually no one is on break.

Last year at Archery, we started with 6. One person was moved to the Labyrinth game. A few weeks later, one person quit, one person was fired, and one person was moved to Soda all in the same day. Which left one other girl (Lucky Seven), me, and a floater. We had fun. This year, Lucky Seven and I are the only two Archery veterans. The other four are boys. Of these boys, one has worked at MDRF before and has been stationed at the Cannon game temporarily. One is eighteen and does the "chivalry" thing well, but his sincerity is questionable. One is a 14-year-old, who, well, acts the part of a 14-year-old. The last one is fifteen or sixteen, and seems to just blend in. All four have varying shades of blue eyes, all of which are quite lovely. The one thing about these boys, though, is that they do not listen. Lucky Seven left early Sunday because she was sick, and I was left to continue the informal training. Of course, they don't listen when I tell them that their actions are, technically, against the rules. They don't listen when I say that they can only take more/longer breaks after everyone else has gotten their needed breaks for the time being. They don't listen when I say "Don't put your back to the customers!" or "Can we please not have five transactons at once?" They don't listen, no matter how many times I tell them that what they are doing at the given moment is dangerous and will get at least one of us fired. They're sweet boys, don't get me wrong, but they don't listen enough. Although... those would be typical boys for you, wouldn't it?