Adjusting officiating level to pay

[zebraman]

Originally posted by drinkeii
I have worked with several officials who have made comments such as "I'm not making a call like that for what I'm getting paid for this" or "It's only $10 per game - I'm not gonna hustle for that".

Is this a common attitude? I feel that regardless of what you're being paid, you'd better hustle and do the job right, for several reasons. Liability, for one - if you let it get out of hand just because you're not being paid much, seems like you're sticking your neck out pretty bad if someone gets hurt. Another would be common sense - you agreed to do the game, presumably knowing what the pay would be - shouldn't you do your best?

If I take a game, I'm going to work it hard even in the off-season. IMHO, refs who are being lazy because they are working too many games in a row should cut back on the number of games they accept. Fortunately around here, about 95% of our off-season stuff is run through our association and our board of directors has let our assignor know that he needs to only assign those games to officials who put in the effort.

Z