Posted by shoe3 on 6/9/2020 1:01:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cbriese on 6/9/2020 10:49:00 AM (view original):
Oh good grief. No one is willing to own up to their own failure/mistakes in these forums, and always need to find someone else to blame. Jeez. Take some personal responsibility for a change, and stop the incessant whining. "Renewals are broken". "The jobs process is broken". "Recruiting dice rolls are unfair". Life isn't always fair. And as much as you believe you deserve a participation award for everything you do, that's just not the way it works. The sooner you realize that, the better off you will be.

Pretty dumb take, seabreeze.

First off, “fairness” is the line CS hides behind in choosing not to offer real assistance in these cases. (Sidenote, I hope it works out for wronoj, and I’m not one of those people who thinks just because something bad happened to me means it should happen to everyone). If life isn’t fair, then perhaps another coach - who has no reasonable expectation to win a job, not knowing who else applies, or what hiring criteria are exactly - should not get their hopes up when applying.

“Personal responsibility” is a nice idea, but in reality, everybody wants credit for success, and wants to blame something or someone else for shortcomings. That’s universal, and not for nothing, I’ve found the folks loudest about “personal responsibility” are the most likely to very quickly attribute blame to others - millennials, immigrants, Obama, etc, for problems. Seriously my baby boomer cousin rants all day long on social media about 1) how entitled everyone else is, 2) how he shouldn’t have to care about anyone else’s safety if he needs a haircut, and 3) the “liberals” in charge of disability checks keep making him prove that his Lyme Disease is real. Anecdotal, but damn real.

Look, can we all agree that it’s better for everyone - WIS, customers, and society in general - if paying customers who don’t mean to leave positions aren’t forced to leave? We say the jobs process is broken because this happens far too often. Maybe you have hundreds of dollars to spend upfront on 10-packs. Good for you. Lots of folks don’t, especially now. And it’s not like we’d be paying less money for a season. As sol pointed out, players paying season by season end up paying a little more generally.

I blame nobody but myself for any of my shortcomings, and I have plenty of them. If it helps to paint the picture, I get my news from the NYT, the WP, and CNN. And I recently gave myself an awful haircut, which means I pretty much wear a baseball cap all day. I am not your baby boomer cousin.

Wronoj handled this fine.

Posted by mullycj on 6/9/2020 1:23:00 PM (view original):
p6453 had a good post but removed it.
Renewal process can be improved. But I'm sure people who want to leave the game but get charged for another season will ***** about that too.
But this IS about personal responsibility, and yes, some people actually still believe that. The people who have been on here the most are vets who know the system inside and out. You have two months to purchase an additional season/5 pack/10 pack (whatever). If you are worried that something might come up in real life to distract you then don't wait till the last minute.

As in real life stop looking for others to bail you out on something that was totally under your control.

I did indeed remove it as the wording was a bit harsh but the sentiment remains...regardless of how the renewal process is set up by WIS it's still the responsibility of the Coach to know when it is and handle his business accordingly. It's listed on the World Schedules.
I have no beef with the OP and hopefully his situation is resolved or he gets another team.

Posted by kcsundevil on 6/9/2020 2:20:00 PM (view original):

Posted by gillispie1 on 6/9/2020 12:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cbriese on 6/9/2020 12:40:00 PM (view original):
Why does it bother me? Because I believe people should simply be gracious, and say, "Congratulations, robinhood, on taking over Kansas. I did my best to leave you a solid core. I hope you can bring the Jayhawks to the same heights you brought Mississippi". Instead, you've taken what should be an exciting challenge and, at best, put a bad taste in his mouth.

if wronoj lost in an open competition for the job, i suspect his response would be much more in line with what you are saying.

we all know how much time and effort it takes to get one of these jobs, it sucks to lose out not in an open competition, but from an honest mistake re: renewal. i do also agree this raft of forgotten renewals is sort of annoying and sucks for those who get excited about jobs and then give them up. perhaps some improvements like those mentioned here would help.

along with the stuff mentioned here... CC renewals (standard in 2020), emy's comments on job qualifications... perhaps the game sitemailing / emailing coaches about impending job loss might help? a lot of the 'hey you are about to lose this job!' stuff on the HD pages strikes me as similar to the banner adds and cookie warnings on so many sites that our brains are trained to tune out without any conscious intervention. perhaps there's something to improve there, i'm not sure if it might help, but it definitely seems like these renewals are getting forgotten left and right, and to me that suggests there's something about the system, not just about the individuals making the mistake.

The game sends at least two old-fashioned emails to you warning about impending job loss. "YOU WILL LOSE THE PROGRAM YOU'VE BUILT."

Users at risk of losing their teams get no less than 6 warnings across a variety of methods and spread out over time.

If CC autobilling were added, seble would waste a lot of his time dealing with users who were autobilled who didn't want to be. Teams can be paid for with a combo of points credits and cash, the existing system treats users as capable of handling that level of choice. It's a good system.

The only obvious solution I can see to the immediate issue is for seble to stop being gracious about trying to help users who forget to renew. He's meant well, but this practice has clearly set an unreasonable expectation among some users.

Every single method HD uses to “warn” is very easy to ignore or forget. Even Gridiron Dynasty gets this one closer to right, blasting a message on the team’s front page. But warning is not the user friendly approach, nor is it really the simplest.

The simplest and most obvious is just let an unemployed user re-up with the old team at any point up until the job decisions start processing. No reason why other applicants need to complicate the process at this point. There is literally no harm or downside, now that the resource loophole has been fixed. Log in and notice finally that you missed the end of the season for whatever valid or invalid reason, just click a box, purchase a season or load credits if you have to, and done. Simple. Alternately, you could just as simply move the coach to “unemployed” status directly after the season finishes instead of waiting a day, and give them that day to renew. I’m willing to bet a whole lot that for the vast majority of cases where coaches missed the renewal, they realized the mistake when they logged in and found the team and world gone. This is even better and probably simpler than the previous tweak, because other coaches don’t even waste any time or applications on it.

Posted by shoe3 on 6/9/2020 3:35:00 PM (view original):

Posted by kcsundevil on 6/9/2020 2:20:00 PM (view original):

Posted by gillispie1 on 6/9/2020 12:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cbriese on 6/9/2020 12:40:00 PM (view original):
Why does it bother me? Because I believe people should simply be gracious, and say, "Congratulations, robinhood, on taking over Kansas. I did my best to leave you a solid core. I hope you can bring the Jayhawks to the same heights you brought Mississippi". Instead, you've taken what should be an exciting challenge and, at best, put a bad taste in his mouth.

if wronoj lost in an open competition for the job, i suspect his response would be much more in line with what you are saying.

we all know how much time and effort it takes to get one of these jobs, it sucks to lose out not in an open competition, but from an honest mistake re: renewal. i do also agree this raft of forgotten renewals is sort of annoying and sucks for those who get excited about jobs and then give them up. perhaps some improvements like those mentioned here would help.

along with the stuff mentioned here... CC renewals (standard in 2020), emy's comments on job qualifications... perhaps the game sitemailing / emailing coaches about impending job loss might help? a lot of the 'hey you are about to lose this job!' stuff on the HD pages strikes me as similar to the banner adds and cookie warnings on so many sites that our brains are trained to tune out without any conscious intervention. perhaps there's something to improve there, i'm not sure if it might help, but it definitely seems like these renewals are getting forgotten left and right, and to me that suggests there's something about the system, not just about the individuals making the mistake.

The game sends at least two old-fashioned emails to you warning about impending job loss. "YOU WILL LOSE THE PROGRAM YOU'VE BUILT."

Users at risk of losing their teams get no less than 6 warnings across a variety of methods and spread out over time.

If CC autobilling were added, seble would waste a lot of his time dealing with users who were autobilled who didn't want to be. Teams can be paid for with a combo of points credits and cash, the existing system treats users as capable of handling that level of choice. It's a good system.

The only obvious solution I can see to the immediate issue is for seble to stop being gracious about trying to help users who forget to renew. He's meant well, but this practice has clearly set an unreasonable expectation among some users.

Every single method HD uses to “warn” is very easy to ignore or forget. Even Gridiron Dynasty gets this one closer to right, blasting a message on the team’s front page. But warning is not the user friendly approach, nor is it really the simplest.

The simplest and most obvious is just let an unemployed user re-up with the old team at any point up until the job decisions start processing. No reason why other applicants need to complicate the process at this point. There is literally no harm or downside, now that the resource loophole has been fixed. Log in and notice finally that you missed the end of the season for whatever valid or invalid reason, just click a box, purchase a season or load credits if you have to, and done. Simple. Alternately, you could just as simply move the coach to “unemployed” status directly after the season finishes instead of waiting a day, and give them that day to renew. I’m willing to bet a whole lot that for the vast majority of cases where coaches missed the renewal, they realized the mistake when they logged in and found the team and world gone. This is even better and probably simpler than the previous tweak, because other coaches don’t even waste any time or applications on it.

Oh yes! My favorite current topic..... people complaining the game is wrong because "the person" didn't handle things right. Boo hoo boys.

Wrono I feel bad for you. And You've been a good man during all this, and if anyone wants to be friendly enough, and is in a position to help, I hope they do. I would if I was in the right circumstances for you.

But for everybody else crying that "it's easy to overlook and forget the MULTIPLE times the site reminds you" stuff..... gimme a break! This is bonkers people! We check this site all day every day. Shoe, you argue with me so much that it adds up to hours of time spent here. The site is NOT forcing anyone out of their jobs. There's auto renew #1, there's a world schedule, reminder after reminder..... come on!!!

I used to think "random" and "poached" were hilarious discussions. But this? THIS?! Gotta be kidding

Hey shoe, I know you go to work on some sort of schedule right? I'm reminding you to go to work next time, right now. In case you forget. If you give me your number, I'll text you. When the notification pops up, please remember you have to go to work. Don't delete me. I'm here to help you. Also, food is good for the body. You should eat sometimes too. Just a early reminder for you. Hope you find this helpful for things that you know need to be done daily already.

Oh yea, I'll need your number please. Haha

Man there are a lot of these types of threads popping up lately. I'm sympathetic to folks who forget, it happens. And if you can get your job back if someone else wants to be nice, then great. Glad it worked out for everyone involved.

But if you lose your job then unfortunately it's best to move on and not blame the system or Seble.

Good luck wronoj, I hope you pick up another team and maybe you'll have even better results at some other school.

Excellent job of ignoring everything that has been said and just making up your own narrative doggg. I can see you’ve learned from the worst.

If the system can be made to be more user friendly so this thing - that you notice happens a lot - doesn’t happen to people anymore, without any complications, without any negative effect on other users, resulting in more revenue for WIS, and more user satisfaction... why oppose it? Why settle for a product that produces that kind of unintended consequence so often, when there are numerous easy and uncomplicated fixes?

Posted by gillispie1 on 6/9/2020 11:23:00 AM (view original):
damn wronoj, that sucks man, i hope you end up getting the job back and sticking around. i don't get why CS doesn't just look at who is winning the job and go from there. they act like they don't know who is going to win. that baffles me. is there a random factor there? that would be news to me. anyway then someone gets it and now you are waiting on the next job and its like... there has to be a better way!

here's an idea. perhaps we should have a directory of folks with unused IDs with good resumes who are willing to put in for a job when this happens? i'd be willing to provide that service in tark. even if you are qualified for your old job, i've got a pretty tough to beat resume there - and because its unused, there's no daisy chain of jobs to unwind afterwards, i'd just go back to unemployed. i know there's a lot of coaches who left solid resumes in various worlds and i suspect some of them would be willing to do the same?

You must really want seble to stop being gracious.

Posted by shoe3 on 6/9/2020 3:35:00 PM (view original):

Every single method HD uses to “warn” is very easy to ignore or forget. Even Gridiron Dynasty gets this one closer to right, blasting a message on the team’s front page. But warning is not the user friendly approach, nor is it really the simplest.

The simplest and most obvious is just let an unemployed user re-up with the old team at any point up until the job decisions start processing. No reason why other applicants need to complicate the process at this point. There is literally no harm or downside, now that the resource loophole has been fixed. Log in and notice finally that you missed the end of the season for whatever valid or invalid reason, just click a box, purchase a season or load credits if you have to, and done. Simple. Alternately, you could just as simply move the coach to “unemployed” status directly after the season finishes instead of waiting a day, and give them that day to renew. I’m willing to bet a whole lot that for the vast majority of cases where coaches missed the renewal, they realized the mistake when they logged in and found the team and world gone. This is even better and probably simpler than the previous tweak, because other coaches don’t even waste any time or applications on it.

You cannot allow the team owner to re-up ant any point up until the job decisions start processing. I may apply only to Kansas, as I would much rather get the Jayhawks than my second choice, Illinois. The first job cycle processes, and lo and behold, the previous owner now has Kansas and someone else (with not as good a resume as me) has picked up Illinois. I'm ****** now because I went to bed thinking Kansas was actually in play, and I missed my shot at Illinois.

The second suggestion, of setting coaches to "unemployed" a day early, is certainly workable.

Posted by kcsundevil on 6/9/2020 4:39:00 PM (view original):

Posted by gillispie1 on 6/9/2020 11:23:00 AM (view original):
damn wronoj, that sucks man, i hope you end up getting the job back and sticking around. i don't get why CS doesn't just look at who is winning the job and go from there. they act like they don't know who is going to win. that baffles me. is there a random factor there? that would be news to me. anyway then someone gets it and now you are waiting on the next job and its like... there has to be a better way!

here's an idea. perhaps we should have a directory of folks with unused IDs with good resumes who are willing to put in for a job when this happens? i'd be willing to provide that service in tark. even if you are qualified for your old job, i've got a pretty tough to beat resume there - and because its unused, there's no daisy chain of jobs to unwind afterwards, i'd just go back to unemployed. i know there's a lot of coaches who left solid resumes in various worlds and i suspect some of them would be willing to do the same?

You must really want seble to stop being gracious.

i most certainly do not! what gives you that idea?

i disagree with shoe that CS is hiding behind fairness. i think seble is more than fair in how he deals with users who forget, and i appreciate the above-and-beyond effort he makes (in my opinion) compared to other companies in similar industries - i've said that before, and i'm happy to say it again. i tend to agree that isn't not a big deal to give the job back to the person who had it, when someone else applied - but i get where seble is coming from. i can't fault him for trying to be TOO fair. it would be *way* easier for him personally to just put the coach back instead of playing this daisy chain crap.

that said, these still happen all the time. apparently i am wrong on the emails. like i said, this doesn't affect me personally, so i guess i just don't know the system that well. i check the box. but when it happens this often, doesn't there have to be a better answer? perhaps not, but by default i'm assuming that's a yes. maybe i'm wrong there.

last thing - responding to someone else - i agree with personal responsibility in general, as a political philosophy (but not some of the places people often take it). that doesn't mean its a valid strategy for customer service. again - i actually think CS puts in a lot of effort here, i don't think they are doing that. but i don't think other users pointing to personal responsibility and bail-outs makes a lot of sense either. customers make mistakes, its the job of businesses to figure out how to keep those customers happy enough for them to remain customers.

Posted by cbriese on 6/9/2020 4:43:00 PM (view original):
Posted by shoe3 on 6/9/2020 3:35:00 PM (view original):

Every single method HD uses to “warn” is very easy to ignore or forget. Even Gridiron Dynasty gets this one closer to right, blasting a message on the team’s front page. But warning is not the user friendly approach, nor is it really the simplest.

The simplest and most obvious is just let an unemployed user re-up with the old team at any point up until the job decisions start processing. No reason why other applicants need to complicate the process at this point. There is literally no harm or downside, now that the resource loophole has been fixed. Log in and notice finally that you missed the end of the season for whatever valid or invalid reason, just click a box, purchase a season or load credits if you have to, and done. Simple. Alternately, you could just as simply move the coach to “unemployed” status directly after the season finishes instead of waiting a day, and give them that day to renew. I’m willing to bet a whole lot that for the vast majority of cases where coaches missed the renewal, they realized the mistake when they logged in and found the team and world gone. This is even better and probably simpler than the previous tweak, because other coaches don’t even waste any time or applications on it.

You cannot allow the team owner to re-up ant any point up until the job decisions start processing. I may apply only to Kansas, as I would much rather get the Jayhawks than my second choice, Illinois. The first job cycle processes, and lo and behold, the previous owner now has Kansas and someone else (with not as good a resume as me) has picked up Illinois. I'm ****** now because I went to bed thinking Kansas was actually in play, and I missed my shot at Illinois.

The second suggestion, of setting coaches to "unemployed" a day early, is certainly workable.

Sure you can. People apply for jobs they don’t get all the time. No one has a reasonable expectation to get a job they apply for. You aren’t ******, you have the same job you started with. And if you really have to leave that job, apply for Illinois at the same time. Lots of approaches, but importantly, you aren’t dealing with losing anything you have or have worked for here. The main reason I’m highly critical of seble (the CS person I assume was seble anyway) is that they led with “impossible”, which is a lie - if it’s possible to manually switch users at the end, it’s possible to do it at any point; followed that with “we have to be fair” which again, you’re talking about “fairness” to someone who has no reasonable expectation to any outcome, and ignoring fairness to someone who has spent years and hundreds of dollars on your product; and wrapped up with “well maybe you should have just bought a 10-pack for this type of scenario.” Which is generally the approach a customer service technician takes right before getting sworn at and losing a customer for good.

I’m glad you find the second workable. I don’t really care either way. What I want is for this to happen less often, so we can stop fighting over who is complaining, and who is “taking personal responsibility.”

I can really see both sides of this. On the one hand, I certainly agree with Shoe (and others) that the renewal process could be made much more user friendly. On the other, all of us that have played this game for a period of time know when the season is going to end. Everyone gets 26 regular season games (okay, there is the occasional 27th every now and again), everyone gets to play in the CT, and some go on to play in the NT/PIT. If you're eliminated in the CT and have no chance at the NT/PIT, why not just renew then? If you're eliminated in the NT/PIT, same same. It really isn't that difficult, even for coaches who go one season at a time. The day your season officially ends should spur something to kick in realizing that it's time to get ready for next year.

These are strange times in our world and, sure, not everyone is totally into their HD teams. But there just seems to have been a rash of long time coaches forgetting to renew lately that simply could have been resolved by keeping a season banked and renewing automatically.

This is not a dig at wronoj by the way. As I stated earlier in the thread, I personally find it ludicrous that a coach of a team forgets to renew and then is found Not Qualified for the same team they coached literally hours ago. If anything needs fixed, that does....

Posted by shoe3 on 6/9/2020 5:15:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cbriese on 6/9/2020 4:43:00 PM (view original):
Posted by shoe3 on 6/9/2020 3:35:00 PM (view original):

Every single method HD uses to “warn” is very easy to ignore or forget. Even Gridiron Dynasty gets this one closer to right, blasting a message on the team’s front page. But warning is not the user friendly approach, nor is it really the simplest.

The simplest and most obvious is just let an unemployed user re-up with the old team at any point up until the job decisions start processing. No reason why other applicants need to complicate the process at this point. There is literally no harm or downside, now that the resource loophole has been fixed. Log in and notice finally that you missed the end of the season for whatever valid or invalid reason, just click a box, purchase a season or load credits if you have to, and done. Simple. Alternately, you could just as simply move the coach to “unemployed” status directly after the season finishes instead of waiting a day, and give them that day to renew. I’m willing to bet a whole lot that for the vast majority of cases where coaches missed the renewal, they realized the mistake when they logged in and found the team and world gone. This is even better and probably simpler than the previous tweak, because other coaches don’t even waste any time or applications on it.

You cannot allow the team owner to re-up ant any point up until the job decisions start processing. I may apply only to Kansas, as I would much rather get the Jayhawks than my second choice, Illinois. The first job cycle processes, and lo and behold, the previous owner now has Kansas and someone else (with not as good a resume as me) has picked up Illinois. I'm ****** now because I went to bed thinking Kansas was actually in play, and I missed my shot at Illinois.

The second suggestion, of setting coaches to "unemployed" a day early, is certainly workable.

Sure you can. People apply for jobs they don’t get all the time. No one has a reasonable expectation to get a job they apply for. You aren’t ******, you have the same job you started with. And if you really have to leave that job, apply for Illinois at the same time. Lots of approaches, but importantly, you aren’t dealing with losing anything you have or have worked for here. The main reason I’m highly critical of seble (the CS person I assume was seble anyway) is that they led with “impossible”, which is a lie - if it’s possible to manually switch users at the end, it’s possible to do it at any point; followed that with “we have to be fair” which again, you’re talking about “fairness” to someone who has no reasonable expectation to any outcome, and ignoring fairness to someone who has spent years and hundreds of dollars on your product; and wrapped up with “well maybe you should have just bought a 10-pack for this type of scenario.” Which is generally the approach a customer service technician takes right before getting sworn at and losing a customer for good.

I’m glad you find the second workable. I don’t really care either way. What I want is for this to happen less often, so we can stop fighting over who is complaining, and who is “taking personal responsibility.”

But here is the basic disagreement: You are so wrapped up in your "fairness to the original owner" that you completely ignore the guy who earned the job promotion after applying for the open team. The guy that played by the rules. The guy that never had to get down on his knees to customer support and beg for his job back. The guy that consistently bought the 10-pack because he never wanted to be in this situation. You completely ignore what is fair to that guy because you are, sadly, only hyper-focused on what is fair to you. There is a chain of people here potentially involved, but you don't seem to see that. That is truly sad.

Posted by cbriese on 6/9/2020 5:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 6/9/2020 5:15:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cbriese on 6/9/2020 4:43:00 PM (view original):
Posted by shoe3 on 6/9/2020 3:35:00 PM (view original):

Every single method HD uses to “warn” is very easy to ignore or forget. Even Gridiron Dynasty gets this one closer to right, blasting a message on the team’s front page. But warning is not the user friendly approach, nor is it really the simplest.

The simplest and most obvious is just let an unemployed user re-up with the old team at any point up until the job decisions start processing. No reason why other applicants need to complicate the process at this point. There is literally no harm or downside, now that the resource loophole has been fixed. Log in and notice finally that you missed the end of the season for whatever valid or invalid reason, just click a box, purchase a season or load credits if you have to, and done. Simple. Alternately, you could just as simply move the coach to “unemployed” status directly after the season finishes instead of waiting a day, and give them that day to renew. I’m willing to bet a whole lot that for the vast majority of cases where coaches missed the renewal, they realized the mistake when they logged in and found the team and world gone. This is even better and probably simpler than the previous tweak, because other coaches don’t even waste any time or applications on it.

You cannot allow the team owner to re-up ant any point up until the job decisions start processing. I may apply only to Kansas, as I would much rather get the Jayhawks than my second choice, Illinois. The first job cycle processes, and lo and behold, the previous owner now has Kansas and someone else (with not as good a resume as me) has picked up Illinois. I'm ****** now because I went to bed thinking Kansas was actually in play, and I missed my shot at Illinois.

The second suggestion, of setting coaches to "unemployed" a day early, is certainly workable.

Sure you can. People apply for jobs they don’t get all the time. No one has a reasonable expectation to get a job they apply for. You aren’t ******, you have the same job you started with. And if you really have to leave that job, apply for Illinois at the same time. Lots of approaches, but importantly, you aren’t dealing with losing anything you have or have worked for here. The main reason I’m highly critical of seble (the CS person I assume was seble anyway) is that they led with “impossible”, which is a lie - if it’s possible to manually switch users at the end, it’s possible to do it at any point; followed that with “we have to be fair” which again, you’re talking about “fairness” to someone who has no reasonable expectation to any outcome, and ignoring fairness to someone who has spent years and hundreds of dollars on your product; and wrapped up with “well maybe you should have just bought a 10-pack for this type of scenario.” Which is generally the approach a customer service technician takes right before getting sworn at and losing a customer for good.

I’m glad you find the second workable. I don’t really care either way. What I want is for this to happen less often, so we can stop fighting over who is complaining, and who is “taking personal responsibility.”

But here is the basic disagreement: You are so wrapped up in your "fairness to the original owner" that you completely ignore the guy who earned the job promotion after applying for the open team. The guy that played by the rules. The guy that never had to get down on his knees to customer support and beg for his job back. The guy that consistently bought the 10-pack because he never wanted to be in this situation. You completely ignore what is fair to that guy because you are, sadly, only hyper-focused on what is fair to you. There is a chain of people here potentially involved, but you don't seem to see that. That is truly sad.

I suppose, if forced to choose "sides" in this debate, this would be my take as well....

Posted by cbriese on 6/9/2020 5:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 6/9/2020 5:15:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cbriese on 6/9/2020 4:43:00 PM (view original):
Posted by shoe3 on 6/9/2020 3:35:00 PM (view original):

Every single method HD uses to “warn” is very easy to ignore or forget. Even Gridiron Dynasty gets this one closer to right, blasting a message on the team’s front page. But warning is not the user friendly approach, nor is it really the simplest.

The simplest and most obvious is just let an unemployed user re-up with the old team at any point up until the job decisions start processing. No reason why other applicants need to complicate the process at this point. There is literally no harm or downside, now that the resource loophole has been fixed. Log in and notice finally that you missed the end of the season for whatever valid or invalid reason, just click a box, purchase a season or load credits if you have to, and done. Simple. Alternately, you could just as simply move the coach to “unemployed” status directly after the season finishes instead of waiting a day, and give them that day to renew. I’m willing to bet a whole lot that for the vast majority of cases where coaches missed the renewal, they realized the mistake when they logged in and found the team and world gone. This is even better and probably simpler than the previous tweak, because other coaches don’t even waste any time or applications on it.

You cannot allow the team owner to re-up ant any point up until the job decisions start processing. I may apply only to Kansas, as I would much rather get the Jayhawks than my second choice, Illinois. The first job cycle processes, and lo and behold, the previous owner now has Kansas and someone else (with not as good a resume as me) has picked up Illinois. I'm ****** now because I went to bed thinking Kansas was actually in play, and I missed my shot at Illinois.

The second suggestion, of setting coaches to "unemployed" a day early, is certainly workable.

Sure you can. People apply for jobs they don’t get all the time. No one has a reasonable expectation to get a job they apply for. You aren’t ******, you have the same job you started with. And if you really have to leave that job, apply for Illinois at the same time. Lots of approaches, but importantly, you aren’t dealing with losing anything you have or have worked for here. The main reason I’m highly critical of seble (the CS person I assume was seble anyway) is that they led with “impossible”, which is a lie - if it’s possible to manually switch users at the end, it’s possible to do it at any point; followed that with “we have to be fair” which again, you’re talking about “fairness” to someone who has no reasonable expectation to any outcome, and ignoring fairness to someone who has spent years and hundreds of dollars on your product; and wrapped up with “well maybe you should have just bought a 10-pack for this type of scenario.” Which is generally the approach a customer service technician takes right before getting sworn at and losing a customer for good.

I’m glad you find the second workable. I don’t really care either way. What I want is for this to happen less often, so we can stop fighting over who is complaining, and who is “taking personal responsibility.”

But here is the basic disagreement: You are so wrapped up in your "fairness to the original owner" that you completely ignore the guy who earned the job promotion after applying for the open team. The guy that played by the rules. The guy that never had to get down on his knees to customer support and beg for his job back. The guy that consistently bought the 10-pack because he never wanted to be in this situation. You completely ignore what is fair to that guy because you are, sadly, only hyper-focused on what is fair to you. There is a chain of people here potentially involved, but you don't seem to see that. That is truly sad.

Don’t be sad. Just pay attention. I’m “hyper-focused” on what could be a more user friendly game that weighs the interests of everyone, and doesn’t pretend that “fairness” is a valid standard on which to offer (or not) customer service. As you say yourself, life isn’t always fair.

The point is that the “chain” is completely unnecessary, and a product of how stupid the system is. There doesn’t have to be a chain of anyone. The point at which wronoj has the other guy agree, for example, is a perfect time for CS to step in and say, great. We’ll just switch you guys out. No one is harmed. What you’re saying is that even though “life isn’t fair,” fairness to the guy who *got his hopes up* because Ole Miss was open for a bit is so important that the game can’t weigh the interests of the people involved and make a customer service decision. Or, you know, fix the process so that people don’t lose teams they spent years and hundreds of dollars on when some valid (or invalid, I don’t judge) thing pops up and life doesn’t work on the HD world schedule.