‘Should-have-bought-him-the-tie’ (Tie for short) and I were seated together during the Bug Breakfast in Milwaukee on Saturday. Tie has been approving caches for about 3 weeks now.

After we played with our PDAs (not a naughty thing) the discussion got around to his experience as a new cache approver. My motive is to get him to write an article for the WGA website detailing his experiences. I was surprised at some of things Tie and Brian and Ken and company have to go through performing this task.

I’ve always suspected it’s a thankless job that would be beyond my patience but the stories Tie told held the conversation all through the meal. Something that surprised me was the high ratio of rejects, each requiring an emailed diplomatic response (always difficult).

The approver is just a second pair of eyes to make sure that the hobby and hobbyists are not put at risk by the new cache. The first pair of eyes has to be the cache placer. The approval process is not a system ‘to be beaten’ but an attempt to catch any mistakes by the placer. After it is approved, there is no guarantee that the cache is perfect. The philosophy of the approvers is to try and find a way to approve the cache; they are not looking for reasons to reject it.

As the hobby grows, we as placers should be even more careful. A cache was recently archived because ‘too many people were coming to it’ and the land manager pulled his permission. The approver’s job more is also going to become more difficult. This means the first level of responsibility to get it right has to be with the cache master.