alvino
Golden Master
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- 19,967
Yeah, it's somewhat like that for me at work too. I guess I'll share with you guys since this is an appropriate thread.
So I work at this place called DACA Swim School and what we do is obvious. We teach children and adults alike the basics of swimming and if necessary the introduction to competitive swimming. Our teaching progresses by ribbon levels and each level has it's own skill set. So Novice is for kids who have never been in the water without their parents, Pink are kids who have been in the water without their parents once etc.
One of my colleagues is teaching his kids while I'm teaching my own class another lane away. His class is all Reds so they learn Diving-for-Rings (surface diving), Dives, 5 Little Monkeys (treading water) and underwater swim for about 1/3-1/2 of the pool length (this is a 20y pool). He's teaching his kids to surface dive and the first thing he asks is if they need help (to gently hold their heads and push downwards as they go down to the bottom to grab rings). So some of them say yes and he helps them.
This is where it starts. He helps one of the boys go downwards to retrieve some rings. Immediately the father who was sitting nearby sees him and completely loses it. It scared the bejesus out of me and everyone nearby cause no one saw it coming. He starts yelling at my co-worker and why he's trying to "drown his child" and this and that. My friend surprisingly keeps his cool and tells the father that he doesn't have the time to talk and his main responsibility is to teach the class (which is true...we're not allowed to talk to parents during lessons). The father just rudely tells him that he doesn't care about his goddamn job keeps heckling him about why he was trying to harm his son. In the next lane (I'm in the next one) my other friend/co-worker backs up the first co-worker by telling the father that's how they help the kids when they need assistance for surface diving. The dad doesn't take any of this and is still fuming so the deck supervisor comes over and asks what the problem is and calmly explains to the father how they teach surface diving and how they help the kids do it. The father still is being an asshole so the manager has to come out and talk to him and she talks to him for like 15 minutes about all the stuff the deck supervisor talked about.
You know what the worst part was? After he heckled my friend about the whole thing (before the deck supervisor comes over), he sits down and he starts talking to all the nearby parents and how my friend was "trying to drown his son" and that "he'll try to drown your kids too". I swear...sometimes the parents are worse than the kids. One of the parents even quickly told my friend after class not to worry about it and that even she thought the dad was overreacting. The great news is that the father withdrew the son and we'll never see them again. Some customers are just bad for business.
What irks me the most about my job is that a lot of parents don't understand swimming. They don't understand that you can't just learn the sport overnight and that you can't fix technique issues with one 30 minute lesson every week. It takes repetition, practice and discipline and with kids; patience. A lot of parents just don't understand that...
Oh and I was reading this a while ago. The top 5 reasons why "The Customer is Always Right" is wrong. Enjoy.
http://positivesharing.com/2006/07/why-the-customer-is-always-right-results-in-bad-customer-service/
So I work at this place called DACA Swim School and what we do is obvious. We teach children and adults alike the basics of swimming and if necessary the introduction to competitive swimming. Our teaching progresses by ribbon levels and each level has it's own skill set. So Novice is for kids who have never been in the water without their parents, Pink are kids who have been in the water without their parents once etc.
One of my colleagues is teaching his kids while I'm teaching my own class another lane away. His class is all Reds so they learn Diving-for-Rings (surface diving), Dives, 5 Little Monkeys (treading water) and underwater swim for about 1/3-1/2 of the pool length (this is a 20y pool). He's teaching his kids to surface dive and the first thing he asks is if they need help (to gently hold their heads and push downwards as they go down to the bottom to grab rings). So some of them say yes and he helps them.
This is where it starts. He helps one of the boys go downwards to retrieve some rings. Immediately the father who was sitting nearby sees him and completely loses it. It scared the bejesus out of me and everyone nearby cause no one saw it coming. He starts yelling at my co-worker and why he's trying to "drown his child" and this and that. My friend surprisingly keeps his cool and tells the father that he doesn't have the time to talk and his main responsibility is to teach the class (which is true...we're not allowed to talk to parents during lessons). The father just rudely tells him that he doesn't care about his goddamn job keeps heckling him about why he was trying to harm his son. In the next lane (I'm in the next one) my other friend/co-worker backs up the first co-worker by telling the father that's how they help the kids when they need assistance for surface diving. The dad doesn't take any of this and is still fuming so the deck supervisor comes over and asks what the problem is and calmly explains to the father how they teach surface diving and how they help the kids do it. The father still is being an asshole so the manager has to come out and talk to him and she talks to him for like 15 minutes about all the stuff the deck supervisor talked about.
You know what the worst part was? After he heckled my friend about the whole thing (before the deck supervisor comes over), he sits down and he starts talking to all the nearby parents and how my friend was "trying to drown his son" and that "he'll try to drown your kids too". I swear...sometimes the parents are worse than the kids. One of the parents even quickly told my friend after class not to worry about it and that even she thought the dad was overreacting. The great news is that the father withdrew the son and we'll never see them again. Some customers are just bad for business.
What irks me the most about my job is that a lot of parents don't understand swimming. They don't understand that you can't just learn the sport overnight and that you can't fix technique issues with one 30 minute lesson every week. It takes repetition, practice and discipline and with kids; patience. A lot of parents just don't understand that...
Oh and I was reading this a while ago. The top 5 reasons why "The Customer is Always Right" is wrong. Enjoy.
http://positivesharing.com/2006/07/why-the-customer-is-always-right-results-in-bad-customer-service/