Crazy Meet Complaints

[gymbratsmom]

My dd's had a large meet this weekend at their gym (450 girls) and I was one of the parents in charge. We had parents complain about silly things like they couldn't find the gym because google said it was on the other side of the street, we didn't have a certain brand of spring water, and the t-shirt vendor didn't bring enough colors of shirts. The best complaint was from a mother who came late to the meet with her dd. Open stretch was over and the girls were going to their first event when they arrived. She actually complained that we were not an hour behind because "every meet we have been to has been at least an hour late." She said that it was wrong that we started on time. I truly didn't know what to say to her. I just told her that every meet we have hosted has always started on time and that I guess she has just been to the wrong meets. She actually walked away mad. I just had to walk away and laugh.

So what complaints have you heard in the past?

 

[I-Heart-Beam]

I was helping out once, and this woman came up to me and went "Excuse me, it's far too chalky in here."
I just looked at her like, well what do you want me to do? It's a gym.
She reported me for cheek as well.

 

[mbphoto]

All you can do is laugh. I have heard alot of complaints but being mad because the meet started on time has to take the cake. Just be glad they give you some funny stuff to post on CB.

 

[maddiekate]

Not Always Right | Funny & Stupid Customer Quotes
Burned

High Ropes | Liverpool, UK

(I’m a high ropes instructor and work with kids in the forest. There are “No Smoking” signs posted all over the place, but I see a woman smoking right next to a sign.)
Me: “Ma’am, I’m sorry. There’s no smoking in this area.”
Customer: “Why not?”
Me: “Because it could start a fire.”
Customer: *snottily* “Well, I’ll make sure not to do that.”
Me: “Ma’am, you still can’t smoke in this area. There are children everywhere… the smoke’s not good for them.”
Customer: “Well, they’re my children, so it’s really my decision to make, isn’t it?”
Me: “Actually, as this is our property, it’s our decision. Please take your disgusting habit elsewhere.”
Customer: “Your FACE is disgusting.”
Me: “Well, ma’am, as soon as my face starts causing cancer, you can complain.”

 

[gymdog]

...welcome to my life. The thing is, a lot of problems are out of our control. I mean, we don't want things to go wrong, but I didn't design the software etc. Our announcer has not individually taught every single child in this huge meet and learned to pronounce their names correctly. There will be scoring errors at a large meet. If we're running late, either leave or stay. I can't go faster. WE'RE going to be there until 1 or 2 am in the morning (and back at 6am), so it's not like we're just dawdling for kicks.

I swear, the rabid culture that has developed at girls meets is out of control. It's like everyone's waiting to pounce on any small thing. I think we're doing the CHILDREN a huge disservice acting like everything that goes slightly wrong has to be a crisis. If you've ever been involved with boys meets (or even like, not a compulsory meet), you know it doesn't have to be this way. I've seen the light, and I'm a full convert. There's just no reason for a lot of it.

Honestly...if someone complained about it being on time...I would probably want to laugh...or cry (although I would not). I have enough to do without dealing with foolishness from adults. People obviously have no idea how much work would go into running even a mediocre large meet, much less actually attempting to have things go reasonably well. We don't just show up day of and walk around with nothing to do. Also for pete's sake, most gyms include direction information in the meet packet, ask your child's coach ahead of time if you're going to have a problem. I've had that complaint before, plus a request to copy the print out one parent had that was apparently correct. Honestly...get a pen and some paper and start writing. It was like one correction. I really don't like entitlement. Your meet fee does not go to me copying stuff for you.

 

[mariposa]

I am pretty easy to please when it comes to meets and know that things happen. Hopefully it won't be hard on the kids, as those kind of errors suck, like giving out medals to wrong kids and then taking them back. Happened at our meet, I am glad I wasn't there, would have felt horrible, but things happen.

I sat next to a mom from another gym at our home meet that was so upset that the announcer couldn't say the names the right way. Her daughter had an unusual name and she said she hated when people said it wrong. I looked right at her and said, "You know, I used to work in a pediatrics office and it is impossible to know every different way a name can be said. If you name your kid something different, get used to it.. My youngest daughter's name is unusual and I expect to hear the different variations and just answer to them. If they ask me if they said it right, I say something nice about being close or that everyone does that and then tell them nicely how to say it the right way."

I hate when someone complains about the entry fees to the person collecting them. I didn't set the price, I am just doing my time, working the meet so that YOUR kid can do what they love to do.

I make it a point to tell people working at other meets what I loved about their meet. No one ever tells what they like, they just complain about what they DON'T like. It is nice to hear what a great job you did.

 

[Blackie6]

LOL, I just worked the NJ L8 state meet and some mom came running in (while I was sitting at admissions helping them out) and yelled "where is the air brush guy, where is ther air brush guy" while we were trying to tell people where to check their gymmies in, collect money, ect....when I told her we didn't have one this year she flipped out on me that it was her tradition for her daughter to get an airbrushed sweat shirt at states!!! I also worked the meet last year, or maybe it was just for the 9's and 10's, but there wasn't an air brush dude last year that I can remember either. Our merchandise didn't come in time for this states weekend so sadly nothing really to buy, but not my fault. Guess tradition was broken this year!

And judges kept coming to the main concession table for stuff when they had their own seperate area with BETTER stuff and a personal hostess, yet still kept coming for things. They were very nice, but I thought they were missing some things from their table so I told the hostess mom and she was a little PO'd because they never asked her for anything. I gave them more hot water for tea/hot chocolate and then left it back to her. Maybe she thought I was blaming her or something.

 

[Blackie6]

I agree mariposa,

When I go to meets I know that the parents are there working it the same way when we have to work ours. I hate it when they treat you differently or think that they can treat you differently! At our BIG meet in Jan, after most of us L4 moms worked *all* weekend, our daughters had the LAST session on Sunday and we were patiently waitting for the L5 session to be over with. Some moms from another gym were getting really nasty because some of our parents were standing/stooping in the aisle ready to grab a front row seats. One girl left us last year for THIS OTHER GYM and all the parents yelled at that mom to tell US (we were all within earshot of course) to get out of the way!?!? They told her "you were at that gym, tell those moms to get outta the way"! Nobody was actually really obstructing their way, but one person standing was enough for them to start yelling. We had sat near these parents at states too and they were just very vocal and nasty. Can't wait to go to one of their meets someday!

I also commend people on jobs well done...at meets, when we go out to eat, ect...I agree people need to know when they do a good job! When my DD crashed into the mats while vaulting this past season there was a very nice judge who spent time trying to console her! She didn't need too, didn't need to show her the score so she could feel better about the one vault that didn't count, but she did! Our coaches mom is also a coach so when I mentioned it to her in an e-mail about extending our "thanks" for going out of the way, she passed it along to her becasue she sais all they do is get yelled at and complained about! I would NEVER yell at a judge or question a score.

 

[bogwoppit]

If a gym does a great job I always email them afterwards to tell them about it.

 

[gymdog]

I am pretty easy to please when it comes to meets and know that things happen.

And honestly the majority of people are fine when it comes down to it. It's really a vocal minority, but I also think a lot of being really uptight has become almost expected and sometimes goes too far. It's mostly not a big deal. Unless people have bad intentions or are careless, what can you really do, you know? It does suck when there are award errors, but it's an important lesson for them to learn and helps build grace and camraderie. If we teach them that it's only okay and that things need to go well, we miss out on a lot of the life skills building potential that gymnastics has. It isn't about gymnastics in the end, it's about the experience and learning to find positives. That doesn't mean we should accept errors that CAN be corrected without correcting them, just that people shouldn't be shouting or rude, etc, and that we shouldn't have unreasonable expectations that things will always be standard from meet to meet and should understand that the people in charge generally want things to run smoothly and are working their hardest.

In a lot of ways there is some burden on the individual gyms to educate their team members and create clear expectations for meet protocol and behavior. You can tell which teams maintain high standards and which ones don't.

 

[I-Heart-Beam]

“Well, ma’am, as soon as my face starts causing cancer, you can complain.â€￾

Awesome

 

[gymbratsmom]

I just remembered another conversation that happened this weekend at the level 6 session.

mom: That vault is just all wrong. See the girls are all hitting their head. It is way too high. Look at that other one, it is much shorter.

dad: You're right. It is way too high and this is just wrong. How do they expect our girls to get over it.

mom: (after another coach was going to raise it) See there is something wrong with it. See that other coach had to fix it. All our girls should get another chance and do it again.

At that point they were really mad and another mom from our gym told them that the other coach was raising the vault not fixing it and that it is up to the coaches at what level the vault is at and that there are different settings. We couldn't believe that at level 6 they didn't know it. They were then mad at the coach for making it too high for their dd's. We just walked into the office and had a good laugh.

 

[judgegym2]

Ok at this last state meet there was a mom with a spread sheet on every kid in her daughters group with the whole years worth of scores . Apparently spread out where she was sitting. Other parents were coming up to the concession stand ,vendors and meet director wanting to purchase one of those spread sheets. There was much complaining the whole day about how they ran out of those. One dad even approached the judges ref to get one and then started chewing her out when she couldnt provide him with one.