Pool player on phone: Is there a tournament today?
Petrinas: What makes you think there is a tournament?
Pool player on phone: Well I read your flyer and it says there is a tournament at 11:00
Petrinas: I guess you are right.
Pool player on phone: What time does it start?
Petrinas: You have the flyer you tell me.
Pool player on phone: Oh, so 11:00 oclock
Petrinas: Correctomondo!
Pool player on phone: Are you there yet? So I can come-over?
Petrinas: No I am not!

******

Pool player on phone: What time does the 11:00 tournament start?
Petrinas: 11:00 oclock
Pool player on phone: I thought it was 11:30
Petrinas: Then that would be an 11:30 Tournament!
Pool player on the phone: Oh I guess I read it wrong.
Petrinas: What did you read wrong?
Pool player on the phone: The flyer for the 11:00 tournament.

These were my first calls of the day on a tournament Sunday.  Yes, a little sarcasm on my part but it is required to accommodate the crazy questioning.  Information is provided and people refuse to read, absorb and know the facts.  Life can be easy if we absorb the information presented to us and use to advance our position.  We cannot expect to be spoon fed.  A little independent thought can go a long way.  Twice this week, a customer reminded me the “customer is always right”.  I generally hold to this credo because the customer does pay my salary but there is a fine line between patronage and patronizing.  I am not a rug to be trod on by rude customers.  I am not a garbage can for customers to discard all their garbage on.  I am not a punching bag for verbal blows.

For the record neither of these call makers came to the tournament.  They must have had the wrong number.