Typically, a name my mother would call my sister when we were very young. Of course, I would have done something monumentally stupid, that little kids shouldn't do. It could have been any number of different things like, playing with matches, fighting with the neighbor kids, breaking something of my parents that I shouldn't have been playing. One of the best things, um dumbest things that I would do was to play with an aerosol cans of hair spray or spray paint and matches at the same time. You know you can get that hair spray or spray paint to light and shoot a ball of fire about four to six feet. It was awesome. I couldn't wait to show my sister. Of course, she told on me. The fun of blasting hair spray molecules like a World War II flame thrower was soon ended by a severe visit to the woodshed. For people that don't know what the woodshed is...Any room in the house where your parent(s) send you for the anticipation of a butt whooping. In my house it was typically my parents’ room but not limited to there. I got the woodshed treatment in the living room, dining room, front yard, back yard and pretty much anywhere around my house was the woodshed.
I have a strange reason for this topic today. During the summer, since Ryan graduated from High School, I have been running baseball tournaments all over the Ohio Valley. Of course, I can't be all the events, so I have employed associate tournament directors all over Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. It never ceases to amaze me when someone has a problem with an event that they don't just simply talk to the director at the event. From time to time some people feel the need to email some hateful letter to the higher directors of the tournament company. The last issue was about field conditions due to rain from the day/night before. The field was on a 2-hour delay and my national director's boss gets an email from a parent blasting the associate director, and all the guys working there butts off to get the field ready. I guess the parent is saying that they didn't work hard enough or early enough to keep the field on schedule. By the parent's own admission that area received a ton of rain the day before and didn't understand why the field was delayed. Complained that they also mowed the infield during the delay. Just saying, if it was supposed to be mowed yesterday and it was raining then I am glad that it got mowed during the delay.
My associate director was asked to reply to the parent's email, and he did very professionally. However, what was the parent trying to accomplish by emailing three corporate directors. Was this parent like my little sister...wanting the national directors to come to that field and give my associate director a trip to the woodshed? Did this parent feel better for telling on the director? What was the motivation to be a tattletale? Years ago, my dad told me "you can make some of the people happy some of the time, but you cannot make all the people happy all the time". Wow so true. I would just wish this parent would have been grateful for all the hard work that was put in so that they could play in a delay rather that not at all. Am I the only person that still looks at the glass as half full?
Hey, we are adults now…you don’t have to run off an tell on me. Just tell me what is on your mind so we can talk it out and come to an agreement. You know what grownups do!
