DISCLAIMER: PLEASE FORGIVE ME, I ORIGINALLY WROTE THIS IN WORD AND COPIED AND PASTED IT ONLY TO HAVE IT BUTCHERED IN HTML. I TRIED TO FIX THE LAYOUT THE BEST I COULD
Now as for my tournament Director, we both know the issue there, the gentleman is Handicapped and yes he has some problems with calling people at inopportune times.
We may be talking about two different people but I never knew he was handicapped. I have NEVER seen him exhibit any physical disabilities and on several different occasions, he has been capable of carrying on a conversation that requires thought. The gentleman in question has gone beyond the point of merely being a pest. If I tell someone not to call and he decides to call 7 or more times after that, it?s phone harassment and in some states, it is classified as a felony. Now, I personally have never seen a felony that was harmless. How it harms my business is that it wastes my employees? time and also my time. We have disallowed him in our establishment due to some serious behavior problems I refuse to divulge and post in a public forum. Granted, the behavior that looks ?harmless? now is only the very beginning contact patterns of a stalker. That is the opinion of a professional criminal profiler.
But he was doing this long before I hired him to work for me part time.
Undeniably, this behavior of his is not at your directive. However, once an employer hires an employee the employer assumes some kind of responsibility for disciplining or curbing behavior. Call me crazy but calling players away from another tournament (which really doesn?t work) vs. calling league players away from another location (which really doesn?t work) is pretty much the same thing.
Andrea knows loud and clear that it is not my style to go trolling in waters for fish that are spoken for. In other words, she knows making phone calls to league players from other establishments to play in my establishment is not permitted. I am more inclined to believe that it really is not the case and more likely it is another case of somebody trying to blacken the reputation of Andrea. People have a funny way of talking without realizing who is over their shoulder. In either instance true or not, do I think there was any damage done? I didn?t see league players flocking from your place and I sure didn?t see tournament players flocking from my place. When you opened your place did I see players go? Sure I did. Did I see some come back? Sure I did. Did I see some teams disappear? Sure I did. Did some come from the Schooner? Sure they did. Did new teams form with players that have not played before, sure they did. Such is life when you pay that wonderful fee for a business license.
There are circumstances where Andrea has had phone numbers for players that have previously played from our in house leagues. Lord knows that we have had TONS of them throughout the years. Many of these in-house leagues existed before I managed City Lights, before I owned Malarkeys, before you had your pool room and before Doug had his league. IMO, she is perfectly entitled to call those players to see if they want to play in the in-house. However, I think she is smart enough only to call them once and then have a good enough impression whether or not to ever call them again.
What do you think, that none of this was directed at me, if you do Larry your deluded.
How do you know it was not directed at me? It is very possible that she has approached me about changing the night of the Wed night tourney and I told her no friggin? way.
There is nothing wrong with asking questions or for opinions, but a one sided conversation that only brings out selected facts is not the answer either. So please answer the following questions:
1. Do you and your wife get perks for promoting malarkeys - Like free pool time and other things?
No they do not. Larry pays for his pool time and full price for meals. Andrea receives employee benefits for a variety of reasons but far from the promotional department of Malarkeys. I have a completely different ?street team? that takes care of that.
2. Does your wife run tournaments at Malarkeys?
Steven is our tournament director. He is compensated accordingly for it. Andrea does not run tournaments at Malarkeys. However, if I asked her to she will gladly fill in for Steve in his absence even though she REALLY does not want to run those tournaments anymore.
3. Has your wife, who only doing this Pool disrupted the Local BCA pool league, and went around the existing league operator so that her and her very small group can get qualified for the Nations. Is this for the good of pool she seeks, or is it a personal choice based upon something else
I am REALLY surprised you took this side of the fence considering a phone conversation we had about in-house leagues. There is HUGE controversy over this in house that we have and frankly, it makes me want to throw up considering the opinions of the people who mistakenly represent they are promoting pool.
I am going to clear up some myths. Many of the players that are in this in house league really do not want to travel (the very reason our little joint venture didn?t work out.) Some of the other players that play in this league do so merely because it is available. Some players play as a courtesy to the other players just so they can have the minimum number to pull it off. Other players do so because they can play with their friends. And some do it because they can?t stand Doug and the way he runs things. But the number ONE reason this league exists is because I (ME CLARK SMITH) told Andrea to get it started because I felt there was enough CUSTOMER CONCERN. Doug has never decided to approach the issue with me. Nobody else has decided to except for you, Craig, because you were addressing some of the concerns on behalf of yourself and your customers and also you were trying to get something similar started. You were perfectly aware of whose charter it was.
Have I ever asked a team captain why they play out of your location? Bet your butt I have. I have while they were in my location and I accepted his answer without a problem. I will tell you that person was Billy C. Now was I trying to bait him away? I didn?t pitch him a thing. He cracks me up and we have a lot of fun when we are around each other, but I respect that he wants to play out of your place. What the information does, is it provides me with ingredients to be able to build a better place. Craig, I don?t just ask about your place either. I want to know why people play at the Right Spot, Black Star, the Schooner and plenty of other places. You are not my only competition, but I really don?t view you as that either.
At this point, for whatever it is worth, I will address my viewpoint on the two Wednesday night tournaments. I guess everybody has forgotten about the Wed night tournament over at Latitude 84? Here is what I think about OUR wed night tourneys. I think that if you add the players from yours, and I add the players from mine, the total is larger than if only one or the other existed. For the record, I don?t have a problem with any another Wed night tournament. I don?t think my business partner has a problem with it either. Somehow, I wonder how this has been manipulated into how I have this big problem, or my partner has this big problem or there is this big problem with the tournament on wed night or Malarkeys has a problem. I think it is good for the game and let the players have a choice.
I am not going to violate a confidence between myself and anyone else, like I said those teams choose to move to my room without my insistence do to the Nonsense created with the BCA. Larry as far, having the facts straight, they are straight?
I think a lot of the facts are well beyond jaded. Am I sticking up for Larry and Andrea? No, not really. Seems I was dragged into this to help identify what is true and what is not. Do I think there was any maliciousness in Andrea?s post? No. Do I think it was a dumb question? I could show you a thousand that are worse in usenet. I think it does pose a valid request for information?.
Do the players want multiple tournaments on a night? What do they want out of these tournaments? Do they want to play top players? Do they want profitability? Benefits? What?
Far as you and I Craig? There was not a problem and if there was you know I would be on the phone to you. I only hope you would do the same.
Peace out G!
Clark ? Malarkeys owner
