You can’t please everyone

I noticed this comment posted on my website today. Now I thought, not everyone reads the comments, and Marie obviously has a view. Why not share it with everyone.

1. 1.      marie said

on February 11, 2010

this man is a bully and a coward going by his behaviour at Yeronga Pool this morning towards me, a gentle swimming grandmother who happened to get in his way. Julia, he has nothing to teach you, find someone who treats people with respect.

As with every story there are always three sides, his side, her side and the truth. Here’s my version. Marie has felt passionate enough to go to the trouble of commenting on my website, we may as well tell the whole story. 

Welcome aboard Marie

Marie is obviously the lady who mistakenly entered a lane with the six fastest swimmers in my squad while they were doing a 1000m time trial, last Thursday 11th February. She entered the pool at the side and crossed three other lanes full of swimmers, all doing a 1000m time trial before entering lane four. At this time the public swimmers were using lanes 5,6,7, and 8. She then proceeded to swim the length of the pool with much faster swimmers passing her, while avoiding contact with each other. When she reached to end I attracted her attention and informed her this was a squad lane and asked her to go into lane five. As the guys doing their time trial were constantly turning on the wall beside her, she proceeded to argue. Pointing out it wasn’t her fault, (it doesn’t matter whose fault it is, she could have caused, or been involved in a collision with the faster swimmers) She said she was given the wrong directions at the front counter. Fair enough, but she was now in the middle of the lane, arguing, with a bunch of competitive guys going as fast as they could and looking for a piece of wall space on which to turn. 

I told her “There’s nothing to say, just get out of the way. Just move over there”. The next lane only had three swimmers cruising up and down at a liesurely pace. But Marie continued to argue. I told her “Get out of the way. Anyone with half a brain could see that something was going on in here”. She left in a rage.

I have been coaching at that pool for fifteen years. In that time I have had a total of three irate members of the swimming public become upset with me and my manner. I have hundreds of friends who I see at the pool every day. They follow my progress and the progress of my squad members. We all enjoy training at Yeronga pool. It has the best atmosphere of any pool in Brisbane.  The lessee and all of the staff are cheerful and competent.

There are some people who through unfortunate circumstances, clash with each other. I feel that Marie and I have differing views on what constitutes ”Bullying” and “Cowardice”.