From: FntsyILand@aol.com Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 21:33:51 EDT Subject: RUDE MANAGERS To: balloondeco@balloonhq.com Funny this subject about RUDE MANAGERS came up today. We also had a similar situation this weekend. We were contacted by one of our clients to decorate for his wife 40th SURPRISE party. Since we had done work for them before, we created his event entirely through phone calls and faxes. We did all the foot work for him due to his busy schedule. We had gone to the site which was a new private banquet hall. Our client rented the entire facility, which was upstairs and down stairs. ( and he was very expensive!) So there was quite a lot of balloon decor needed. We spoke with the Banquet manager about when we could get into the hall, and he told us we would only have 1 hour to set up. I asked him if there was an event that day, he said "NO", we don't want any of your materials all over the site in case we have a tour to give. We explained to him what the client wanted, and he told us that 1 hour would be plenty of time. We disagreed with him, and he finally agreed to let us on the "premises" 2 hours ahead of time. What this meant was having EVERYTHING built and ready to go once we could get onto the premises. Meanwhile my client called me, I told him the situation with the time involved with setup, and he too could not get us any extra time. At that time also my client wanted to make sure what items were his to take, since there were a lot of large sculptures. So we told our client the bokays, centerpieces and dolphins were his to take. When we were finished with the balloon decor, it looked Awesome. But to you think that manager would acknowledge this, NO WAY. He was trying to be inconspicuous, went and got his camera, and started taking pictures of everything, and not once saying "he liked it". Hummmm wonder what he's gonna do with those pictures? When we came back to strike at midnight that evening, we found that no one took the centerpieces, and my client knew they were his. When we went to pick up the centerpieces, this same manager, was in the back ground, telling one of his staff members, don't let them take the centerpieces, we are going to use them tomorrow, (which was mothers day). As soon as we heard that, we popped the balloons, and the manager then said, never mind. We threw them all in the van, and took off. We always like to call our clients the next day to see how everything went, which we did, and our 1st question to them was why didn't you take the centerpieces? We were told by our client that the manager told everyone there who was taking the centerpieces and balloon bokays that they could not take them, they had to leave them there! Some of the people just ignored, him, just as I would have and took the bokays. This facility was going to use all the decor for some Mother's Day event they were going to have the next day. The client was appalled that they were trying to keep them to use the next day on his pocket book. I don't know what the outcome was with our client and the banquet hall, but they were going to be making some calls. They were very upset! In the situation the other person had, I would confront the managers superior and advise him of his RUDENESS. Upper management of the hall may not have any clue what this manager is doing, and it is only going to bring this to their attention. I I would have STOPPED this manager from interrupting my consultation with my client immediately. That is my FREE time I am giving my client, and if he had something to say he should have waited, and I would have advised him of that. If your client felt un easy about the situation also, she should also advise the hall of this manager, but that would be up to her. We have found in the past if there is a banquet person who does not like balloons, you are not going to get the referrals anyway, so why not just tell them what happened, and how uncomfortable it made both you and your client feel. I just wanted to share our experience we had with a RUDE Manager also, there are a lot of them out there. Danny and Bambi Bremgartner Fantasy Eye Land Balloons Makers of "Facial Expressions" <A HREF="http://fantasyeyeland.homestead.com/facialexpressions.html">http://fanta syeyeland.homestead.com/facialexpressions.html</A>