It’s Time to Move On

It’s summer time, and if you have swimmers in your house – that means two practices per day and weekly swim meets. Last Tuesday, I was the head timer for a home swim meet, holding two stop watches in case one of the 18 timers made an error I would be there as a backup. I noticed a friend from church in lane one at the beginning of the meet as the night rolled on, he didn’t seem like his normal self. He’s normally real outgoing, usually smiling and close to event 25 went up to him patted him on the back and said, “Hey N., how’s it goin’?” He said, “I’m so mad I just can’t stand it.” At first, my mind went in multiple directions with no clue what he was mad about and then he said

“Your referee is making me so mad…”.

I let him unload and then I said, “Well dude, you’re preachin’ to the choir on this one, he’s ticked me off for years and if you feel that strongly about it, that’s the guy you need to talk to (pointed to M.). His name is M. and he’s our swim team rep. I had issues with him years ago, he’s a nightmare to work with.”

A few minutes later I walked up to M. to give him a ‘heads up’ that my friend may share some feedback about the referee. If it were me, I’d want a warning.

Little did my friend know, that 18 years earlier, my oldest daughter who was 8 at the time, was 15 minutes late to swim trials one Saturday morning…because we were late and he was acting as referee he said she couldn’t swim. I had driven over an hour to go pick her up from her dad’s house so she could get to trials, and now this volunteer, for a PRACTICE swim trial event told me she couldn’t swim. I couldn’t believe it! I thought to myself, “What a jerk.” – I said something to the head swim coach who just shook her head and left the pool angry and sad at the same time….

A few weeks later I shared the incident with some of the other swim team parents and even joked about mailing him a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People anonymously from pool members. The sad thing is they all had stories about this guy…. So it’s been going on for 18 years & more….

Nobody could initiate a change until tonight. There’s a time to be super serious, super strict & a super stickler for rules, early morning PRACTICE swim trials is not one of them.

Later that evening my friend left me this voicemail on my cell phone…

“Hey Merikay, I just wanted to follow up with you and thank you very, very much for encouraging me to speak to your team leaders. I went and met with M. and B. and one of the other timers over there and we talked privately about your referee and they knew there were some issues and matter of fact knew issues had been going on not just for a few years, but for a number of years. Bottom line this is probably his last meet tonight, he will not be a referee any longer after this year and I think that is the decision of the committee, that he needs to move on. You encouraged me to say something, I said it to the right people and a few other people said some things, I just want to thank you very much for giving me the name to talk to I talked to ‘em, made things happen. Like I usually do and you too. Have a great evening and I wish you the very best.”

Do you have toxic employees damaging the work environment & other team members? Do you have underperformers that are creating a poor customer or team experience? Are you in a relationship that is draining and dragging you down? Are you letting people take advantage of you personally or professional and ready to move on? As leaders, sometimes we have to help others move on too.

Moving on comes in many forms and sometimes it just takes a conversation to get the party started and create catalysts for change.