Quote:
Originally Posted by Reducto
Anyone have tips for dealing with customers who suddenly turn into 5 year olds? My natural instinct is to argue with them but that just seems to escalate their tantrum.
As someone who's been on the wrong side of letting emotions get to me (as a customer/player/guest, not just in poker), hopefully improving, I can probably offer something helpful here. Let me think more about it.
The biggest thing, and it's tough, is to separate the problematic person's emotional needs from the substantive issue. So, for example, let's say they're primarily motivated by being right (about a rule, a procedure, whatever). Their self-esteem is bound up in having people know how right they are. But, sadly, today they in fact are wrong, which they kinda know deep down, but they're suffering a loss of face to admit it. Now, too boot, they're probably also embarrassed that it's making them angry when they know it shouldn't.
It's in everyone's interest to defuse this so they're not feeling the full impact of loss of face. Your reaction could be, "Dammit, I'm not letting a dumbass player show me up! I'll humiliate him so he gets what's coming to him." So you escalate it. You may "win" but what has really been accomplished? You've won the battle (being right, making them look foolish) but lost the war (keeping things running smoothly). Even if they end up 86ed, the whole situation has made the game uncomfortable which is bad for business.
So the perfect answer, and it's tough, is to help them retain some dignity while giving them an out to "compromise" on the substance, which really means you win on the substance since you were right in the first place. And all without enabling their behavior and encouraging more of it.
Easy, right?
I could probably suggest some specific words or even write a script in response to a specific situation, but it is very situation-specific. Getting the floor is usually going to be essential since they're (I guess?) trained in defusing but knowing what's going on in the other person's mind is helpful.
Hope this helps. Feel free to PM if I can help more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suit
I will jokingly tell players "c'mon man, you know how much I hate kicking people out, too much paperwork." They usually can take it as a joke yet still get the hint.
Wow, that's really good, especially if you can deliver it with a smile. Saw it after I wrote the above. Covers a lot of bases. You're joking rather than implying this is a fight to the death so they have ground to back down and still make some mildly smart-assed retort and they still feel OK about backing down. Yet the joke is also serious in that you're setting a very real boundary. And, maybe most important of all, you're building a bridge of empathy that suggests you want to collaborate. Hey, kicking people out is bad for you, it's bad for me, so how can we work together to make it not happen?
You're good at this.
Last edited by AKQJ10; 07-27-2018 at 06:53 PM.