Dad Was Right

Last week, a customer of a client called me and started ranting about how unresponsive we were when they had questions about our soccer tournament SaaS product. The thing is, though, I had responded to his original email with detailed instructions on his questions, also cc:ing the tournament director. Not having heard back after two days, I emailed him again with no response. I checked the admin user logs and saw the event was very active managing teams, so I assumed my email had given him the appropriate answers and pointed him to the correct help documents.

Apparently, I was wrong.

Perhaps my email had gone into his spam folder. Maybe he received the email and deleted it with the hundreds of others he didn’t recognize or flagged as important. I have no way of knowing, other than I now had a frustrated customer on the phone, telling me how unresponsive I was.

It kinda hurt. One of the main service differentiators we pride ourselves on is accessibility. Soccer folks work on their events in the early mornings, lunch hour, in the evenings, on weekends and especially holidays. For over twenty years, we have made it a point to be there for them when they needed us the most.

Only it doesn’t seem to matter.

Eventually, I was able to calm him, explain what was going on at my end and posit why, perhaps, he did not get my emails. I was able to quickly guide him through what he needed to know and orient him to the modules — as well as the volumes of organized help documents. But I fear the harm to our carefully cultivated brand had already been done. We’ll see if they re-up for next year.

This past weekend, I had five events going on, each with a different event director and referee assignor. When the event gets down to its weekend, very little goes wrong—teams play games, the scores get entered and the standings update. If the event director has been paying attention to the schedule and standings, it’s just a matter of space, time and math.

But if they haven’t been paying attention, assumptions start playing out. We assumed the standings would calculate 10pt instead of 3pt wins. We assumed the maximum goal differential (GD) allowed would be 4 instead of 3. We assumed that the tie-breaker would be on wins instead of GD. We write some pretty extensive software to handle any of these assumptions, but the event director needs to change the settings, all easily accessed in their admin modules.

And then assumptions become who can we blame for us not paying attention and doing our jobs.

Four of the events went along just fine. The event director was paying attention prior to starting the games. They were checking the standings math to make sure everything was good. But one event did not.

Saturday morning call at 9:32am. “How do you enter scores?” Oh, dear.

Saturday evening call at 5:42pm. “None of the standings are updating! Help! *panic, panic, panic* Turns out they didn’t set their standings definitions. Once I did, it all snapped into place. But they had gone an entire day not noticing.

Now, my stress levels are off the chart because I have to be “on call” throughout the night and early morning. What else did they fail to do?

Sunday morning, no calls, no emails. Scores were being entered, standings updating on score entry, final games advancing, yet I could not relax or leave my wifi connection. This event — through their unwillingness to prepare properly for their event — essentially trapped me at my desk. By about 3:00pm, all the pool games were over, the finals mostly done and I figured it was safe to walk my dog, Zoey, in the park. They would not be calling.

But ten minutes into the walk,. my phone started to go off. Ring… and ring… then a text… then another… I finally stopped walking and called them back. They had decided to change a pool game to a final, but couldn’t delete the game and somehow this was an emergency that couldn’t wait. I was livid at this point. I may have said a few words I sorta regret today, but this software is SaaS and they were treating me like a full-time, on-call employee. Moreover, it was their failure to prepare that was causing their emergency.

Turns out, they had the “do not allow a game delete” toggle on; ironically, a feature they had requested a couple years back. Yet, they will blithely go about their day today, unaware of the carnage they have created in their wake. When they recount the weekend, they will most likely say something like, “…it went well, except the software people were unresponsive…”

After another couple walks with Zoey, I’ve concluded that what this past year has revealed is how much a toll being “on call” all the time has taken on me. The global pandemic basically brought soccer tournaments to a dead halt, and with them, the need to be on-call 24/7/365. I hadn’t realized how much tension I was retaining with my readiness at level eleven every hour of every day.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerardmclean.substack.com

My new coffee name is Kitchy Chachki. Spell it just like it sounds.

Backstory:
A dad gets a book "Dad Was Right" as a gift and tortures his two adult kids years later with stories -- in their own voices -- about why he was right...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerardmclean.substack.com

She had a Zoom meeting starting in a few minutes, but we managed to squeeze out a podcast for you today. Sometimes, the message is so self-contained that it doesn't really require any additional explanation. This one and the next one are kinda like that.

Anyway, enjoy the next five minutes as we ramble on about one more thing Dad was right about.

Backstory:
A dad gets a book "Dad Was Right" as a gift and tortures his two adult kids years later with stories -- in their own voices -- about why he was right...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerardmclean.substack.com

Gratitude... what does it mean? Is it a virtue or something that other weaponize to control expectations, to limit reach, to keep kids in their lanes.... and how does it affect adult kids later in life as they reach beyond what they have to greater things? We explore these questions from a seemingly benign bit of advice almost every parent has uttered at one point in their lives.

Backstory:
A dad gets a book "Dad Was Right" as a gift and tortures his two adult kids years later with stories -- in their own voices -- about why he was right...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerardmclean.substack.com

The hustle, everyone is told they need to hustle and grind, but to what end? Is making a living now the new making a life? Dad speaks to his elder Millennial son about what it takes these days to "make a life" and what "making a living" means.

Backstory:
A dad gets a book "Dad Was Right" as a gift and tortures his two adult kids years later with stories -- in their own voices -- about why he was right...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerardmclean.substack.com

Calling your daughter before she had her morning coffee and asking some life stuff is a grab bag of never knowing what you're gonna get... and this morning did not disappoint. Black coffee, pay your own rent and read the newspaper; three chain links for adulthood.

Backstory:
A dad gets a book "Dad Was Right" as a gift and tortures his two adult kids years later with stories -- in their own voices -- about why he was right...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerardmclean.substack.com

This ain't gonna lick itself... Quite a life mantra, and yet, we went there ever so briefly. We talked about how success isn't just one thing, one goal but perhaps even the movement toward a goal... nd how true success is about remaining adaptable and not wallowing in regret when a plan does not unfold as you had imagined. And a few other things....

Backstory:
A dad gets a book "Dad Was Right" as a gift and tortures his two adult kids years later with stories -- in their own voices -- about why he was right...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerardmclean.substack.com

Why is everything so complicated? Does it need to be? Complicated simplicity, how things that are simple are really the result of things that have been well-thought out. We also get into some parenting tips as well as crossing paths with a gaggle of geese. It will all makes sense when you hit play. Do it now.

Backstory:
A dad gets the book "Dad Was Right" as a gift and tortures his two adult kids years later with stories -- in their own voices -- about why he was right...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerardmclean.substack.com

What's the rush? Why are you in such a hurry to grow up? Stop and appreciate everything around you while you can... time will pass by so quickly and you will eventually be on the north side of 50 and realize you never really did slow down enough to taste life. Or not, hell, I have no idea.

Backstory:
A dad gets the book "Dad Was Right" as a gift and tortures his two adult kids years later with stories -- in their own voices -- about why he was right...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerardmclean.substack.com

This was a rare treat for Dad, to have his daughter who gave him the book, sitting directly across from him in the studio to record this episode. It was a little strange to see the immediate feedback, the faces and body language as the conversation progressed. I'm not sure if we will do in-person episodes on the regular, but we probably will. It gives a different dimension to the podcast and ... we'll grow into it, I think. Besides, it gives Dad an excuse to buy a few new audio toys. The typewriter you hear in the beginning... that was just me torturing my daughter as she was sitting, ready to talk... I was typing up nonsense but I looked like I was tapping out some urgent thoughts from my noggin. I was setting the stage, as it were....

Does anyone read these liner notes? I enjoy writing them, so I suppose that's enough. Drop me a tweet or an Instagram or something if you get this far along. I'm @gerardmclean everywhere, but I'll not do Facebook. I'll see you there; I just won't respond. No offense.

Backstory:
A dad gets the book "Dad Was Right" as a gift and tortures his two adult kids years later with stories -- in their own voices -- about why he was right...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gerardmclean.substack.com