Harmony in the barn

[Brave_Mucker]

I need some advice; i.e. how to nip a problem in the bud. We have a boarding facility, 14 horses. Our boarders are all mature professional women and two men. The overall vibe is a nice place to ride, enjoy your horse, and get away from the pressures of the day etc. We do have a trainer on site.

One of our boarders has initiated conversations with other boarders…she starts off with “I noticed this about your horse…have you thought of doing …” She is not a good rider and truth be told is a little lonesome and wants to engage. Problem is it is increasing in frequency and getting annoying. None of my boarders have said anything to me…but I can see her interaction and people don’t walk away smiling.

So, other that busting out the Taser…how do I nip this in the bud?

[eightpondfarm]

until this uppity one actually transgresses i just don’t see how you could do anything.
I would think it’s on the other boarders to mitigate their own convos w/her.

Could you give her chores/responsibilities/projects of some sort…?

[Scribbler]

@Brave_Mucker

I need some advice; i.e. how to nip a problem in the bud. We have a boarding facility, 14 horses. Our boarders are all mature professional women and two men. The overall vibe is a nice place to ride, enjoy your horse, and get away from the pressures of the day etc. We do have a trainer on site.

One of our boarders has initiated conversations with other boarders…she starts off with “I noticed this about your horse…have you thought of doing …” She is not a good rider and truth be told is a little lonesome and wants to engage. Problem is it is increasing in frequency and getting annoying. None of my boarders have said anything to me…but I can see her interaction and people don’t walk away smiling.

So, other that busting out the Taser…how do I nip this in the bud?

Every club or workplace etc will have a range of social situations that adults will need to navigate. Adults should know how to manage and disengage with people they find mildly annoying. On the range of toxic clients this is very mild.

These kind of suggestions are easy enough to deflect. You smile, you say that’s an idea, and you keep waking. If the person perseveres, you can either give a serious brief answer or a deflection.

It’s also useful to preempt by starting a conversation about the weather as you walk by and keep walking. That let’s lonely person feel seen and greeted.

How are you modelling a response? Do you show your boarders how to not engage with her? Have you said things to her like: everybody’s on their own journey with horses, and if you are interested in learning more about your own horse, the trainer is available?

It’s a conundrum. Lonely people are often that way because they don’t have great social skills. Beginner riders are used to being on the recieving end of unsolicited advice constantly and may internalize this as a horsey conversatiin starter.

She may be marshalling her small knowledge to show off, to make connections or to actually be curious.

As barn manager, you have a couple of choices. You could try to talk to her about her self presentation but that’s usually a lost cause with adults though it can be useful with teens and very young adults. You could try to figure out ways to engage her constructively. Or you can just evict her.

That said most barn managers don’t micromanage interaction to that degree, you aren’t hosting a dinner party. You could sound our your other boarders tactfully and see how annoying she is to them. If she is causing you to lose business she has to go.

[Gardenhorse]

I think a lot of it depends on her personality and how she takes feedback. You could try making a joke about it - “Trainer X is going to think you’re after her job if you keep giving folks training advice.”

[js]

Perhaps address it to the other boarders and let them know it’s okay to say, thanks for the advice but no thanks in a polite way.

[McGurk]

You are going to end up having to ask her to leave. You know, the other boarders know it.

This is not behavior that changes because someone else tells her that her advice/input is not welcome. This is someone who is acting on deeper, psychological compulsions.

If you don’t ask her to leave, eventually, your other, non-drama llama boarders will leave.

Be as tactful as you can. Suggest that she should open her own training business…elsewhere. Since you already have a trainer. Or that another, trainerless barn is a better fit for her.

But do not let this situation continue. It will destroy the happy environment you are trying to cultivate in your barn, and drive customers away.

[Unfforgettable]

How about finding a time to have a barn meeting with all the boarders? Come up with some positives and good things to mention, like how great it is that it’s such a good group, maybe discuss future plans, ask for any suggestions…and somewhere in there, without pointing any fingers, mention that it’s always good to ask for advice (especially from the trainer) but giving unsolicited advice to other riders without them first asking you is not a good thing. Sandwich it in there amongst all the other stuff. If she recognizes herself, good…if she doesn’t, the other boarders will know how you feel about it and may just remind her if/when she does it again.

[leesa1]

New barn rule - no unsolicited feedback or suggestions.
If it’s asked for, great, else keep your opinions to yourself.

[4Frogs_aLilypad]

Have any of the boarders come to you directly about her behavior? If not, I don’t think I’d say anything to her just yet.

[Fiesta01]

Years ago, my barn had one of these. An inexperienced rider was trying to give advice to much more experienced horse people. I would smile, say “That’s interesting” and just keep doing my thing.

My good friend, however, didn’t have that much patience. The day she had had enough, she just said “If I wanted your advice, I would ask for it. Oh, and just so you know, I only ask advice from people whose opinions I respect. You are not one of those people.”

I had to walk away to keep from laughing. It did seem to help, though. At least for my friend.

[ClassyJumper]

Please no group meeting. I cannot stand when people don’t just address the problem and decide to address the whole group because it is easier. Address this woman directly or don’t at all.

[eightpondfarm]

i do not understand the energy against this situation. Are boarders so insecure about their horsemanship that they feel threatened when someone lesser tries to give advice?

Thinking about the couple of things in life that i feel am an expert on, i can’t think of a single reason why i would feel irritation if a peon presumed to offer their advice. Can’t even imagine being phased by it… Chances are i would give the suggestion some consideration actually. Even if it came from someone who was way smaller in knowledge/talent/experience/skillz than me.

[Texarkana]

@ClassyJumper

Please no group meeting. I cannot stand when people don’t just address the problem and decide to address the whole group because it is easier. Address this woman directly or don’t at all.

Plus it rarely works. People often don’t see the behavior addressed in themselves, or think they are an exception for some reason.

Honestly, if the boarders aren’t complaining, there isn’t an issue. I’m a big proponent for your barn, your rules… but it’s also bad business to go singling someone out because you find their personality annoying. Of course, I’m not there to see how bad the problem is.

I think you and the boarders just need to be direct when it happens if her advice is bothersome. “Thanks, but I wasn’t asking for advice about this.” I’m the least confrontational person on the planet, but even I can speak up about that kind of thing when it gets bad. Or if you want to go passive, just change the subject quickly when she starts up.

[OfCourseItsAnAlter]

It depends on how much of a social worker you’re prepared to be and if you’re willing to wade in there knowing that there may be some embarrassment and hurt feelings.

You mention that this boarder is a little lonely and looking for ways to engage. This suggests that maybe her social skills aren’t the most polished. In that case, in order to really solve the problem, you probably need to both explain why her current approach isn’t acceptable and offer some suggestions for ways she can interact with others more acceptably.

If she has kids, you might try an “our horses are like our kids” analogy: how would she feel if she was at the park with her kids and somebody walked up and started giving her parenting advice?

And I don’t agree that it isn’t a problem if your boarders aren’t complaining. For a while at one barn, my heart would sink every time I pulled into the barn and saw her car in the parking lot, but I never complained about her to the BO.

[Jealoushe]

It’s actually more annoying then you would think. A friend moved to a new barn and all the boarders were telling her how she needed a new grain/trainer/bit/saddle etc. It was constant. She was in a program with a trainer and these people rode western and she evented . It really ruined her time there.

[Texarkana]

Am I the only one who thinks it is unrealistic (or at least unsustainable) to have a barn with no annoying personalities?

I mean, there are times when lightning strikes and you have the perfect mix of people. But it never lasts forever. People come and go. You can do your best to vet them to make sure they are a good fit for your barn, but you’re not going to get it right 100% of the time.

As I say this, I feel like I can fully appreciate all sides of the issue, so please don’t think I’m disparaging anyone. Usually the farm is the barn owner’s home and no one wants to dread stepping outside at their own home. That’s not fair. But it’s also not fair to kick someone out who has otherwise done nothing wrong just because you find them annoying. That seems unprofessional.

I think the OP just wants to avoid this escalating, which I can appreciate. But in my eyes, the easiest way to do that is just do what adults do when they find themselves in an annoying situation and handle it maturely in the moment.

[SharonA1]

I for one love barn meetings, because I think they are helpful. My workplace has meetings to keep everyone on the same page; why not the barn? I would love my BM to offer a meeting twice a year or whatever on her plans for facility maintenance, what she’s watching in terms of hay prices or lesson scheduling issues, staff scheduling updates, etc. It seems like a barn meeting would be an easy enough place to say, “And, in closing, remember the rules of good barn etiquette: Clean up after yourself, only borrow things after asking, and always, always, resist the urge to give unsolicited advice.”

In any case, I don’t think that the other adults need to be protected from this one boarder. If the OP really can’t stand it, which is understandable, the OP has the right to take the boarder aside and simply state: “Boarder, I wonder if you’re aware that giving advice to the other boarders can come across as criticism, which goes against barn etiquette. You might want to keep your conversation with your barnmates to brief compliments on the other horses’ charm and good looks, and the weather. Now, tell me about Pookie; how is he doing as we slog through the end of winter? Oh? Good. Glad to hear. He is so handsome. Well, I’ll let you get back to him. Have a good ride.”

[McGurk]

@eightpondfarm,

I am going to guess that you have not spent a lot of time in large boarding barns?

It’s not that people are insecure about their horsemanship, it’s that they pay a lot of money to board and they want the time they spend there to be pleasant and focused on their horse. Most boarders view the barn as their refuge and the overly helpful, clueless boarder who isn’t reading social cues is interfering with that.

There are dozens of threads here on COTH, maybe more, about this exact issue.

Take the level of horsemanship knowledge out of it. I run into this problem at the gym. Lots of people go to the gym for the social aspect. I go for the workout and to talk to my workout buddy, who I only see at the gym. I go to the gym in the middle of the day, so there are lots of other retired people there, some of whom are dying for social interaction. Not a problem until they don’t read the social cues and interfere with my workout or my conversation with my buddy. I have literally turned my back on people after trying to end a conversation and they move around me to face me and keep talking. If you added to that annoyance that they were critiquing my form or offering advice on my workout - ugggggghhhh!

Now, I strive to be a kind person. I understand that people are lonely and crave social interaction. I don’t want to be actively rude or hurt feelings - I just want to finish my workout in peace. I pay a lot of money for my fancy gym (roughly 1/8 of what a boarding barn costs!) and I want to enjoy it.

@OfCourseItsAnAlter

For a while at one barn, my heart would sink every time I pulled into the barn and saw her car in the parking lot…

This is a sentiment that’s repeated over and over again in boarding threads. The only difference between the barn and the gym is that I don’t recognize people’s cars in the parking lot, so I don’t realize who’s lying in wait for me inside.

IME as a boarder and a BO/BM, these situations do not improve, which is why my initial answer was so harsh. After a certain age, people don’t get better at reading social cues, they get worse. And if the other boarders indulge the behavior out of politeness, the behavior gets worse, because the poor problem boarder is getting some of their social needs met. And for some reason, this personality is usually highly susceptible to the marketing schemes of the worst NH scammers, and will proselytize about the latest technique or gadget endlessly.

The only time I’ve ever seen it resolved painlessly is when a second needy boarder moved in, and they bonded and became BFFs who spent hours at the barn together, kibbutzing in the tack room and pretty much leaving the other boarders alone.

I have seen it destroy otherwise happy barn dynamics, and drive people away.

So I stand by my initial response.

[S1969]

@Texarkana

Am I the only one who thinks it is unrealistic (or at least unsustainable) to have a barn with no annoying personalities?

Exactly.

There are only two ways this situation plays out, and neither is good.

The OP pulls annoying boarder aside and says “hey, can we talk…I notice…blah blah blah it boils down to you are annoying.”

Or, the OP let’s it play out and the other boarders eventually respond to the annoying boarder “hey, thanks for your advice…blah blah blah it boils down to you are annoying.”

I guess I would let it play out, because otherwise the impression is that the BO is the “annoying police” - and decides in advance who is, or is not, going to be annoying to others.

But yes - this happens in all circles of life, work, hobbies, gyms, groups, clubs, etc.

[clanter]

@eightpondfarm

Thinking about the couple of things in life that i feel am an expert on, i can’t think of a single reason why i would feel irritation if a peon presumed to offer their advice.

I am pretty sure my city’s officials would like me to move as if I see something that I know is wrong I will tell them by email so I have written record of telling them to correct the problem.

Just yesterday sent the city manager an email about how the new automatic gate operator on the New $6.5 million dollar fire station was improperly installed. Waiting for her brush off answer now.

Problem for them is I was the regional manager for a long for the manufacturer of that gate operator and without question know how it supposed to be installed