Karaoke Forums

The same guy who heckled me, cussed me out, and tried to fight me 10 days earlier decided to show up again on Saturday night and had the nerve to walk right up to me and try to hand me a karaoke slip. No apology, no nothing.

I told him I didn't want his slip and he started yelling at me again. He went and sat down then started getting chummy with some of my regulars at the bar. One of the gals he was getting chummy with then came up and handed me a duet with him. I explained to her what the guy had done to me just 10 days earlier and told her that he had made no attempt to apologize to me. Luckily, she understood and was cool about it.

In my head, NO ONE is going to come into my bar, completely and utterly disrepect me while I am doing my job, then act like he didn't do anything a little over a week later. In fact, one of the things that I remembered most about his tyraid the week before was that he said several times that I was there "to do whatever he wanted me to do." That attitude that I was like his servant is WAY over the line of the old customer is always right motto that he was basing it of of. First and foremost, if there is not mutual respect between the customer and the client, then I think that motto goes right out the window. The customer is not always right when they are being blantantly unreasonable.

Anyway, out of respect for my regular, who had done nothing, I told her that if he would apologize for what he had done to me, I would let him sing with her. Of course, he said he hadn't done anything wrong and refused to apologize, so I said fine and didn't let him sing.

In the end, I told him he was allowed to sing as soon as he apologized to me and come to karaoke with a good attitude and not this attitude of entitlement and his ridiculous philosophy that I was supposed to do whatever he wanted me to do and be somehow subserviant to him.

The dude stuck around the rest of the night and didn't cause any trouble, but he's still not going to be a part of my show until he comes to have fun and not to poke and prod at me until I explode. Why would I let a guy who has told the whole bar that he hates me get anywhere near my equipment? Literally, like 10 days earlier, he was standing outside the bar telling people not to come in because I was a shi**y KJ. And he has the nerve to come back to sing the next chance he gets??

If you have not read my initial experience, go read it. in the "I Met the BigDog on Wednesday" thread.

Now tell me how you would handle this jerk!! I'm sure he'll be back soon!!

_________________
C Mc
KJ, FL

dude, you have EVERY right to run your show the way you see fit.

on another site, I got told that by sticking to my guns about a particular issue, I was being less than professional by not adhering to the concept of "the customer is always right". Or at least that's how I read it because myself and a couple other post-ers had different thoughts on what that rule meant, and how I differed from them.

To me, there is a line that is crossed that cancels that out.

Blatant disrespect is one of the ways to cross that line.

As much as the venue has the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason, so too do YOU have the right to set your own standards and to adhere to those!

Congrats on being a stand up guy, and not taking the easy way out by allowing him to think it was all water under the bridge. Because it's NOT an easy way out. The moment that dude thinks he "owns" you... you'll be forever kissin' his butt!

Yeah, the good thing is that the management is on my side on this one. They offered to kick the guy out again when he showed up the other night, but I told them that I could handle him and they were cool with the way I handled it, so no problems on that front.

_________________
C Mc
KJ, FL

Good job TopherM!!!

Something similar:  Had a gal in the place a couple of weeks back.  She began getting drunk.  She had the same name as another singer.  When I called the name she came up and started singing the song.  She hadn't got out about one verse when it was pointed out she was the wrong one. I said excuse me it's so and so's turn.. She says, "That's ok I can sing this' I'm good.  I turned the music off and she didn't want to give me back the mic.  I finally took it from her.  She sat down and then for the next 15 minutes bitched because she wanted to sing.  i told her she wasn't up yet.  She got up with her friends and as she was walking out the door began grabbing the song books and throwing them to the floor.  My wife of course jumped up and called her a few choice words outside the bar.

She hasn't been back in yet.  But when she does, SHE won't sing until she apologizes either.  Disrespect me; my equipment or my singers and you don't sing.  And that's something the bar owner allows me to do.  He runs the bar and I run the karaoke.  If I say someone has to leave; their gone.

You did exactly what I would do.

Kelly

my ex-g/f said it best:

"I've NEVER seen anything that adults participate in, yet they act so childish at times!"

Bravo Topher !!  :hi5:

The only way we have to control what is going on is our right to refuse a person to sing. Many times just threatening to take away their singing priviledges has worked for me. It is like dealing with children. If you don't punish them they will not learn to respect you. Ask any bartender how they keep control. They will tell you they have all the control because they decide if you can be served or not.

For the most part 99% of singers are very curtious. It is the 1% that can drive a karaoke host nuts on any given night.

I had a gal insist on saying the F- word continuosly on the mic addressing the crowd.
First, I give a warning when this happens, but if it continues your mic gets shut off and you have to sit down. I will not let them sing until I get an apology. I look at it more like you have to follow the rules, not the customer is always right. If you were in Wal-mart drunk, screaming the F-word and disrespecting an employee I don't think they'd want you in the store.

_________________
[shadow=pink][glow=deepskyblue]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

I take it the whole way.   If you want to destroy my equipment or think you are going to continually give me a hard time....  I tell the owner to pick the A**hole or me, but one of us won't be here in 5 minutes.  Don't care if it's a man or a woman.  Fix the problem or I'll be fixing the bar owners competition with a ready made karaoke crowd.   I'll give his closest competition a hell-of-a starting price.    I really don't care who they pick at that point.   I'll be ready to walk in a heartbeat.    Did it before.     They don't get a chance to apologize.   F**kup and you had your only chance.    A leopard doesn't change it's spots.   Once an A**hole, always an A**HOLE.

Them or me...The clock its ticking.    And you ain't paying me enough to put up with somebody's crap.

I must say Babs you look most enticing in your Xmas outfit

_________________
"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

 :drool:


I miss her dog.

I've only had one person who actually challenged me with an 'I can do better than that' comment. I politely called him, and said, okay here's your chance. I started the same song over again. He immediately began to freak out, saying that he didn't know that song. I'm like well you said you could do better than that, so I think it's only fair to prove your point that you sing the same song....
He ask if he could pick out his own song, so I let him, and just as I suspected, he picks out 'Friends in Low Places' he does the song in typical redneck dull voice fashion. When he finishes, he ask me, 'well what'cha think?' and I'm like yeah dude you win, you did that song better than I ever could, because I would never insult my audience by doing such an overplayed dullass song... So he says, well you do it then and see if you can do any better, so I do the silly song, but I do it in my best Willie Nelson voice...which after the first couple of lines even he had to grin. Afterwards I shake his hand and tell him, my show isn't about competition, it's about having fun. So I keep him around and we do a duet of 'Whiskey for my Friends'....which everyone liked, so it was all good....Lord you gotta love living in the south.

James

_________________
I serve no man and am loyal to only one God.

Being critical of a person's success in any respect speaks volumes about the lack of your own.

Love as though you've never been hurt, Dance as though no one's watching, Sing as though God Himself were listening.

I know of some hack KJs that do it all the time.   They will even sing the same song right after a paying customer to prove they can do it better.   That's a real crowd builder folks.   Take notes.  :worship:  :worship:    

A true professional KJ will never insult his singers like that or tell them they can't sing that song, because it's my song.  

Hacks rule the world, it's the professionals you have to watch out for.    We'll ruin everything.

For me the challenge is taking the challenge and turning it around into a positive outcome. Sometimes you have to be firm, but you can do it in a humorous way that the person gets caught off guard. The main thing is to always maintain control of your show regardless. You are there to perform for the many, not the few or the one(hey that sounds like a cool StarTrek line ) I'm all about taking charge and resolving my own situations rather than having the bar staff get involved, but that's just me. So far so good. But in the back of my mind, I know it's not a matter of if, just a matter of when there will be the one person who's outta control and others will have to step in. I mean I'm not afraid of confrontation, but I'm not gonna get my arse kicked because some drunk thinks that because he bought a beer that he can just take over. Not gonna happen.

James

_________________
I serve no man and am loyal to only one God.

Being critical of a person's success in any respect speaks volumes about the lack of your own.

Love as though you've never been hurt, Dance as though no one's watching, Sing as though God Himself were listening.

See the problem I run in to with my directive is this.   The bar owners think I'm trying to tell them how to run their business.   No... I'm telling you how I run my businesss and the A**holes don't rule, I do.     Now pick one of us.   4 1/2 minutes to go.      The bar will be run by one A**hole or another depending on who he picks to stay.   Me or the troublemaker.      If the bar owner picks trouble, then the bar owner is an A**hole, that I don't want to work for anyway.   SO I'm in a win-win situation.

Just caught this thread, and Knightshow, your ex hit it dead-on with that quote! I deal with kids & adults at the show I run, and lately the kids have totally outclassed some of the more obnoxious adults when it comes to maturity at a karaoke show. Seems like lately, I guess the past 2 or 3 weekends, one person each karaoke night wants to stand out and act like an idiot at the show, for one reason or another. Kind of a weird streak we've got going this month with that, 'cause everything usually runs pretty smoothly.

Totally agree with you on that last post James. If I hear one more time about how "far" someone drove to get here, or how much "money" they've spent on beer that night, or how '"great" of a singer they are... so they deserve special treatment for those reasons.... I'm gonna be nice, stand firm, and then go pull my hair out AFTER work!

** Just noticed something James.... 66.7% of registered users on the forum right now (4:15 a.m.) are from East Tennessee! Maybe 100%, if Bigdog lives somewhere around here .

I see some very similar things now that im looking around from a different perspective....Hummmm......Strange!!  LMAO I can see that there really is less people here than I had thought

Ok...back to topic.....I think you handled the situation just fine  :D

What was the topic anyway??  LMAO

Kudos to Topher, Kelly, Babs and James. There is something to be said for resolving the situation yourself without having to ask the bar owner for help AND for finding creative ways of losing the problem while keeping the bar patron.



I think Babs had to get rid of her dog because he p!ssed on everything.

_________________
[glow=darkorchid]Musica delenit bestiam feram[/glow]

It all still goes back to this.    The type of music you insist on playing will determine the type of crowd behavior.    Now every once in a while a true a**hole pops up in every crowd.    Could be the full moon thing.   But if you play crazy music that gets people to climb the walls all night, without ever letting them come down, you could be aggravating the situation.


No I'm paper trained.    I pee off hacks, though.

Let's see Stinky (drug addict) Steve always sings slow Elvis tunes. Loud mouth drunk Ann sings oldies.
Those are my 2 worst nightmare patrons right now. So I'm sorry your theory doesn't work for me.

_________________
[shadow=pink][glow=deepskyblue]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

It doesn't work for him either. He is always complaining about a$$holes at his show. Must be what he is playing. And giving the bar owner ultimatums--but doing it without telling the owner how to run his business.

We must remember--if you are the best, you work for an idiot bar owner and are underpaid. That's a goal we can all work towards.


Sorry...ranting...still feeling under the weather....

_________________
[glow=darkorchid]Musica delenit bestiam feram[/glow]

 :yes:  :shock:  :O