You know that smell?

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abmorse1

0
Jul 14, 2014
12
Tulsa, OK
Hey all -
I don't post here very often. I'm on my second year of pool ownership and TFP after firing the pool guy. The pool looks great - the system WORKS!

I just thought I'd relay a conversation my wife had at work with another pool owner at work.

Guy-Yeah, you know when you go out to your pool and it just reeks of chlorine smell?
My wife-Umm... No.

She goes on to tell him how simple our maintenance is. She does the testing (After a lifetime of colorblindness, I just don't trust my eyes on the disappearing pinkness) and I check poolmath and add the chemicals. He tells her that it won't work for him because of blah blah blah.

She, being nicer than I am, asks me what we can do to help them? I just gave her the TFTest kit business card that was in our box.
Anyway, a big thank you to everyone here!
Aaron
 
It never ceases to amaze me, how people can complain about how much work it is, or how much it costs to maintain their pool, or the condition of their water. Yet, when you offer them a better way, they just dismiss it off hand with comments like, too much work, I couldn't figure that out, it won't work in my pool. I even have neighbors who have visited the web site and even bought a test kit, but still go to the pool store and listen to their "expert advice".

There are none so ignorant as he who will not learn.
 
That's the second best thing I like to hear when someone comes near or gets in our pool, Where's the chlorine smell? Do you use something different cause it has no smell at all, not even on my swim suit? :D

Of course the best thing to hear is, Holy cow! I didn't know pool water could be that clear! Wait, there IS water in there, right? LOL

:lovetfp:
 
You can lead a horse to water.

I see the same thing in other areas of life, too - I think people often want things to be complicated, perhaps to justify that they have been struggling with it in the past. Some people don't even want advice when they ask for it, they just want to complain and your job is to agree with them.
 
The one I hate is when people actively seek out your advice on what to buy, because they feel you are an expert on the topic. I suggest X, then they go buy Y instead because it was slightly cheaper.

Or better yet they go out and buy Y because the salesman told them it was just as good as the X I had suggested.

At this point I have to wonder why they asked what would be the best X for me to buy, instead of what is the most overpriced piece of junk out there that will break when I need it most?


I guess that is just some people for you
 
One of my wife's coworkers, her husband, and their son came over Sunday to swim and cook out.

The husband asked me if our pool was salt water, because he couldn't smell any chlorine. I said, "Nope, those jugs of bleach you walked past in the garage are what I chlorinate with." He was surprised, and actually said a couple of guys he works with chlorinate with bleach, but their pools look nothing like mine -- they're cloudy and/or reek of chlorine.

I flipped a quarter into the pool (which I keep on the bench near the deep end just for such occasions), and it landed on the main drain. I asked him whether it was heads or tails, then his son dove to get it. Made believers out of them. :D
 

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I have to say though, that I can understand from one perspective. In my case I found TFPC too late. I had already spent most all the money I had available for the wrong stuff. I was only able to buy my Taylor kit because there was xmas, money available at Amazon. I haven't been able to test CYA in months. Can't even afford to get the refill for that. The money for the AA treatments was my lunch money for the week. My birthday is in a few days so I hope to get some gift cards for that. Maybe I can finagle a CYA refill.
 
You never know when it comes to people and spending money. Years (decades) ago I owned a vinyl sign and screen printing business, one day a husband and wife came in wanting a sign for the small tire repair business they were starting, they wanted a 4x8 ft wood sign with WAY too much information on it (business name, phone number, as well as a price list on basic services, flats fixed $5, tires rotated $10, wheel balancing .....). They looked like they did not have much money to spend so I gave them a very good price on the sign, basically our standard price for a simple sign that size without any upcharge for all that extra wording, a price I knew would be at least 30% less than any other sign shop in town. They said that the price was too high and what could I do to make it cheaper, I suggested they get a heavy duty vinyl banner instead and that baring wind damage it would last a year or so, still too much, move down to a light duty banner, still too much...... Finally 15-20 minutes later when I told them there was nothing I could do for them cheaper they walked out.

Normally that would be the end of the story, but as chance would have it a month or so later I was driving through a small town about 30 miles away, and I spotted this sign in front of an old ran down gas station, with all of that excessive wording they wanted. The sign was a used piece of 4x8 gray panelling with about a 1x1 ft square cut out of the corner, they had painted it white, but probably only used one coat as the panelling grooves were still showing through, the wording was painted by hand in red paint, very obviously not professionally done as the letters got narrower towards the right side of the sign to squeeze them all in.... Honestly it looked like they told a couple of their kids to go get that scrap panelling off a junk pile and make a sign that says this, and handed the kids a bucket of paint and the wording.

Needless to say when I drove through that town again a couple of months later the business was closed up, but the sign was still there. Maybe it was all the money they had, but if that was the case they should never have tried opening up their own business. On a positive note the sign did part of its job, it likely projected the quality of the business.
 
Isaac-1 said:
Needless to say when I drove through that town again a couple of months later the business was closed up, but the sign was still there. Maybe it was all the money they had, but if that was the case they should never have tried opening up their own business. On a positive note the sign did part of its job, it likely projected the quality of the business.
Click to expand...

And you know what...they are probably saying "See, we were right about that sign...we made it ourselves and it outlasted the entire shop!" Great story...thanks for sharing. :)
 
YippeeSkippy said:
I find it hard to believe when folks complain about the $68 cost of a test kit, yet don't bat an eye at buying $200 of potions and lotions that the pool store guy told them to get.
Click to expand...

I have made that same point many times when a new members joins with the old "my pool is green, help" threads that pop up 5 times a day :) always something along the lines of they bought $400 worth of stuff at the pool store and didn't work, but they don't want to spend much money on a test kit. D'oh! I shake my head every time
 
It could be that when faced with a serious problem you would typically be looking for a cure rather than something that will only tell you things are bad. You already know things are bad, that's why you started searching in the first place.

If your child is having a fever and you bring him/her to a doctor, you expect the doctor to tell you what to do rather than how to best measure the fever accurately.

So the "problem" is that you have to educate people, and the first part of that process is explaining in simple terms why it is such a great idea to have a fancy test kit. If people don't understand that, why would they buy it ?
 
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