By David Wright*
Day Two of the New Zealand Swimming Championships has just ended. Everything seemed to be progressing well. So far swimmers from West Auckland Aquatics have won two bronze medals: Jessica Marston in the 1500 meters freestyle and Jane Ip in the 50 meters breaststroke. However, my mellow disposition was jolted this evening when I was accosted by the owner of Teamline, the agent authorised by Swimming New Zealand to sell swim-suits at National meets.
He began our conversation by asking if I was David, the person who writes for Swimwatch. I said, “yes”, to which he retorted that Swimwatch had not written anything good about his business. He then demanded to know why I called myself “David” on the blog and avoided adding my surname – “Wright”. I explained that my name does appear on the website and that I was sure any suggestion that I attempted to hide my identity would be hard to prove. To which this paragon of marketing expertise and Swimming New Zealand’s retail representative said vehemently and through clenched teeth, “Well you’re an asshole.”
I didn’t know his name as he did not introduce himself but I have subsequently discovered that he is Lindsay Campbell, owner of both Teamline and Pivot Marketing. Interestingly for a man who was so upset that he had not found my surname on my website, his surname does not appear on either Teamline’s nor Pivot’s websites. At least, Google can’t find it:
On the other hand, according to Google my full name appears on this site almost 100 times, regardless of whether or not I am an asshole.
While I’m sure there are many in Swimming New Zealand who would agree with this sentiment, I suspect good manners demands that Teamline’s behaviour is no way to treat a member of the public. What ever happened to the customer is always right? I wonder how, “You’re an asshole” meets CEO Renford’s call for excellence, integrity and accountability.
It’s also rather ironic that Teamline have this to say about their marketing and business development (on a similar “About Us” page to the one its marketing representative failed to find on this site:
Relationship building has been a key aspect of Pivot Marketing’s ethos and we intend to carry this through into the Teamline side of our business.
Certainly a great job building relationships was done tonight!
On the subject of swim-suits sold by my admirer, I did notice that the new Swimming New Zealand is advertising Teamline’s non-FINA approved swim-suits in every daily programme. How on earth the organization Peter Miskimmin created to represent FINA in New Zealand can ignore the parent organisation’s rules is beyond belief. Even an asshole knows that is not right.
Teamline and Swimming New Zealand’s promotion of unapproved swim-suits was compounded tonight by three swimmers in the 50 meters breaststroke B Final competing in the Teamline unapproved product. The three swimmers beat a West Auckland Aquatics swimmer and provided a huge temptation for me to protest their participation. I wonder how the new Swimming New Zealand would have ruled? The fact that I didn’t protest is primarily because I view Swimming New Zealand and Teamline responsible for the rule violation. The three swimmers were pawns enticed into error by those who sought to free them of a couple of hundred dollars.
If there is a moral to all this, I suspect it must be that good swim gear can be bought from a number of retailers. Teamline may be best avoided.
*Note from the person who puts the stories up on the web – I have always written “by David” on David’s posts – he doesn’t add that. I do this for two reasons: one, because his identify is fairly obvious and mentioned elsewhere on the site, and there have also been other people write stories here, like me. I find it absolutely hilarious that two people in the past week have decided the most important thing to complain about is the author’s surname, especially when approximately three commenters in the site’s history have put their real names to their comments.
