Monday, February 15, 2016

TRM Blog Hop: Barn Pet Peeves





Being invisible.

Let me clarify: I am at a barn that in many ways has a weirdly split personality. During the late fall, winter, and early spring, it's sleepy and quiet. There aren't that many boarders that ride regularly, and 9 times out of 10 I have to turn on lights when I get there and I'm the only person in the ring, because I ride after work.

Then, late spring through early fall, the barn becomes home base for the trainer again, and it's bustling. There are a lot of people with a lot of money and very fancy horses - and I become invisible. For them, the barn is a place where they come for lessons, or keep their horses in training and visit occasionally, or come for camp, or lots of other things, but most of them temporary. The majority of them - even the ones who come for months, or regularly for years - don't know my name.

I'm also a bit conscious that they don't particularly want to interact with me, so perhaps I reinforce this in a way - I'm friendly, cheerful, and try to be approachable but I'm clearly not part of their group, and I don't ever want to butt in, so. There you have it.

The barn staff is awesome. Generally I get to know the working students as well. There are a few other boarders who are around more during the summer, and there's a local college that rides out of the barn now. I know and like all of those people. It's that extra layer of people who have $$$ warmbloods that they send south to Florida for the winter, and - I guess I have hangups. (I've written about this before, in regards to our barn's adult camp.)




    Disrespectful horses is a good one too.


  2. I'm always afraid I come off as some kind of snooty person, because while I know lots of the other boarders, I don't know most of the lesson takers very well. I never see anyone on weekday mornings, but on weekends, I'll see people I haven't met. I always smile and say "hi" but never really chat with them- I should probably start!



    One of my barn friends has the friendlest partner in the world. He is a genuine A+ guy who is super enthusiastic and ALWAYS wants to know how your day is. One of the funnest people I know. He abhors the barn because his cheerful greetings are met with monosyllabic nothings or people who weirdly ignore him -- just because he's not a horse person or something? I am probably on the other side of this (probably some other peoples' pet peeve!) and can be overly friendly -- I want to know how ALL my friends are doing and LOVE chatting it up with you.


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