The largest gym in Taiwan recently sued the “consumer protection agency” and unfortunately, they lost. Full story here.

Now right up front, I don’t agree with the gym’s policies and I would never go there. The dispute was apparently over the fact that if you buy a personal training package, you couldn’t get a refund for that package in the future nor could you change trainers. I see why they don’t offer a refund — they deeply discount the package if you buy more/stay longer. So now customers can get the benefit of the cheaper price for agreeing to stay longer without fulfilling their end of the bargain by….you know….actually staying longer. The second part I agree with — people should be allowed to change trainers within reason. I don’t know why the gym wouldn’t agree to that but maybe they have their reasons.

The reason this bothers me so much though is that we’re about 5-10 years away from being able to run any kind of small business, and it’s nonsense like this that’s making it happen.

When is ANYONE EVER personally responsible for ANYTHING they do? When? Someone chooses a gym, walks in the door (no one dragged them there, did they?), takes a tour, decides to join, SIGNS the contract, etc. I don’t see any slaves in this equation. No one was forced at gunpoint to do anything. If someone doesn’t like the gym policies then it’s bizarrely simple — GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!!

As a society we get further and further away from any hint of personal responsibility and there will be consequences that people don’t realize. We expect to be saved from every bad decision we make but the person at fault is never, ever us. It’s someone else.

The problem is the idea that “the customer is always right” but they aren’t. The customer is always right, right up until it’s bad for business. And who makes the call whether or not that’s bad for business? The business does, NOT the customer.

Now we love our customers but about once a month we get a request or even a demand that is simply beyond what we’re willing or capable of doing. Satisfying this customer simply isn’t worth the trouble. Example? I traded 25 emails with a guy wanting to buy a product so he knew what he was getting and then he wanted to send it back after he got it because it wasn’t what he expected. I said no. When I take my time to send 25 emails then I’ve gone way beyond any reasonable expectations of me as a business owner.

A friend in the swimsuit business recently closed shop after a customer bought a swimsuit, wore it the beach, got sand it in, then demanded a refund because “it was dirty when I got it.” This stuff happens but it shouldn’t.

And here’s the thing — we business owners need to start telling the customer this. When people make unreasonable requests, I push back. Unreasonable demands need to be called out and customers that are more trouble than they’re worth need to be shown the door. We make the vast, overwhelming number of our customers and clients very happy. The rest shouldn’t be allowed to ruin it for everyone but with a government and a society that tells them nothing is their fault, they have the political power to do it.

People need to start taking personal responsibility for their actions and they need to be called on it when they aren’t. A business should make it’s policies clear but when it does, you either accept them or you’re free to go somewhere else. Telling business owners that “you’re not the boss, I’m the boss” is absolutely unacceptable and will make a lot of small businesses go bankrupt. We aren’t large, faceless corporations with large staffs. But the same demands get made on us because many people believe “the 40 hour work week is the modern form of slavery” and if you have a business then “you didn’t build that, someone else made that happen.” This kind of thinking is totally ignorant of how difficult it is and how much work and personal money a business owner puts into the business. We try our best to make it look effortless and we want to be stoic about it all, but believe me, the risks are huge and it’s a ton of work. We try to hide it because it’s unseemly, even unmanly, to complain about how difficult it is. But when people with a huge sense of entitlement make unreasonable demands that might threaten the business, then we need to openly talk about this stuff.

Modern people are used to being endlessly courted and pandered to and there are serious political and societal consequences to this process. Before you sign your name on a contract, think about what you’re agreeing to and if you do agree to the demands of the contract, then be a man or a woman and uphold your end of the agreement. It’s really that simple.