BTB: "Could you do this for my horse?": The art of the barn note |  |
| "Could you do this for my horse?": The art of the barn note Posted: 05 May 2010 01:19 PM PDT  Hi [Barn manager], I noticed Riley is not eating his probiotics or his antibiotics when mixed with his regular feed. Would you mind mixing it with some applesauce and grain and feeding it to him BEFORE he gets his low-startch pellets and supplements? Also the vet gave me this fluid which must be mixed in a ratio of 1/2 C fluid to 1 cup water which he needs once a day. You can give it to him any time other than feeding time That's a note I never actually left for my barn manager, who has almost 40 horses under his care. I have seen him literally jogging through the morning to get his work done -- and that's just the basic care. I have a litmus test for my special requests. I ask myself, "What if all of his boarders wrote notes like this? Would he ever have time to sleep?" Into the trash it went. Mastering the art of the barn note... Like all forms of persuasive discourse, writing barn notes is an art. How do we make a barn manager *want* to do extra chores (e.g., tell'em to go to hell and hav'em forward to the trip)? If you want to master this skill you'll have to look to someone else for guidance. For every note I leave there are five balled up pieces of paper that go into the trash. I hate asking for favors. And as someone who works at barns I get those little missives from boarders. Frankly some of them do annoy me. I can't reconcile the two perspectives of horse owner and barn worker. I might roll my eyes at a someone else's note, but all I have to do is imagine my own horse in the same situation. Instant empathy. I have collected some whacky barn notes over the years and will share them with you in dribs and draps. What crazy barn notes have you seen (or left) for the barn manager?  |
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