Or unplug the bartender...

This was about 33 years ago. We had CONtracts with all locations. 50/50 split, we provide 24/7 service and all repairs were at our expense. Right in the signed documents. We also reserved the right to pull the machines at any time. If they kicked our machines out without a 30 day notice, all cash in the machines became ours.

Crazy how the tables have turned. I place almost everything on the location. Just not enough people out there any more willing to grind it out for the coin box take anymore.

We have a policy at our location that machines are not to be touched by the staff. They are NEVER allowed to turn off the machines. They are on timers because the bartenders would shut them down sometimes an hour or more before close and frustrate customers so they could save a few minutes at close. The owner and manager have told the employees that they are FIRED if they tamper with the machines and effect the revenue.

if its too loud ya aint old and deaf enuf!
seriously, there is such a thing as too loud, the operator should listen to peoples opinions about his game at a location, and adjust for it. I like LOUD but I'd get annoyed pretty quick if the same sounds kicked in to drown out everything else all the time. if it makes talking or ordering food and drinks difficult, it might even steer some people from wanting to return to a location, would be very bad use of 2 yards worth of floorspace. the establishments workers and owner would know if its too obnoxious.

if an operator refused request to turn it down some, "seeya!" have fun finding another location to move it to and abuse peoples eardrums with, if it's harmful to what'd be normal business. its supposed to be about making MORE money, not less. I love pinball, but can see this point too.

Totally agree. However as of right now it seems as though only the one employee doesn't like it. If however it is an nuisance to the bar and the owner sees it that way, it either gets turned down or the op can pick it up and it would be off until then and moved to the back room. From the OP it seems as though the one guy doesn't like it and to that I say too bad.

Tell your brother the profits go down at a rate that the volume does. Who wants to play a quite pinball machine...

like everyone has said over and over, if this were the owner complaining to an op that would be one thing, but a random staff member? ya, I would ignore the random staff member also... maybe even tell the owner about it (owner may not like his staff trying to make decisions for him)

Read my comment before replying to it please. The owner has veto power over everything related to the pin. Its his building. If he doesn't care, doesn't control his staff, that gives them the veto power. In my experience as a service person most owners don't care if their staff is messing with the game.

The fact of the matter is, the op doesn't control the game. The people who are around it and the people signing their checks do.

You are assuming he doesn't control his staff and your assuming he doesn't care. Given the little information in the OP, it is made to sound as though the staff member doesn't like the sound level and he wants it changed. Not the owner, not the customers and definitely not the operator of the machine.

so if I go to your place of business and decide your prices are too high I can pay less? since it seems control transfers pretty loosely in your world :p

Who typically controls the key to the coin door? (Honest question.) The volume control is inside, no?

If the Operator controls the key to the coin door, he inherently controls the volume, and the only way the employee can control the volume is through the on/off switch.

I'm just trying to share my perspective and experience being in that situation.

Routing pinball machines can be a pain in the ass. Some places will turn your game off at the drop of a hat; one customer thinks it stole his quarter and the game will be off until you visit it next. Or the opposite scenario, something simple is keeping it out of order but they never tell you. Obviously it mostly comes down to getting them to communicate with you somehow.

I've had locations shut a game off because they thought it was too loud. Again, it was the barback or night manager or somebody, not the owner with their name on the contract, but they still authorized themselves to 'solve the problem' without talking to the owner. And when I show up to collect and fix the damn thing, they're the person I have to either negotiate an acceptable volume with or convince to keep their grubby hands off my game.

In an ideal world, the op and the location owner would work out all aspects of the arrangement and sign their names to it and that would be that. The route technician and the location staff would simply be agents of their bosses, who make the decisions and if necessary negotiate compromises. Again, things may be different elsewhere, and I'm sure other ops and techs have had different experiences.

Low volume is my pet peeve. I've only played Tron in places where I can't hear a thing, same with LOTR, TZ and Hulk Le. really frustrating.

Well said. I've been on both sides of this dispute before. We will never know how far low the volume is that we are talking about. Generally speaking, from both the OP's and Owners point of view...if the thing is making money (which is generally the point here) don't screw with it.

From an employees point of view, some things just get annoying when heard over, and over, and over again...but the question is...will lowering the volume be in the employees self interest, or in the businesses best interest.

I'll give an example. I used to operate jukeboxes in certain Waffle Houses in my area before I retired from the industry. Some Managers didn't like the jukebox, primarily because a few old people complained about the music content. Now, Waffle House has had a Jukebox in their restaurants since the 1940's, so it's not like this is some new idea. (used to have cigarette machines too.) So what would I find? Volume controls turned all the way down. Made nobody any money. Waffle House is used to a certain revenue from their jukebox. So we corrected the problem. We removed all means of adjusting the Volume and set the box at an owner specified 72 decibels. This is just above the level of sound of two people talking across a table.

Thing is, the OWNER, Waffle House wanted it that way. Did their employees deserve a say? No. Managers and District Managers have been fired because they couldn't understand that they were not the Owners, and do not speak for them. If the customers are unhappy, they will leave, and the owners will change policy. But the employees do not make policy, no matter how unhappy they are with said policy.

It's a fact. The Owner, and the Operator (also an Owner, in this respect) have a contracted agreement. No employee, generally speaking, should have the right to dictate terms to that agreement.

-Dan

id try an out of order sign on your mouth

anyone who suggests vandalizing a pinball machine over something as trivial as volume needs to find another hobby.

if you unplug it when not in use it will remain not in use. the op wont make money, and patrons wont get to play. terrible suggestion.

yeah what a dumb ass, not letting the bar be in control of a machine that cost them thousands.

the fact of the matter is, the op controls the game. it is their property, therefore they are in control of it. just because you are around something does not mean you are in control of it. also, do you really think that pinball ops are receiving signed checks from bar owners as a form of payment? ive heard plenty of misconceptions about running a route but this one just blows my mind on so many levels... i dont even know where to begin explaining just how wrong you are... about everything.

It just got real.

can't believe some people here suggested to vandalise the machine. I would have thought the simple answer would be for the bar tender to talk to his boss about the noise and how the OP reacted and let the boss/owner deal with it. If I were the operator and a staff member told me to turn it down I'd probably say no too, if the owner/boss of the bar told me to turn it down I'd find out why and do it if needed.

so the machine was vandalized and moved without consent of the owner and this is what you refer to as "reason prevailed"???

the change of heart most likely came from the fact that his multi thousand dollar investment is at risk of being destroyed by some knuckle dragging barkeep. i highly doubt for him it was a better day.

it sounds to me like the bar staff is unwilling to talk about or even open to anything besides what they want, and now they've damaged an operators machine. running a pinball route is extremely difficult and not very financially lucrative and now these jerks are personifying almost every fear route ops already have. tell me the name of this establishment so i can make sure to never give them a single penny.

and as for you OP, please kick your brother in the nads on behalf of all route operators.

Id say have the vender load up his machine and take it away... Most likely he would rather adjust the volume instead.

Umm... FathomPin was clearly joking about the damage to the machine. Every example of the "vandalism" he described came right from "suggestions" in this thread. Hence the smilie afterwards, followed by the word "sorry".

Yeah, that part of the follow-up story wasn't real... Didn't happen... The pin survived unscathed... And the OP apparently did have a change of heart.

You are correct, Razorbak86. The OP was clearly making a joke based on all the outlandish suggestions in the thread. The pin was not actually vandalized. There is such a thing as a pinball machine being so loud that it annoys the person playing it. That has only happened to me once. Most of the time the opposite is true; the volume is set too low, or the sound is drowned out by the jukebox or other noises in the bar, etc. So I am glad that in this case reason prevailed and the volume was adjusted to the correct level.

The OP needs to remember the bar pays more for one months rent then he payed for the pin

My assumption: the bartender is there as soon as they open. This is a very quiet time in a bar. If there's pinheads about, they will find their way there and will be playing shortly after opening. Without the general din of an active bar, the pin sounds like an amphitheater. This can be very annoying to a disinterested bystander in an empty bar.

During busy hours the bartender probably forgets all about the pin. Unless it's right next to where the servers pick up orders at. Then it becomes a communication problem and the servers are complaining too.