Pat Whatley
New Member
Sorry, people are crazy.
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What the heck is wrong with people?
- Thread starter Pat Whatley
- Start date
TheSnowman
New Member
Sorry, people are crazy.
Last edited:
Pat Whatley
New Member
Sorry, edited out my original post.
Pat Whatley
New Member
On second thought forget them....here's the post I deleted above.
I've about had it this week with demanding walk-in customers. I've got a guy who called Friday and got a ballpark price on lettering a van. He was sitting in the parking lot Tuesday morning pissed off. Apparently he drove an hour to us on Labor Day Monday and we were closed so he drove an hour back home. Drove an hour back Tuesday then got even more pissed off when I told him he was going to have to make an appointment, pay a deposit, and leave it for half a day. Pitched a fit, said he couldn't wait, and said he'd have to come back some other time. Got here this morning....he's sitting in the damn parking lot again. Figured I'd do the damn job just to get the idiot out of here...it's just a basic lettering strip down the sides and on the back door. Well he didn't want to pay the deposit because, and I quote, "If I don't like it I ain't paying for it." Told him I'd do a quick layout for him....five minutes later I hand it to him the 8.5" x 11" printout...again, I quote him "Those letters are way too small. You stick those on the van and nobody will be able to read them." Finally got him straightened out, gave him his total and told him I just needed the deposit and I'd get him worked in before 10:00. "Two hours to letter my van? I ain't ever waited two hours for lettering." After biting my tongue and telling him, again, that I was doing him a favor by doing it the same day he came in....without an appointment....in two hours. He picked up the work order, looked at it, looked at it, looked at it, then asked me how much of a discount he was getting because it was three days late and he was still having to wait for it and he'd wasted half a tank of gas.
He got rudely escorted out the door. I dare him to be here tomorrow morning.
Ten minutes later I get a mini-van full of stay at home moms. One of them called yesterday about 4x8 coro sponsor banners for their kid's baseball field. They had uniforms, helmets, stacks of paint color chips from Lowes, fabric samples, matboard samples, printouts of letter styles, 100 pages of notes and a jump drive with jpegs of what they wanted. After spreading all of that out all over creation I started trying to figure out what they wanted. What they wanted was for me to sit at the computer with them, look up company logos for the sponsors online, then sit there....with a committee of bored unattractive women...and try to design sponsor banners for them while they selected fonts....and colors....and textures to those colors....and finishes.....FOR SPONSOR SIGNS THAT WILL BE SEEN FROM 200' AWAY ACROSS A BASEBALL FIELD.....signs that I charge them $100 each for (in quantity, 5 minute layout, do your own pricing)....and were expecting me to recreate MLB logos slightly modified for their angels....all while they waited.
They were politely referred to a local ad agency who I expect will be calling me raising hell in a few minutes.
The whole week has been like that. Why can't I do 30 18"x24" coro signs by noon? Why can't you send somebody 90 minutes up the road for free to look at my building and tell me what I need for window lettering? Why is installation of that 4x8 $80....it used to be $65? I'm a good customer....why can't you discount it (from a guy who spends $50 per year)? Late summer is always like this for some reason.
I've about had it this week with demanding walk-in customers. I've got a guy who called Friday and got a ballpark price on lettering a van. He was sitting in the parking lot Tuesday morning pissed off. Apparently he drove an hour to us on Labor Day Monday and we were closed so he drove an hour back home. Drove an hour back Tuesday then got even more pissed off when I told him he was going to have to make an appointment, pay a deposit, and leave it for half a day. Pitched a fit, said he couldn't wait, and said he'd have to come back some other time. Got here this morning....he's sitting in the damn parking lot again. Figured I'd do the damn job just to get the idiot out of here...it's just a basic lettering strip down the sides and on the back door. Well he didn't want to pay the deposit because, and I quote, "If I don't like it I ain't paying for it." Told him I'd do a quick layout for him....five minutes later I hand it to him the 8.5" x 11" printout...again, I quote him "Those letters are way too small. You stick those on the van and nobody will be able to read them." Finally got him straightened out, gave him his total and told him I just needed the deposit and I'd get him worked in before 10:00. "Two hours to letter my van? I ain't ever waited two hours for lettering." After biting my tongue and telling him, again, that I was doing him a favor by doing it the same day he came in....without an appointment....in two hours. He picked up the work order, looked at it, looked at it, looked at it, then asked me how much of a discount he was getting because it was three days late and he was still having to wait for it and he'd wasted half a tank of gas.
He got rudely escorted out the door. I dare him to be here tomorrow morning.
Ten minutes later I get a mini-van full of stay at home moms. One of them called yesterday about 4x8 coro sponsor banners for their kid's baseball field. They had uniforms, helmets, stacks of paint color chips from Lowes, fabric samples, matboard samples, printouts of letter styles, 100 pages of notes and a jump drive with jpegs of what they wanted. After spreading all of that out all over creation I started trying to figure out what they wanted. What they wanted was for me to sit at the computer with them, look up company logos for the sponsors online, then sit there....with a committee of bored unattractive women...and try to design sponsor banners for them while they selected fonts....and colors....and textures to those colors....and finishes.....FOR SPONSOR SIGNS THAT WILL BE SEEN FROM 200' AWAY ACROSS A BASEBALL FIELD.....signs that I charge them $100 each for (in quantity, 5 minute layout, do your own pricing)....and were expecting me to recreate MLB logos slightly modified for their angels....all while they waited.
They were politely referred to a local ad agency who I expect will be calling me raising hell in a few minutes.
The whole week has been like that. Why can't I do 30 18"x24" coro signs by noon? Why can't you send somebody 90 minutes up the road for free to look at my building and tell me what I need for window lettering? Why is installation of that 4x8 $80....it used to be $65? I'm a good customer....why can't you discount it (from a guy who spends $50 per year)? Late summer is always like this for some reason.
TheSnowman
New Member
You should have heard the crap he was talkin' Gene.
oldgoatroper
Roper of Goats. Old ones.
Wow, Pat... them's looks likes some great contribootions to Clientcopia.com
Yes, I have referred strange and difficult customers to others and then called them out of guilt to apologize....
weaselboogie
New Member
I've never heard of that. Clientsfromhell.net is another great one. To be fair, I've looked for a simliar site devoted to management and bosses, but no luck. I'm sure something is out there.
C
ColoPrinthead
Guest
:ROFLMAO: I love that you sent them to an ad agency :ROFLMAO:
SignManiac
New Member
My response...Ladies, our hourly shop rate is $75.00 per hour and it starts now. What can I do for you?
WhiskeyDreamer
Professional Snow Ninja
all the stay at home moms i know are hot. too much time left to exercise and tan. btw, i'm not a stay at home mom.
hehehe...that's awesome!
Just had a guy call and ask if we do vehicle lettering. yes. then he asked how it works. do we send someone out to quote it? i explained that we don't. it's easier for him to come in, so we can look at the vehicle, discuss basic design and give a quote. he says he's just in the next town over (about a ten minute drive probably), so could we send someone out. NO, we don't do that. he hung up on me.
WhiskeyDreamer
Professional Snow Ninja
if you ever find one, please link it! i love clientsfromhell but would love a bossesfromhell site just as much.
oldgoatroper
Roper of Goats. Old ones.
Pat Whatley
New Member
I'm trying damn hard not to do that anymore. Sometimes it has to happen but more often than not I'm doing it a better way.
When I was working in the franchised picture framing shop we'd do any dang thing somebody wanted us to do. Didn't matter what it was. It just all came with a price....every little thing they wanted cost them more money. It's made some of those pain in the *** customers pretty profitable. I quit looking at them as a**holes and started looking at them as paychecks.
Both problems above were caused by unreal expectations of what they were getting for the price they'd already gotten. I'm as much at fault as they are.
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Typestries
New Member
You know he's from montgomery al, right?
