What the heck is wrong with people?

[2B]

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.

very true, you get what you pay for

 

[ThinkRight]

You know he's from montgomery al, right?

:ROFLMAO:

The only thing worse is maybe Arkansas...

 

[john1]

Pat, Posts like yours really make me grateful to work from home but then again i am literally out of room.

I have heard from others with store fronts that the amount of walk in's is more bad then good sometimes.

I remember having tough customers wanting the world fast and cheap. In the end your not the bad guy. Your someone who is running a business to support yourself and should be treated with respect...Even by those with no respect.

I will never forget the guy i rudely told i am not interested in working with him any longer (my first ever actually) after he pretty much pulled the same BS your first customer pulled. He came back a few days later with a deposit after he said he wasn't giving me one and didn't trust me cause i might take his money and run cause i'm not a big corporation lol. They always come back, Like herpes you can't get rid of them.

Keep your head up, We have all been where you are before.

 

[Pat Whatley]

Made it all better. After work I went to paint lettering on a wall as the sun was going down. Stood on the ladders for three hours transferring patterns, painting and touching up. Finished it about an hour after dark thanks to some perfectly placed street lights.

There aren't a whole lot of times I'll agree with OP but when it comes down to vinyl vs. paint I'm gonna have to agree with him now (unlike a few years ago). There's just a relaxing satisfaction to painting...and with a profit margin of about 95% on the job it's almost like stealing money.

 

[TyrantDesigner]

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.

Yeah, Sounds like my month.

In the last 9 work days, I've had 5 people ask for discounts on set price work. Had 3 people storm out the shop because I won't bump them to the top of my work list for the day even though I'm 2-5 customers deep in jobs. Had one dude tell me a monkey could do my job (abruptly stood up, pointed to the computer, said "you do it then" ... shutting him up right away) had numerous people wanting me to cut them harley logos for some sort of bike thing around here ... and not understanding that I don't cut that **** so I don't get sued. and for some reason, someone in town is spreading misinformation that I do pinstriping for $10 a vehicle ... When I find out who it is ... I'm going to mail them poop. http://www.poopsenders.com/

oh, and I feel you on the labor day discount idiot ... I have a BIG sign that said closed on labor day ... dude came in here on tuesday ranting and raving about not working that day, and him waiting there in the front of the shop for 2 hours waiting to see if someone would show up. Apperently, he couldn't be bothered to read a sign that was 10 feet away and right NEXT to the door. idiots.

 

[SignManiac]

After reading this thread I'm considering putting in a video camera at the front counter of the new showroom, so when the occasional idiot comes in acting like an ahole, I'll simply point to the camera and say smile. I'll collect them and put together a video collage to play on my portfolio flat screen monitor showing how not to act if you want my services!

 

[john1]

DO IT! No balls! lol

 

[gnemmas]

Send them to me. We at instant-signs.com can meet incredible deadlines, with a price.

 

[WhiskeyDreamer]

You know he's from montgomery al, right?

Oops. Forgot about that.:Big Laugh