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Oh dear. I am swamped. Swamped with orders, swamped by busy, swamped with family doings.
Greg is in California for his grandfather's funeral. He'll be coming home late on Saturday. My mom thinks I'm lonely or something...? I'm NOT. I was actually looking forward to catching up on some work around here. Instead she's been here for...roughly 14 out of the last 24 hours. Watching Judge Judy and other equally horrible reality/talk shows. She turns on Fox news just so she can get really angry at it, and then share that anger with me. *sigh* I'm trying to be patient...trying, trying.
Anyway I fed her a ton of food (I made TWO big chickens on the grill outside and gave her one-and-a-half to take home) so hopefully it will be peaceful here all day Saturday and I can catch up on orders. There are suddenly a LOT of orders. This is good but also, bad because I have to drop the new mask I was working on to fill these orders, some of which are stressing me out.
I shape my masks generically (I make that very clear. One size fits most), but lately I'm getting these precise requests with measurements ( "my eyes are X distance apart and slant down a bit not up, also I have large cheekbones and a wide face, also my nose is rather flat...okay?"). My first instinct is to just throw up my hands and ignore the entire thing, but when the customer is willing to pay more, then I guess I ought to make the effort?
Thing is, no one wants to pay extra even when they are a pain in the ass so I really DO have to make a judgement call on whether it's worth that lousy $70 if I want to have customer X send me a diagram of his oddly-shaped face. Frankly the only way to get a mask that fits your face perfectly is to BE here when I make it or send me a freaking plaster life cast of your face. Otherwise it's generic, baby.
My inner magic eight ball is telling me to not bother and forget the damn order. Sources say that this customer is OCD or something and will never be happy with this no matter how hard I try, so...yeah. No. Don't need that $70 that badly. Just no.
I'm heading off this drama at the pass! Circle the wagons! See how very good you are for me, LJ peeps? Just writing about this situation has cleared my poor head. I'm going to tell Customer X that maybe about this mask, not so much...thanks anyway. Good luck!
Does this make me a prima donna? Possibly. I feel sort of prima donna-ish tonight.
In other news, I got my beloved old Trek back...$250 dollars later. It has a rebuilt wheel, new gears and a new chain. Whirrs along like a dream. Escaping Judge Judy this afternoon I took it out for a quick 10 mile spin into an oncoming weather front. 25 MPH headwind and I chugged into it just fine on my shiny new/old bike. I love that old Trek...it is my savior on so many days. ^_^
Mother's Day this weekend. Never a happy day for me; I sort of hate it in fact. Pet peeve. Long story. I'll be fine. Meanwhile I have to get back to work...so many things to make.
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Sorry to hear your day was stressful, though yay on the new orders. :)
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See the larger version here: http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=15280129
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Anyway I really AM happy to try again, & if you need a larger kitsune we should definitely talk about it, because It Can Be Done.
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Or, and I know you really like to keep people happy...if you really wanted to do something you could possibly consider overall size alone and let them choose a small, medium or large. I assume most of your masks won't fit men, for example, since the masks I have don't quite fit me and I have a normal-sized girl head (22 inches around the crown). If there are a few people who want to make sure it fits them, maybe the same mask but slightly smaller or larger would be possible?
If it's just not worth even that I would simply go with what I said above. People generally try to coax more out of you when you try to offer a compromise anyway.
You're a great mom, Meri. I bet your family takes advantage of you even on Mother's Day, though. The problem is, you are and always have been TOO capable, and they don't know how to stop leaning on you. Strange, they both seem like they must be pretty smart and capable people themselves...
Of course, it could be something else that makes MD sucky...
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You can take it as a MD present if you want :)
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"People generally try to coax more out of you when you try to offer a compromise anyway."
That is EXACTLY it. Just...exactly. I used to bend over backwards and I quickly found out that for some people, it's never enough. You only need to have that happen a few times (a couple dozen for me because I'm dense) before you stop doing that altogether.
I do offer a larger kitsune mask, but because it's larger it doesn't LOOK like the original mask & I can't fix that.
On the upside, I got to use that "fume" icon, which is so cute (thanks!!). Fume fume fume!
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From: (Anonymous)
izo84
If its so =====> big sorry. ^^'
In fact I'm one of these customers, who will pay some dollars more for an customized mask.
greetings from germany
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Re: izo84
But i really need this mask for my japanese stage performance in june. So please to your best :o)
*help help help*
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But! Still. I'll have to re-work the pattern entirely to try to get it to do what you want. No matter what, it can't look exactly like the small kitsune mask 'cause the reason the mask looks that way is because it is small. I basically upsized the entire mask, proportionately, and it changed the features. I'll have to upsize the "face" but not the ears or muzzle...change the carving entirely...and that would maybe work.
You see, it can be done but it means I'll be creating an entirely new pattern, and that takes time. Also, it's a gamble that it might still not be "perfect", which is a risk you/I have to jointly agree to take because that's the nature of custom orders. You can check my feedback to see that people are all happy with my custom attempts (and they are 'cause I always do my best), but still there are no guarantees any artist can offer when making something for the first time, as a commission.
So, I'm reluctant to try unless you can agree to accept that it's all an experiment...and I know that no one wants to hear that, when there's money involved.
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Though I AM at a loss about what to do for you too. The kitsune mask is being a real problem for me lately.
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Re: izo84
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I remember your post last year about Mother's Day; fingers crossed that this year is an improvement.
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I had hoped for a quiet day (which is the best thing I can hope for on MD); a chance to lose myself on a long bike trail and a hot bath and someone else worries about dinner and the laundry (that would be heavenly). Cards and flowers are utterly secondary to that.
But with Greg getting back from a trip and these Commissions From Hell, I'm thinking that might not happen. *le sigh* We shall see...
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If they're willing to pay more, work out exactly how much it costs in both extra time and mental anguish/baggage/frustration and price accordingly. Who cares if that ends up in double or triple or more of the base price?
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Warning bells ring for me when I am having repeated discussions about an inexpensive mask that shouldn't be such a big deal...I begin to suspect that there's no way to make the person happy, & it's not my job to sweet-talk someone into buying something. They either want it or they don't.
I don't know if this means I'm being "difficult" (I suspect it does) but I do know that if I don't protect myself a little from this kind of customer, they'll kill my love for what I'm doing, & I just can't have that.
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Sometimes you have to fire your clients. :/ I think if you explain it, he/she should understand... And if they don't, you probably didn't want them as a customer anyhow!
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I've only ever had to tell someone "NO" outright once, and it was a memorable occasion (because I REALLY do try to be nice to my customer base & I'm not a habitually nasty person). She just went on and on and on with demands (this was in person, mind you, 'cause it happened at an SCA event) and she was being REALLY demanding and nasty (and back then I was only selling these things for $50, tops), and finally I said "You know...I'm beginning to suspect you don't want this mask, really" and SHE said "Oh I want it all right, you're just going to have to WORK for it."
At that point I just laughed and said "Y'know what? I'm not going to sell you anything. You can't have a mask." And her mouth fell open. And I added "Not even if you pay me double, triple what I'm asking. You Just Can't Have One. Ever. You are not ever going to own a Merimask mask."
Boy was she pissed! She even spent some time trying to sabotage me with other customers (but no one believed her 'cause seriously, I have a reputation for being good to people). She just made the mistake of pushing my buttons.
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What does she think you are, a performing seal who gets the fishie only if they do all the cute flips and turns and whatever will amuse the audience? And why on earth does she think her fifty bucks are so valuable? Is her money somehow worth ten times what everyone else's is worth?
Good for you for showing her to the door. People with that kind of attitude NEED a few good wake-up calls. That you are paying money for a product does not entitle you to order people to dance for you.
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I could never fire a customer. I tend to always think I'm in the wrong and everyone else is in the right. Makes for a very stressful life, especially in my older service-oriented lines of work. T_T
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Would you be able to make the Auryn pendant from leather? I think it'd be better that way than from clay, plus my clay skills are still low. All the talk of The Neverending Story brought it up. If you don't remember it, it's here: http://www.neverendingstory.com/images/Image059.jpg
And just because I found an adorable TNS-related photo, I have to show you that, too: http://www.jasonbentley.org/blog/img/noahbarrett.jpg
Aren't they adorable? :D
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I'll spend Mother's Day with my mom - lunch is on me. Dad is taking her to Lowe's to pick out anything she wants (plus her coupon she's been hording) so she'll be a happy camper. By the time they get back, I'll have lunch fixed and her gift installed.
Take care and enjoy Mother's Day tomorrow.
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