Call Off the Wedding
I make part of my living as an artist. I make nerdy works of art, and sell poster prints to awesome people with money. One of these works has become really popular over the past few years, and has garnered much interest—It’s a take on the old “dogs playing poker,” except the pups in mine are playing a popular tabletop role-playing game. A few weeks back, I received a request on Etsy for a custom print. The buyer wanted me to swap out one of the dogs for her own dog, wearing a tuxedo.
Dog pictures were sent, and we chatted a bit. Turns out, she is getting married in the spring, and the dog in question has been a part of her and her betrothed’s relationship for a decade. The dog will even be part of the ceremony, and the commissioned artwork will be a wedding gift from her to her new husband. Awesome. I am a rank sentimentalist, I will admit it. I thought the idea was very cool and offered to make additional changes to the piece to make it even more meaningful to them: their miniatures will be on the table, along with their own character sheets, among other little details.
She was over the moon, and increased the scope of the project. Instead of a poster print, it’s now going to be a huge canvas print, in a beautiful custom frame. Suffice to say, this project is a big deal to me. It would take a lot of time if I rushed it, and I’ve no intention of rushing it. I had just started working on the project when Thanksgiving rolled around. Things paused while my family visited remote relatives, and then while we dealt with the passing of a close friend the week after.
During this time, I got a message on Etsy on Thanksgiving morning from the client: “Hi, I want you to make changes to my poster before you send it.” Ok, no big deal, I thought. We had chatted a bunch about changes, and the piece was far from finalized. I asked for details. Her response stunned me. She said, “Take out our dog in the tuxedo from the poster, I don’t want him in it. Also take out our character sheets and miniatures.” I was floored.
What had happened? Did I do something wrong? Did I somehow blow the sale? I asked if she was sure…that it seemed like a lot of good stuff discarded. And a lot of time and effort wasted, even if it was only time spent discussing and brainstorming. The response I got back was infuriating. “Yes, I am sure. I am the customer you little jerk. Don’t question me, or else I’ll just cancel the project. Further, I don’t think that [the game in the artwork] is a good fit. I want you to change it so that the dogs are [doing unrelated, non-nerdy activity].”
I was so angry. How dare someone speak like that to me? I, unfortunately, had a good amount of time over the holiday to keep mulling it over. By the end, I had mentally decided that I was going to fire her as a customer. The only thing that kept me from doing it was the busy schedule of the holiday visit, and the swamped week that was to follow. When the smoke cleared, I decided to reach out and be diplomatic. I messaged her and said that the original idea seemed great, but the revised idea was not really my thing.
I didn’t think I would do it justice. I’ve never been so glad I reached out. She responded that she hadn’t made any changes. Instead, her awful mother-in-law had been staying with her and her fiancé over Thanksgiving, and her phone went missing for a chunk of it. As best we can surmise, the mother-in-law took her phone and saw the emails talking about the artwork project. She took it upon herself to message me, pretending to be her daughter-in-law.
She then deleted my emails so that the customer wouldn’t see them. The missing phone was “discovered” on a kitchen counter at the end of the weekend. I can’t wrap my head around why someone would do something like this. What was she hoping to accomplish? Ruin her daughter-in-law’s gift to her son on his wedding day? Was she hoping that he’d be so outraged, he’d call off the whole marriage? Story credit: Reddit / 21stMonkey