The General Public.

I am really lucky most of the time. Most of the time, running My Bearded Pigeon is great.   People are lovely, they say thank you , they say hello , they are excited by my cushions and they send lovely emails, they leave nice messages when they buy something and they tell me lovely stories about why they are buying that cushion and who they are buying it for - it's all very nice. Mostly. 


 What is not so lovely is people speaking down to me, demanding things from me that are just plain rude. I was not really expecting this when I started selling online, I probably naively thought it would all be very nice? And really 95% of the time it is lovely but I just wanted to show you 
 just how bizarre-o people can be!

gratuitous cushion shot

Below are just some examples of the bizarre things that have been asked of me over the last 18 months, these are exact quotes of the whole email/ etsy convo's. No please, no thank you, no hello no from who? I keep them in my etsy convo folder called Are you fo' real? (I have just cut and paste these. )


"Your cushions are really neat but they are SO expensive can I have a discount?" 


" I want to wholesale these but I need them from you at $25 each and I want 10, but in different colors to the ones you have" 


"I don't like this color I want it in tan?"


"I want this but in a lampshade" 


"Can you do this map on a coffee mug"


"Can you make a tie out of this?" 


"I need this by Friday can you post today"     (obviously that will make little difference as you are on the other side of the world and it is Wednesday) 


"YOU have spelt **** wrong on the ******* map, you should really make sure you spell the cities properly"
(the map is actually in French and I don'tr draw the maps personally) 

gratuitous cushion shot

I probably get at least one a week like this: 


"We are doing a fundraiser at my sons school and would love it if you could donate a cushion - it would be great exposure for your business" ( I don't see how donating a cushion to your sons school on the other side of the world in a small town will really have a huge impact on my business)


Or this: 


" I would love to review your product on my blog" ( this often translates to please send me a FREE SAMPLE of your cushion to "review")


And, despite it saying on every listing that I sell the covers only not the inserts, and this is also stated in my policies, which I ask everyone to read before ordering on every listing,  I get asked  this at least 5 times a week:


"Can I get just the cover, will it be cheaper?" OR sometimes this:


"My order just arrived and its only the cover, I ordered the pillow!!!"


Then there is this kind of thing: 


"Hello,

My name is ****************and I would like to talk with you about your "Vancouver pillows". I was born and lived most of my life in Vancouver and you have made a MAJOR mistake with the pillows: most of the pillow is taken up with what is NOT in fact Vancouver, but is rather Vancouver Island, which is off the coast of Vancouver and is home to the capital city of British Columbia: Victoria. If you look on the far right hand side of the pillow you will see the first part of the word "Vancouver", which is near where the word "Burrard Inslet" also appears.Burrard Inslet is the northern boundary of the City of Vancouver proper. Vancouver Island is an ENTIRELY different place from Vancouver. If you are going to be selling pillows with maps of places on them, it might be a good idea to do some research on those places before you create them and publically selling them. I trust you will either remove these pillows from sale very quickly or relabel them with the correct name very quickly. 

Thank you for your time and attention.
************"




This was my reply:

Dear *************************

I have just about 200 maps in my collection. I am a cushion maker. I am not, nor do I claim to be a cartographer. This was an oversight I made when I re-listed the item. I KNOW it is Vancouver Island not Vancouver. I know they are ENTIRELY different places because I have been there. 

Your email was quite threatening in tone with your demand that I remove the cushions from sale. What will happen if I don't? Will you call the police? Have me arrested? Imprisoned? 

I am human - I make mistakes. Please remember there is a person behind this shop who is just trying to run a business.

Perhaps a convo just asking me about this oversight would have been a little bit more reasonable rather than a threatening me.

Thank you for your time and attention,
Cathy.

gratuitous cushion shot

When I have had a bad nights sleep with a sick child and I wake up feeling sensitive and then  open  emails... well it makes me feel awful and I think people forget that. I have this shop/ blog online thing but I also have life going on in the background, we have morning sickness and gastro at the same time while your husband has put his back out and your featured seller on etsy so it may take a little while to answer convos , we have unexpected bills or sick relatives that are far away, or earthquakes!, or things happening at work that are awful and stressful or sick children, its all going on in the background. We don't see the context of peoples lives.


Most of the time I just think to myself "you dickhead" but sometimes it makes me feel really awful. As I never really set out to run a business and it was not something I ever thought I would do  and I have never worked in  customer service this has been a sharp learning curve for me. Those of you who have / do work in these areas are probably shaking your head. Chef often tells me of how rude and unreasonable people can be but I just didn't get it.  


As I said MOST people are so lovely. And mostly I laugh, but some days.... And I know I am lucky. Underlying all of this is the huge gratitude I feel to the universe (?) for allowing me to run a successful business I love....


So I will leave you with some lovely feedback I received  yesterday from a lovely woman who bought  word map wall hanging:


After wanting this for some time, I finally purchased for our 2nd wedding anniversary (to dream & plan the places we're yet to go together). Well, I received it today and truely, I couldn't be happier!!!! It really is gorgeous in real life, the colours are so brilliant & vivid and very well made. Best of all my hubby LOVED the gift as do I! Thank you for a beautiful product - and an amazingly lovely seller as a bonus. Big thank you Cath, I will be back for more :)


So its absolutely not all bad! Far from it. 

So tell me what has been the rudest thing someone has said to you via your shop of blog? It's time to debrief!!!