I don’t know what made me do it, but about 3:00 p.m. today I called over to the window blind office that I’ve been telling you about. Only to discover that they were given instructions by the owner (who left for Thailand this weekend) to shut it all down TODAY.
1. So they won’t be making the last order of blinds that they promised me on Friday.
2. And they won’t be repairing the order that I installed two weeks ago that had quality issues (they weren’t strung properly).
These two issues are not total disasters in that I will call #1, explain what happened and either refund her money or start from square one with new options, with her deposit going towards whatever she chooses. As far as #2 goes, my old shutter installer knows how to repair blinds and will only charge me $25 for each blind that needs repairing. I had not paid for the blinds yet, so I will use the money to pay him for the repairs. There are 12, so it will be $300 to repair them. The balance due was more than that, so I’ve got enough to cover it. Right or wrong, I do not feel guilty about not sending the manufacturer the balance because he did not feel guilty about leaving me in a very difficult position with my clients.
He’s already removed all the computers from the office (over the weekend, I suspect) and so there’s no way for them to look up my invoice anyway.
The thing that freaked me out and caused me to “race” as quickly as 4:00 o’clock Houston traffic would allow was this: the company had picked up some blinds from a client of mine from two years ago to make some warrantied repairs and the blinds HAD NOT BEEN RETURNED TO HER. So I had to race up there to pick up the five blinds that had been repaired, but not returned to the client.
If I had not called them at 3:00 to check on things, I don’t know that I would have been able to get those blinds back.
I SO need a new career.
A Scribbler & A Shutterbug 
Impulse….. no, that’s God. 🙂
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@pottermom – You’re absolutely right. It was God. And I am so thankful. 🙂
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Girlfriend? I feel your pain….lol. Not laughing at you, just laughing with you. I don’t own a company, but as a supervisor, I feel like the candle that has two ends. I work with a bunch of men, with sporadic women who aren’t used to working around ‘men’. Then I have drivers who refuse to drive because their feelings were hurt, drivers who call in sick when they’re seen out shopping, drivers who talk to dispatch like they’re dirt, etc. Through it all I think “Lord….is this ‘really’ where you intended me to be? For real?” I had a Murphy’s Law day today, sounds like you did too…but know what? We’re women, we’ve got it goin’ on, Christ loves and adores us, and no matter what satan throws in our paths to trip us up? Undelivered blinds and jerks, and drivers who don’t want to work and jerks??? We can do “all” things through Him….;). God Bless your day tomorrow…I’ll be praying it goes better 😉 cya!
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P.S. If you want a new career? We’re hiring 😉
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@triciaplumley – As tempting as it sounds, not sure I could handle the commute! LOL
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I sooo feel for you. It’s hard being a business owner and having to deal with dishonest customers and dishonest vendors. I’m glad you found out when you did.
We recently had a lady get mad because a month after we had repaired her computer it was acting up again. She called us even though it was still under warranty because she didn’t want to lose any of her files. Our tech tested her hard drive with diagnostics tools and it did not find any physical errors, so he repaired crosslinked files and told her if it happened again we’d need to do something else, but to try that for now. She wanted us to come back out to her house for free after she called HP and they told her her hard drive was bad. They weren’t physically there to check it, she probably lost her files when they had her run their “tests” and now she’s mad at us. She called the credit card company and told them she prepaid for the service and we never showed up. A complete LIE!!! They charged us back for the service and now I have to explain to them our side of the story and hope they give us our money back. Even if they do, it will still cost me $25 for the chargeback – they keep that regardless of who is right.
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@Iowa_Deb – Bless your heart. Shame on her for being so dishonest. You might want to consider adding some language to your service contract that says you won’t be responsible for damages caused by other service vendors for the duration of your contract period. In other words, if anyone else touches the machine physically or by telephone direction, you can’t be held responsible for what happens. It’s so sad that we have to cover our backsides to such an extreme because of other people’s dishonesty or plain lack of common sense.
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Ack! So glad it’s not a total loss and that you were able to recover those repaired blinds! Safely!
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I know the Holy Spirit sent you over there exactly then. Praise God you got those blinds back! Don’t you love it when God has our backs?
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Right or wrong, I do not feel guilty about not sending the manufacturer the balance because he did not feel guilty about leaving me in a very difficult position with my clients.
I don’t think it’s wrong at all. They created a huge headache for you, and you should be compensated.
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