Unprofessional People Can Bite It! by @DianthaJones
The following originally appeared on Diantha-Jones.com and is posted here with permission.
Okay. I've held my tongue long enough.
Several months ago, I approached Gabrielle Carolina from Mod Podge Bookshelf to design some bookmarks for me (through her outfit, Mod Podge Marketing). I had been following her blog for a time, and I really liked the feel of it so I decided to give her a try.
Big mistake on my part.
Let me say first of all, that she did a bang ass job on my bookmarks. They're beautiful. That ain't the problem. Her professionalism is.
From the beginning, communication was a big pain in the ass and I should have bailed right then. It usually took about 3 to 4 days (which eventually became 1 to 2 weeks) to get a response from her by email. Maybe I'm a bit spoiled, but that's unacceptable when I have a project that needs to be complete by a certain date. But I understand how busy life can get and I was trying to be understanding. But that only goes so far from a client standpoint. You offer a service, I pay for it, I expect timely results.
Like I said, the bookmarks came out beautifully and Gabrielle handled my changes and design demands well. Look how they turned out:
Like I said, beautiful. So why don't I have any bookmarks?
Here's what happened: I paid Gabrielle half of what she charged up front, which is typical and expected. No problems there. After the bookmarks were complete, Gabrielle inquired to know if I would be okay getting the bookmarks printed up myself. The bookmarks looked great, so I agreed and we considered my bill paid in full. However, when I tried to format the bookmarks for printing, they would not pass the print check because the files are too large. Even with resizing, they still wouldn't pass the check because they would have printed distorted. I had someone else try to get the files to pass before approaching Gabrielle again to either resize the files for printing and send them back to me, or send them actual design files so I could do it myself.
I have been trying for weeks now to get those files. My emails continue to go unanswered. I was supposed to have these bookmarks printed and in my hand by the first week in August so they could go out to my giveaway winners and bloggers who participated in my book blast for my blog tour (plus other things). My fuck up right there. Should have never promised something I didn't already have in my possession. Lesson learned. Won't happen again.
Nevertheless, this doesn't negate the fact that as a service provider, Gabrielle has not played her part very well either. I am a customer, and I'm not satisfied. In fact, I'm pissed the fuck off. She has my money and I don't have a product. If she is going to offer design services like this, she has to see the project through to completion. That means, until the time the client has their product in hand and is satisfied with it. That's how you do business. Any other way is unacceptable.
I can't express how frustrated and pissed off I am that I have to yet go out and spend money on another designer because these bookmarks are useless to me. I really don't like the fact that I had to call Gabrielle out on her unprofessionalism in a rant, because she seems like a really nice (and talented) person. But those be the breaks sometimes. Especially to unprofessional people.
I would just say that if any of you out there are in business for yourself (book-related or not), never forget to be professional first, and customer-focused second. Without those, you will fail. You lose credibility and increase the chances of ending up in rants like this. Hopefully, I won't have to write one of these again for a very long time.
Deuces.
I know, bear. Stop rubbing it in.
Diantha
