A Classic "What I Ordered Versus What I Got" Tale .

It pisses me off when people claim they can do what they know they absolutely can’t do and then go ahead to underdeliver. Usually, the signs are there but we sometimes choose to ignore these signs and in the end, we are filled with a bountiful amount of regrets. It has been a while since my last rant post and I feel like I need to vent out in one way or another. What better way to do that than on a post?

My brand's logo

I've heard about a lot of “what I ordered versus what I got” situations and while most of them are hilarious the others are usually annoying. Sadly, I found myself in one of the annoying situations.

Last month, I messaged one of the expert graphic designers I know and asked for a brand logo design. We discussed what I wanted, how I wanted the logo to look and the colours I preferred the logo in and soon after, he got to work.

The initial aim of getting this logo was to imprint it on leather cloth tags which I will be using for my crochet outfits; branding of some sort. I was really thrilled when I got about ten different logos to pick from. Mentally, I thought, one major part down, a thousand to go.

After the graphic designer did some touching up on the final design I chose, he recommended a friend of his who could imprint the design on a leather cloth tag material, just the way I wanted. This was a relief to me because I didn't know anyone who offered such services. So, we fixed a date to visit the ‘custom personnel’. On the said day, we arrived at the shop and the owner of the shop and original custom personnel(*Let's call him Jack *) wasn't available but a co-owner of the shop was present. In a split second, I thought to myself “what could possibly go wrong? This fellow is the co-owner of the shop and should have some expertise up his sleeves.”

What I ordered

So, we told the co-owner(Let’s call him Peter) about the project at hand, showed him video samples of how the end product was supposed to look and asked if he was certain he could replicate the design. He gave a very thunderous ‘Yes’. I wasn't convinced and asked for a sample of a previous cloth tag he made and the response he gave was “we do not keep samples but I know what you want and I can give it to you”. He sounded quite confident and so we discussed the price for each leather cloth tag, set the pick up date and he assured me that I wasn't going to be disappointed.

On the very first pick up date –emphasis on first because they were subsequent pick up days– I arrived at the place and Peter gave a story of how his phone crashed and couldn't even load any image. This story seemed made up but since he was handling a button phone in contrast to the one we saw him with the first day, coupled with the fact that crazy and unexpected things can happen to electronic devices at any time, I let it slide. He gave us another pick up date and promised that we were going to get it that very day.

The next time, we went and he was nowhere to be found. We tried all of the numbers he gave to us and none of them went through. By this time, it had already been over a week and I was getting really agitated. The transportation fee I kept paying to his shop each time and the constant excuses became very unbearable. After trying his line to no avail, I paid my way back home and twenty minutes after I arrived home, I got a call from him asking me to come back to the shop.

For him to ask me to return to the shop meant he was probably done right? No, he wasn't! I went back and he hadn't done anything. His reason for asking me to return to the shop was “to get the size for the leather cloth tag.” And you couldn't fluffing ask me for that information the very first day? Or even over the phone? Also, how was I supposed to pick up a thing you hadn't even made?

At this point, I was at the verge of losing it. I was so annoyed but still returned the next day for the cloth tags and what did I get? Inferior, plastic tags. One swipe on this tag and all of the colour would be wiped out.

What I got

I stood there for about a minute, wondering what I had done to myself. What led me here in the first place? The bad news was I had already paid for his services because he insisted that I part-paid before he got to work. “This is not what I ordered for, sir.” were the only words that managed to come out of my mouth and Peter stood there and gave me a whole epistle of how good plastic tags are, how it would last long and how my clients would love it.

I wondered how clients would love something that was already fading without it being washed. Personally, as a client, if I ordered a crochet wear and such a tag was attached to my dress, I would never purchase anything from that vendor. Why? Because the vendor clearly knows nothing about quality.

To avoid getting into a verbal back and forth with a person who clearly had nothing more to offer, I carried the 25 tags that cost me over $10 dollars to make and took the next bus home. Staring at these tags at home, I fought back tears because what? What the actual heck.

A few hours later, I called a friend who has been into the commercial crochet business for years, to narrate my plight and after seeing the plastic tags, she said “do not pursue your clients with an inferior cloth tag. Re-strategize and get something else.” She went ahead to show me some designs I could go for and I couldn't be more grateful to have her as a friend.

It took me a few days to scribble down this rant because I know that if I wrote this post on the same day the unfortunate predicament happened, the anger would have been felt from my words. Fast forward to a few days later, I've regained my sanity and I'm able to look at the so-called cloth tags without feeling any form of anger or pain. As a creative person, maybe someday in the future, I would come up with a genius idea to upcycle the tags but for now, they are sitting pretty in the top right corner of my bookshelf.

---

---

^{Images used belong to me except stated otherwise.}

---

LIEBE🤍

Posted Using INLEO