Just Another Unsatisfied Customer

As many of you very well know, I decided to leave the corporate world and work in a bakery because I often had thoughts about owning my own little bakeshop. I have begun to reconsider this plan. As hesitant as I am to announce that yet again I have come up with a new career path, I just want you all to know I have very valid reasons for reconsidering this move.

1. I miss weekends, 8-hour workdays, and working 5 days a week. I am tired-nay-exhausted, and I want my life back. I just don't know how long I can keep up my current level of "dedication."

2. I'm not a schmoozer. My boss Dana is always chatting away with the press and telling everyone about the bakery. I'm not forward enough to talk to strangers and tell them about how awesome my stuff is. (I guess that's what PR is for--hmmm. I could at least write my own press releases.)

3. I have HORRIBLE, terrible, beyond shabby customer service skills. In my world, the customer is hardly right. They are annoying, picky, and generally have zero creativity. (If I have to write a red inscription on another pink cake...).

Here's a story to illustrate how I deal with horrible customers:

We have customers from a certain ethnic group (not local Emirati) who feel they can get something for nothing. I've not had much contact with said ladies since Chef Aaron usually goes to speak with them about their issues. But when he took a little trip to New York, I had to deal with probably the worst customer I have ever had to talk to.

Early in the week I received an email stating thus:
"Request you to please confirm at the earliest if this cake can be made. (2 kgs)
Please do not put the picture on the cake - do let me know if you cannot draw some parts of the t-shirt."

And the sender posted a picture of a rather cool polo shirt that made me a little nervous. (posted above.) I was also a little confused by the email. I am not going to even pretend to know what size a 2 kg cake is. She also gave zero info about what flavor she wanted, how many people to serve...or what parts of the t-shirt she actually wanted on the cake. I shot off a quick email, and waited for a response. She never sent one so I called her. We discussed varying sizes and flavors, and she asked if we photocopy pictures for cake tops (we do not), and finally decided that she wanted a quarter-sheet chocolate cake with the ponies, stripe and #3. However, she was not willing to pay the minimum AED 450 for the cake. (I warned her that with the decoration, it would end up being around AED 550. She folded; too rich for her blood.

Two days later she calls back because no one else is willing to take the order. So we went back to the nitty-gritty of the order. She verified again that we don't do photocopies, and asked if the cake would have cake sleeves and a collar. I informed her that we do not do shaped cakes just circles or rectangles. She said that was fine, but wanted to again verify that we could do the ponies, stripe and number. Yes, of course. We settled on colors, flavors, and then the price. I was feeling so excited about the cake, and that added a layer of unnatural generosity on my part, I only charged her the minimum for decoration and gave her a 10% discount, so AED 405 ($110).

Here's my interpretation of what she wanted:

Close up of the pony sillhouete.

The full cake. I am not too proud of the three. It is a little tilted. I should have used a stencil to make it straighter. (P.S. Don't admire my drawing skills too much. I created a stencil for the polo scene.)

A while after I sent the cake off with our delivery driver, I received a phone call from a very angry customer. It was the cake-lady and she was p-i-s-s-e-d. Apparently this is not what she wanted. She wanted me to draw the entire t-shirt.

Really? She exclaimed that she told me to draw the t-shirt and that she wouldn't pay AED 450 for something she didn't ask for. I don't like being yelled at by a complete stranger over something that I worked pretty hard on, so immediately I got a little crabby at her. I re-read her email--NOWHERE does it state that she wants the t-shirt on the cake. Even in our phone conversation, after telling her that we don't do shaped cakes, she never said draw the entire t-shirt. She was always focused on the ponies, stripe and number.

After explaining that to her, she continued to yell. What did I do. I raised my voice right back at the ______ (insert favorite expletive for obnoxious females here). Yeah, so in most customer service oriented businesses, it is not a good idea to raise your voice at a customer. Even if she was TOTALLY and COMPLETELY in the wrong. I remembered that standard operating procedure, and continued to talk to her with my inside voice, albeit a curt, and snippy inside voice. I explained that it was a miscommunication on both sides (which she disagreed with whole-heartedly) and if I understood her instructions there was no way I would have only charged AED 450. With all those elements, I could easily charge AED 550 ($150). She was even more upset about that and ranted about going to Mr. Baker and getting a 5 kg cake for AED 300.
I nearly suggested that she go to Mr. Baker instead, but I stayed quiet.

Now she didn't want the cake, and what was I going to do about it. I said, "If you don't want the cake, send it back." (Code for: you don't deserve that cake _____ (alternate defamatory word)!! Go to #*$#*& and #$#$*&# off!) I had to use code because if I actually said those things to her, she could have had me put in jail for as long as she wanted. Seriously.

In a huff, she hung up the phone and the disappointed cake made a sad journey back to the bakery. We scraped off the message in hopes that someone would buy it, but it didn't happen.

After my unproductive conversation with that lady, and a minor meltdown, I was able to clear my head a little and I finally realized what she really wanted me to do. She was simply trying to get another discount from me. This has happened on other occasions when other members of that certain ethnic group leave out a detail or two about their overly-designed cake plans just so they can complain and request a discount to counter the "shoddy" craftmanship. I was a little upset that I could have easily knocked a few dirhams off the price to avoid the whole scene. However, I was also pretty pleased that I didn't give in to evil plot. Her plan didn't work; she has no cake for the birthday party. Look who's crying now _____ (you know what to add).

It is true, I made a bit of a mistake on the order. I should have asked more questions about the design. But seriously, is the cake so bad that I need to turn myself into the CakeWreck blog?

I didn't think so.