Crankiness

I had  too much crankiness in August.
Is it the heat?

I've been working with the new boss whose only flaw is no respect for my work schedule which she posted. She is constantly asking me to stay a couple more hours. Can I work this afternoon? Can I work tomorrow? Can I work all day today? Unplanned by me, in my job category, I can't really say "no".  It makes it difficult for me to take care of me.

Between my auto-immune and my other jobs, it makes life not fun. The last straw was her signing me up to work in another office even after I said no.

She technically can't make me work elsewhere if there is work in my home office but that did not stop her. I put a ka-bosh on that by filling out request after request for appointments at 2pm for the next two weeks. Hopefully she will get the message. There is only so many times you can tell the boss about the other job and your auto-immune.

She can budget at the end of every month because she knows when she is working and what her paycheck will be. Mine varies on the workload and is running about 20 hrs a week over 6 days. I run a pretty frugal budget on both time and money.

Does this make me frazzled?

Along with other 'stuff' in August, I'd just as soon forget that the month even exists.

1. Airplane down. Turned out to be a cheap condensor so that was good but it's been weeks since I flew and hubby knows I am way less cranky if I get some altitude from grave problems.
2. Hubby bought two more planes this summer. After we took an expensive European vacation.
3. My health was good right after vacation but slipped downhill fast after that. Still trying to find an even functionality.
4. Tiny bit of sewing a headband on a hat has left me craving the time to sew and create but between my tiredness and work schedule and the need ( in my head) to make more money - you can see the crankiness building here.
5. It was only hot in the middle of this month but I crave the 50' morning temps. Can't recover.
6. My blog, the place where I stay positive and healthy has been 'abandoned'.
7. I realize the extra crankiness is one of my auto-immune symptoms. If I keep working on 'healthy choices', this too will go away.
8. My yard suffered from 2.5 weeks away and  when the heat rose and my health dumped it got a tad out of control. The pressure to get to the weeds and the general end-of-summer clean-up is a lot of pressure. I have reached my usual place of being tired of watering and let it all do what it will.
9.My parents are getting old. My sister, who lives out-of-state put together what my other siblings were saying and we all need to put more effort into watching after them. My mom had a cat scan as a result and it appears she has suffered some small strokes which explain her short-term memory loss.
10. Trying to get photos off the Smarty pants phone has been resolved but another techno-challenge that led to crankiness.
11. I recently had a customer service problem with an order I placed for fabric and I was, frankly appalled, at what was offered to me in restitution and then was further made crazy by the end offer.


No thought had been put into their "what if the customer experiences a problem with their order?" policy.

W -- Fabrics is quitting the fabric business. They had a 30% off sale which I was happy to participate in. I ordered my fabric, two Stitch Magazines (30% off!!!) and a pattern. It was a good deal for which they charged  quite a bit for shipping. This is off the Etsy site where I acknowledge, there is a problem is predicting shipping based on customer's multiple purchases.

What I do with my Etsy site is quickly refund any excess shipping if it is more than $2 excess.
I didn't ask - bad point for me. I didn't know if they would ship in same package or multiple because of the different products.

My package came on Monday and inside were only the Stitch Magazines. No fabric or pattern. Just a note from the USPS that they found the contents floating around loose.
My shipment arrived in a $5.00 flat-rate envelope for which I was charged $18. {!}

So I e-mailed. Even if they had answered my e-mail on Tuesday, I could still re-order most of the fabric and the pattern.
I emailed every day.
Their Etsy site contact.
Their web site contact.
I called Thursday after finally finding a phone number but they were closed.

Friday afternoon is when they called back.

This is what W -- Fabrics wanted me to do. ME.
To call the USPS myself to track down the contents.
Then they blamed the USPS for manhandling their packages.
(they were shipping in the flimsy recycled-content flat-rate envelopes).

It appeared the package came open during processing (through the flap) and most of my order slithered out.

I work for the dang company and even I don't know how to track something that has fallen out of a package.

W -- Fabrics wanted me to find the rest of my order so they wouldn't have to give me a refund.

I educated W -- Fabrics on the padded flat-rate envelope (sturdier) which can be ordered free from the USPS website and then told them I shouldn't have to 'find' my order.

The call started going downhill and I admit to cumulative crankiness.

I reminded them that I started notifying them Monday and if they had responded quickly, most of my order could have been replaced. Now on Friday, I was out of luck as they were (whip out the excuse here) super busy filling orders right and left and my products were sold out.

They asked for and received two smarty pants phone photos of  what I received and after a ten-minute call decided they would refund me the entire amount.

Which I never asked them for. I just wanted a refund on my missing product and a break on the shipping.

But they never asked me -- THE CUSTOMER -- what I wanted.

I'm left unsatisfied by the whole interaction. The problem is un-resolved in my eyes. I'm still cranky about it today.

I recently had a pattern order go astray. Something I sent out. We waited about 10 days and then I automatically refunded the entire amount. But I will bet you she was vaguely dis-satisfied because I didn't ask her what she wanted either. I can't replace the item as it was one of a kind. {If it ever shows up, we will both be happy}.

I wanted to  put the question out there since so many of my friends sell online.
.
*Do you have a plan for customer problems?
*Are you asking what they want for resolution?
*Have you posted your 'problem' policy clearly?


Well - actually -- my customer wanted to wait a little longer in case it showed up. I just wanted to resolve the issue.

Maybe we all need to ponder this subject more.
I did not like the lack of response.
I did not like the cavalier way in which they placed the blame.
I did not like their poor packaging choice when there are other free products that work better.

I did not like being asked to find my order.

Chocolate is in order.    In large quantities.    Tea too.