I am about to explode.

I will give the brief background.

A local church (all black, sadly this is relevant), came to us to make their dedication yearbooks. First, this is not what we typically do. Our industry is CD & DVD. But we CAN do it, and back when we were a smaller company we did a lot of local stuff. So, we take the job since it's a local church.

First, their artwork was a nightmare. Our graphic artists (who normally spend 5 minutes lining up customer artwork onto our templates) had to spend over 8 working hours on their project. We did NOT charge them extra for this. We set up meetings and met with their committee to get everything right. We delivered the proofs (they are suppose to pick them up, but they were 'busy')...TWICE.

She called me every hour on the hour for weeks while our artists were fixing it. They had a deadline of Dec.9. I ALWAYS called her back, even though she just always wanted to complain about how long it was taking. We took a while trying to fix THEIR problems for them, since they didn't know what they were doing to begin with. But we promised we would make their deadline.

We did, they got it in time. They still owe us about 40 bucks for a page they had to fix after we started printing the job.

So anyway... I e-mailed her the other day, said hope your holidays are good and yadda yadda, we never got the $40, if you could let me know how you'd like to pay that.

All of a sudden no response from her. We figured we'd write off the $40, this is why we make everyone pre-pay.

Well I wrote her again this morning, I POLITELY said I haven't heard from her, just checking the status of the payment. Thanks so much!

And this is what I get back.................

You have treated us like second class citizens throughout this entire process. Perhaps you're not accustomed or don't even like working with minorities? Perhaps our job was too small for you and didn't warrant superior customer service? Whatever the reason, your customer service and how you treated us was unwarranted and unappreciated.

Again, you will definitely get your money this week.

OMFG. 1. That is COMPLETELY offensive to me 2. We went above and beyond and I am just SHOCKED that I got any kind of negative e-mail.

I am so mad I can't stand it. I want to slap her. We did so much for them, and this is their response?????? Thanks to them, we're not doing any more local work. The CEO is offended, and they're sending her an e-mail personally.

The race card gets old, give me a fucking break. :angry

And so you know my response.. I wanted to blow up and get angry with her.

This was my e-mail back..

That is an extremely offensive e-mail, and I’m sorry that you feel that way.

You may mail the check.

Have a happy holidays

That burns me. I'd be tempted to have the CEO write a letter to her boss, detailing the offensive email and then going through every. single. item. that you guys did for them that you didn't have to do. And then I'd sum it up by telling them to take their business elsewhere after this order is finished, that you no longer need it.

Her response was inappropraite and I would have escalated as well. It makes you wonder what she's perceiving that could give her that impression. I think that people used to being persecuted for <reason> (or hearing they will be, even if they haven't personally experienced it) either tend to assume that anything negative toward them is because of <reason>, or actually have a horrible self-fulfilling prophecy in that they will assume it's for <reason>. It doesn't have to be race. Look around here - we see a lot of "...because I'm fat" posts, even with things that aren't directly stemming from being fat.

I say directly because many things could certainly be indirect - e.g. someone gets a chip on their shoulder, that changes their attitude toward others, others now react differently, others are now accused of acting differently because of <reason>.

Twice I have had race used against me, and in opposite ways (one was for standing up for a group of black ppl, and one was being accused of racism). Pissed me off at the time, but looking back - how sad. One of the times, I managed a group that was probably 90% black, 5% Hispanic, 5% white. After more tardies, absences, numerous customer complaints, violations of the dress code, insubordination, etc. than I could excuse, I had to fire one of the black workers. It could just have easily been one of the white workers or one of the Hispanic workers, it just didn't work out that way. Our process included a meeting with HR, and when we met, he made the claim that I was firing him because he was black, I was racist, and was persecuting him because he was black. The HR lady asked him to substantiate this and he said "She hasn't fired any of the white people."

Her response was inappropraite and I would have escalated as well. It makes you wonder what she's perceiving that could give her that impression. I think that people used to being persecuted for <reason> (or hearing they will be, even if they haven't personally experienced it) either tend to assume that anything negative toward them is because of <reason>, or actually have a horrible self-fulfilling prophecy in that they will assume it's for <reason>. It doesn't have to be race. Look around here - we see a lot of "...because I'm fat" posts, even with things that aren't directly stemming from being fat.

I say directly because many things could certainly be indirect - e.g. someone gets a chip on their shoulder, that changes their attitude toward others, others now react differently, others are now accused of acting differently because of <reason>.

Twice I have had race used against me, and in opposite ways (one was for standing up for a group of black ppl, and one was being accused of racism). Pissed me off at the time, but looking back - how sad. One of the times, I managed a group that was probably 90% black, 5% Hispanic, 5% white. After more tardies, absences, numerous customer complaints, violations of the dress code, insubordination, etc. than I could excuse, I had to fire one of the black workers. It could just have easily been one of the white workers or one of the Hispanic workers, it just didn't work out that way. Our process included a meeting with HR, and when we met, he made the claim that I was firing him because he was black, I was racist, and was persecuting him because he was black. The HR lady asked him to substantiate this and he said "She hasn't fired any of the white people."

I agree. Someone people will come up for excuses for anything and this one happened to be black. There are tons of isms in the world: racism, sexism, ageism, whateverism. I have heard them all used.

One of my older coworkers (early 60s) told me she wasn't promoted because she was old and that she wouldn't leave the company b/c she wouldn't be able to find other job due to her age. There are ageist (is that a word) people in the world, but I just think it's b/c no one likes her.

i mostly feel sorry for people like this. It must be hard to have to carry around with you all the past offenses that an entire race experienced. What a heavy load. Meanwhile I had a friend who had a lower GPA and lower ACT scores and same extra activites as me, difference between us..Im white, shes black..She got accepted to a better school that we both applied to..I always thought it was a race thing. But thats ok. I am glad I dont feel guilty or responsible for things that occur to people the same color as me in the past. And Im also glad that MOST people are responsible and sensible to realize that not everything is about color anymore. Maybe one of these these holdouts from an old way of thinking will finally accept that many people see people, not color. Until then, just feel sorry for them. Its all you can do

Here's the "glass half full" view of this: at least the church members said they would mail your check for the $40!!!

i mostly feel sorry for people like this. It must be hard to have to carry around with you all the past offenses that an entire race experienced. What a heavy load. Meanwhile I had a friend who had a lower GPA and lower ACT scores and same extra activites as me, difference between us..Im white, shes black..She got accepted to a better school that we both applied to..I always thought it was a race thing. But thats ok. I am glad I dont feel guilty or responsible for things that occur to people the same color as me in the past. And Im also glad that MOST people are responsible and sensible to realize that not everything is about color anymore. Maybe one of these these holdouts from an old way of thinking will finally accept that many people see people, not color. Until then, just feel sorry for them. Its all you can do

It sounds like you are pulling the race card. It's easier to pull the race card than say you didn't get in.

College admissions isn't as cut and dry as grades and scores. They look specifically at the courses you take, letters of recommendations, college essays, teacher recommendations, extracurriculular activities, athletics, honors, awards. You can't just met the basic requirements to apply. They want you to take honors, academic placement, college prep classes, etc.

I got into 2 out of the 3 schools I applied too. I just feel that was meant and it was there loss.

Just an update, I got this last night.

After deliberation with the CEO, we think it's best not to respond. Anyone ever watch I Love NewYork? This lady reminds me of Sister Patterson. Plays the victim, makes up stories in their head, and no matter how much you try to reason, you can never win.

She told us to call and confirm delivery, at 9:45 we started calling her on the number she provided. She never did answer. At 10:40 I told our delivery guy to go ahead and deliver and we'll hope someone is there. Prior to this I told her it would be a 'window of time' because he makes a lot of deliveries and we can't pinpoint an exact time.

About the artists, we have 4-color presses, and her 'professional graphic artists' did the entire book.. in POWERPOINT. If you know ANYTHING about anything in graphics, you know PowerPoint is NOT A GRAPHICS PROGRAM. So *we* had to add bleed, we had to resize everything, we had to convert all her RGB to CMYK (which we told them well in advance to make it CMYK). The graphics were well under 150dpi (we told them we needed 300dpi). So.. their 'professional graphic artists', which were volunteers from the church.. were NOT professional graphic artists, so get over it. All we kept saying is, "This is not going to print good, xyz should happen to get the quality better". And they took offense.. because they're professional with their Powerpoint.

Just wanted to vent to you guys, this is a unique situation to me, and I'm appalled... and I'm not going to lose anymore sleep over this!!

CEO said we should send all of this to the pastor and let them see what she's doing, and I think someone here (or maybe DH) mentioned that too. But I'm going to be the bigger person.

The truth is sometimes not very pleasant. However, it is what it is. We wouldn't dare not pay you guys $40 and you should have figured out that if I had not responded to you, there must have been some reason that I had not. Indian Creek has a very long history and is highly regarded in this community. However, every detail of the service that you guys provided to us was inferior, including you all being over 2 hours late delivering the journals despite the fact you specifically told me 10:00 a.m., not to mention the fact of you saying Greg and Jannifer's work was not professional quality. So, if you want to talk about offensive, look at your own actions and then go from there.

Just an update, I got this last night.

After deliberation with the CEO, we think it's best not to respond. Anyone ever watch I Love NewYork? This lady reminds me of Sister Patterson. Plays the victim, makes up stories in their head, and no matter how much you try to reason, you can never win.

She told us to call and confirm delivery, at 9:45 we started calling her on the number she provided. She never did answer. At 10:40 I told our delivery guy to go ahead and deliver and we'll hope someone is there. Prior to this I told her it would be a 'window of time' because he makes a lot of deliveries and we can't pinpoint an exact time.

About the artists, we have 4-color presses, and her 'professional graphic artists' did the entire book.. in POWERPOINT. If you know ANYTHING about anything in graphics, you know PowerPoint is NOT A GRAPHICS PROGRAM. So *we* had to add bleed, we had to resize everything, we had to convert all her RGB to CMYK (which we told them well in advance to make it CMYK). The graphics were well under 150dpi (we told them we needed 300dpi). So.. their 'professional graphic artists', which were volunteers from the church.. were NOT professional graphic artists, so get over it. All we kept saying is, "This is not going to print good, xyz should happen to get the quality better". And they took offense.. because they're professional with their Powerpoint.

Just wanted to vent to you guys, this is a unique situation to me, and I'm appalled... and I'm not going to lose anymore sleep over this!!

CEO said we should send all of this to the pastor and let them see what she's doing, and I think someone here (or maybe DH) mentioned that too. But I'm going to be the bigger person.

The truth is sometimes not very pleasant. However, it is what it is. We wouldn't dare not pay you guys $40 and you should have figured out that if I had not responded to you, there must have been some reason that I had not. Indian Creek has a very long history and is highly regarded in this community. However, every detail of the service that you guys provided to us was inferior, including you all being over 2 hours late delivering the journals despite the fact you specifically told me 10:00 a.m., not to mention the fact of you saying Greg and Jannifer's work was not professional quality. So, if you want to talk about offensive, look at your own actions and then go from there.

Ooh, I'm pissed FOR you. I would fire back an email, since it's obvious they aren't going to be your customers any longer, anyway. Detail every thing that you guys did that went above and beyond and detail every thing that they failed to do.

I think the real lesson to take from this is that if people don't meet your requirements for printing, refuse the job, or tell them what the cost will be to fix their stuff.

I don't know if anyone took the time to explain to these people that powerpoint just isn't going to print the way they want it to. I've had to explain similar issues to people where I work. Eventually I want to freelance, and this story will help re-enforce the idea that I need to be careful about 'free extras' like this.

I'm sorry this got pulled on you. It's always the most offensive when you know you aren't that kind of person.

Over $40, what a shame . Go figure!

That's when I say (from your end): Look, here's $40. Take it and go away. It's worth it to not have to deal with you.

That lady could definitely benefit from a professional communications course. You don't start an email that way unless you're trying to cut.

How dare you not do all of that "inferior" work for free!

Sounds like they are a bunch of deadbeats.