Will doesn’t normally do walk-ins. As our founder and one of the best tattoo artists in the state, he is usually far to busy. But after a last minute reschedule due to an untimely death in the client’s family, and being short0staffed on what is typically a slow-ish day, Will put in a full shift of walk-ins on a Monday. Out of the 5 tattoos, Miss Brooklyn Dye was one who came in with her gentleman friend to get an eye in her elbow ditch. The gentleman wanted to get a name he’d gotten at a shop in Hendersonville touched up, and add a tribal bird to his shoulder. That just about where things stop being normal.
After doing Brooklyn’s tattoo (followed by comments of ‘this is the best tattoo I ever got’, and ‘we’re definitely coming back here’), Will stopped briefly to eat some sushi that had been delivered. You see, tattoo artists don’t have a set lunch time, so we have to eat when we can. As Will had been tattooing all day, and it was about 6:30 in the evening, he scarfed down a couple rolls while putting the finishing touches on Brooklyn’s buddy’s stencil. It’s at this point that they announce that they have to pick up their child from the sitter at 7:30 and they would like to schedule his appointment for another day.
A brief tangent here: It seemed a bit odd that they said they needed to leave, as Will had already informed them the tattoos would take until about 8pm to complete. We remember this because we had another couple come in to get tattooed about five minutes after this couple did, and they left without setting an appointment once they found out an artist wouldn’t be available until 8. Otherwise, we could probably have done their tattoo…
Nevertheless, we had them fill out a deposit slip, which informs all new clients of our deposit policies in case they try any funny business later (and boy DO they!), took an $80 deposit, which is deducted from the price of the scheduled piece, gave them a $100 discount from the price they were going to pay for having Will do the tattoo, as he charges significantly more than any other artist at the shop, and bid them adieu.
Here’s where the wheels fall off.
That Wednesday, the day of the guy’s (who shall go unnamed until he too tries to trash our business online) appointment, 12 minutes after the appointment was scheduled to begin, we get a phone call. It’s Brooklyn on the line and she lets us know she needs to reschedule the appointment.
Ahem.
If you are calling to reschedule your appointment AFTER the appointment was supposed to begin, that’s called MISSING your appointment, and you will most likely forfeit your deposit.
Funnier still: They actually weren’t going to have to forfeit their deposit you see, because Matt had inadvertently locked himself out of the shop while taking out some recently delivered boxes! It’s why we didn’t answer the phone, he was actually waiting outside for Will to bring him another key to the shop.
So what’s the problem you ask?
Well, Brooklyn called the shop the next day and tried to reschedule, we hadn’t checked our messages yet, so we had no idea why they hadn’t shown up, just that they didn’t. While on the phone with her we were trying got figure out if they could come in that evening or maybe if Matt could get them in some other day when Miss Brooklyn couldn’t keep her mouth shut. You see, Kelly had told her that missing an appointment means that she’d lose her deposit and Brooklyn couldn’t contain her frustration long enough for us to try and help her out so she got rude. As a matter of fact, she said that Will was being rude by eating in between tattoos and she decided to take a tone with Kelly that just wouldn’t do.
To whit: If our artists take the time to eat their food while it is fresh it isn’t being rude, it’s just being hungry. If you take offense at that, it’s probably your problem, not ours. It’s routine practice at tattoo shops across the land for artists to eat when they can, sometimes eating quickly in order to get to the next tattoo in a timely fashion. Will finished his meal in less than ten minutes.
We don’t owe you anything if you don’t show up on time for your appointment Brooklyn, but we would have gladly worked with you if you would have allowed us to do so. However, once you decide to personally attack one of us by calling us rude for eating, you’re done. Trying to hurt our business by calling your tattoo ‘fairly nice’ and trying to make it look like you’re doing us a favor by leaving us a 1-star review on Google (you can’t leave a 0 star review) all because you have poor time management skills, an entitlement mentality, and a general disdain for people who eat, well, that’s just being a Knucklehead. Enjoy, dummy!
