At my business we have lots of customers, some big, some small. Some are laid-back. Some are uptight. Some are constantly in a panic. Some plan ahead.

And there are some combinations I can take. We do work for a major North American drill company, and they’re almost constantly in a rush to get things done - but we can deal with that because 1) they have volume, 2) they pay their bills, and 3) their salesman is a nice guy who we like.

We do work for some gigantic automotive companies in Ontario. Some of them - from the same group of companies, mind you - plan ahead and keep stock in their commonly used tools. Others - again, from the same group - use us for quicky spot buys. But for me, this isn’t a problem, because these are major accounts that we need to do good work for in order to carve out our piece of the Ontario market.

But we also do business with these little tiny shops that frankly only exist because of their legacy customers or because they can provide some service that the big boys can’t. Some of these tiny little companies are a pleasure to do business with: we service a client just down the road from us. He owns a tiny little tool and die shop and walks down to see us every once in a while with an oddball tool. Really nice guy, pays his bills, all that jazz. The sort of guy that I’ll do a special request for every once in a while because he’s a friend.

However, there’s always two or three shops that just don’t understand anything about business. The owner - usually - will walk in here and ask if we can do his tools the same day. No? Then next day? No, then this week before the weekend? And these people literally get mad that there are other customers in front of them, or that their tools are more complicated than they think.

Today I had a guy walk in here and cancel an order we had been working on yesterday and today because - get this - we hadn’t done his tool in one day. He got mad, told me he could do it himself in an hour, asked why the tool hadn’t been done overnight, and eventually stormed out after I explained that when I say to him “I’ll try to get your tool done faster than normal, but I don’t know if it’s possible… so call ahead before you come to pick up,” it doesn’t mean, “why yes, we’d absolutely love to do your tool now… in fact, all these endmills you see piled up around you are a mere facade to convince you we’re busy when in fact we’ve been waiting to jump on your order like hyenas on a rotting gnu carcass!”

Now of course, I was as gracious as I could be, but after he had stormed out, I put him on hold. That’s the sort of aggrevation I don’t need to deal with, nor does anyone else. I may be bearing the brunt of his rage, but it affects not only the people who run the tools - I have to bother them a lot more, then - but also the other more important customers who also need tools done in a hurry, not to mention our poor secretaries who can only stare in abject astonishment at the man’s assholery.

Tags: employment, personal