Well, folks, it's that time again - time for me to deny jackasses any more of my mental real estate.
It used to really mess up my day when people would fail to read item listings and shipping/handling info before ordering and then file a dispute or leave crappy feedback because they were oblivious to what they signed up for by ordering something from me.
But sadly, there are lots of folks like that, and I eventually decided that life was too short to have a messed up day because of them.
So now when I’m forced to deal with one, I have a tiny little party for my customers that *don’t* suck instead.
Somebody decided to take a page out of Glenn the Frizzled Bantam's handbook and get their tetchy asses disinvited from the party... but only after making me drop everything else when they basically decided to force-jump the queue and make me jump through hoops they created due to their inability to read shop policies, follow directions, and calm the everloving hell down.
Well, my strategy for this these days is to instead celebrate and thank the customers and clients I have who aren't jackasses and who understand that I'm a human being and not a spiritual vending machine - and that the way things work these days, what with wars and pandemics and supply chains and gas prices and climate stuff and everything, is a good bit more complicated, and often a good bit slower, than it used to be just three years ago.
Then there's the added layer of my going to Louisiana at the end of the month to set up a "field office" and basically set into motion some significant changes, which increases the chaos for a minute, it's true, but with a definite and direct short-term goal of ultimately permanently reducing some of the chaos. I realize I'm kind of vaguebooking here, but it's not for its own sake. It's because I don't want to go the TMI route with my personal life or whatever. Suffice it for now to say that it's been an incredibly long, slow climb out of the giant mess that was my life in 2015, and it has not all gone smoothly or been easy.
But I have gotten my feet under me a little bit, anyway - enough to be able to say "I *can* do this" and right on its heels "but I am not currently doing it *the way I want to do it* and it's time to take action to prioritize remedying that and to put my business, research, practice, and clients and customers first." (The place in Louisiana is called Haphazard and it's gonna be almost monastic compared to Seraphin Station - far fewer things to hijack my time and attention span.)
And I'm talking specifically about things like my having had a backlog for so long and my having so much trouble managing my brain cooties and challenges with executive function, and so my clients are not getting the consistent level of service from me that I want to give them, I never have time to write, and I've made glacial progress with product development and launching new offerings. (Apparently ADHD getting hella worse in midlife is a real thing for women - it's that pesky estrogen. I know it's a problem. That's why I decided I needed an assistant and organizing systems that made sense to someone besides just me with my specific set of brain cooties.)
I *can* do this. And I can definitely do it better than I have been. It's time for some assessment and focus shifts, and to defend my time strenuously, if necessary, so that there is enough of it to do the most important things.
So if you’re a customer or potential customer who reads listings and policies and isn’t going to pester me with questions you were already provided the answer to – in short, if you’re not a jackass – then you can use coupon code NOTANASS1022 at checkout to get 15% off your order.
It's also time to get rid of things I don't love and figure out an alternative.
Among other things, that means sorting, inventorying, reorganizing, and paring down in some cases.
So in addition to the No Jackasses sale going on for the next week, I will also be doing some other stuff:
- Listing a bunch of stuff that I haven't gotten around to listing yet, including some new formulas.
- For one-of-a-kind pieces like rosaries and chaplets, I will in some cases probably just post them to social media, rationale being the more steps required for me to finish something, the greater the likelihood that something will happen before I finish it and it becomes another Unfinished Thing/Open Browser Tab. So keep an eye on Instagram/Facebook for this type of thing.
- Sale prices on some herbs I have more of than I need for now. These will be announced as I manage to list them.
- Some probably completely random social media/blog giveaways, probably with short-ish fuses.
If you're not already a customer but you were thinking about trying out some of my stuff, well, you're absolutely welcome to as well, just as long as you're not a jackass :) That means treat Sonia right, read the item listings and terms of service, and get familiar with my shipping and handling processes before you place an order :) I post them all over the place so nobody will be unpleasantly surprised, because I want you to love what you get from my shop. And if you value personal attention to your work and the creation and shipping of your stuff, I think you will, and I'll love having had the chance to provide you with some cool and useful stuff I made and packaged up with my own two hands :)