I am still a customer

This afternoon I got a phone call from a local bakery, THE local bakery if you ask some people, and I was thrilled. That is, I was thrilled until the caller started speaking.

Let me give you a little bit of what preceded this phone call:
As you know, I am putting on a show. My first real show, "An Altared Christmas LIVE" and to pay for my expenses, I have been selling ads in the program. Someone very close to me told me that the owners of this bakery, let's call them Dale and Jo, often advertise in performing arts programs like mine.

So I call up Dale's Bakery and leave a voice mail for the person in charge of donations. That was last week.
So I called up again a few days later and left a voice mail for the person in charge of donations. Still no response.

So today, when I was in Dale's Bakery buying $80 worth of fruitcake for my upcoming show, I asked if this woman was in.
No, but I could leave her a note.

So I did. I explained that I had left 3 messages, and that I was a very good friend of someone who if really good friends with Dale and Jo, that I was putting on a show, and that I would appreciate a phone call back.

I was careful not to say anything about how I thought it was not very good business to not answer business calls in a timely manner. I didn't know if my messages might have been erased by accident, as that is apt to happen from time to time.

I also tried to stick to the facts - how many times I called, who I was, and what I wanted.

So here the phone rings this afternoon, and when I hear it is so and so from Dale's Bakery, I am excited!
WRONG!!!!

"I didn't appreciate your note at all!" was the response. "You called TWICE - I have the saved voice messages to prove it. Once last Thursday, and once on ... We get 50 calls a day for donations and we don't donate to shows like yours. Only to non-profits."

"I am so sorry, " I beg. " I didn't mean to have an attitude. I was just trying to explain..."

"Well, your note DID have attitude. I just have to be honest with how I feel."

So that was my phone call this afternoon. I tried to behave politely, and we ended the conversation nicely - she got to vent about how busy she was, and I begged forgiveness for something I didn't really do.

Now, a few hours later, after a very nice gig at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center, I come home to wind down a bit before retiring.

You know what I think, to be "honest"?

FUCK THAT SHIT!
I am a customer. I have been buying coffee and breakfast at that bakery for 20+ years! I call on their published phone number, enter the extension for the person in charge of donations, and after nearly a week of unreturned phone calls, I leave a decently polite note asking for a call back.

She reads the note, checks her voice mail records, and calls me back. Not to do her job, but to scold me for my note and to complain about how busy she is and how many requests they get for donations.

You know what? I don't care! Perhaps if her message stated that it would take time to respond, or if she called and said that she was busy and would get back to me, or several other professional responses - that would have been good for both of us, and for the reputation of the business she was hired to represent.

Yes, I am a customer, and the last time I checked - I was the most important part of a business! I and my family, my friends, and everyone on my email list, are the most important people to their business, and though I don't really think they should kiss my ass, I DO think they should kiss my ass.

I spent more today on fruitcake that I should have. I could have gone to Costco, spent $20 and no one would have noticed the difference. I did it because I wanted to support a local business. I didn't do it because I wanted them to buy an ad, though it would have been nice.

No. I am a customer, yet I was treated like I was some irritating sore on this woman's work day. Not good for business, I must say. It will be a long time before I drive all the way across town with my mom and sister to Capitola, past The Buttery and countless other places that have wonderful baked goods, just to be another number at Dale's Bakery.

I just had to be honest.