Tag flakiness

The Hot and Cold Man

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About a month ago, I went on a date with a man I will call Oliver. We started out with drinks, and as the evening progressed, we had a nice dinner, all the while enjoying stimulating conversation. I was actually excited about the prospect of seeing him again. Then one of my 14 year old cats became ill and died within several days, and my attention was diverted away from Oliver. I was very honest with him and told him I needed the weekend to process the death of my beloved cat, but he was insistent and kept pressuring me to pay attention to him, which only aggravated me. He finally backed off, and I contacted him at the beginning of the following week. We exchanged some nice sentiments via text, and I let him know that I was open to seeing him again.

About ten days passed without a peep from Oliver, so I contacted him to say hello. He informed me that his mother was ill with pneumonia, and that he had been at her home taking care of her. I expressed my wishes for his mother’s recovery, and told him to let me know when he was available. I heard from him three days later, on a Thursday, when he sent me this text:

I want to make it up to you because I like you and I feel that there’s a good connection between us. So please consider this, if you have any time over the weekend, I would love to see you over the weekend if not the beginning of the week. Give us a chance, OK? I will make it up to you Stacey.

Oliver ghosted me for another ten days, then suddenly popped up with text messages like, “I want to marry you”. It was as if he was incapable of exhibiting consistent behavior, which was a major turn-off for me. One morning, he asked me to give him a day on which we could have a second date, so I accommodated his request. Just as I expected, he completely ghosted me on the day he had selected for our second date, so I gave him a piece of my mind via text and blocked the jerk.

Are there any decent men out there anymore?

Why I Don’t Trust Web Designers

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I have yet to find a web designer who isn’t flaky. Over the last eight years, I have dealt with a number of so-called web designers, and every single one of them delivered their own brand of craziness which dissolved our business relationship and left me hanging. Seriously, they can’t ALL be like this, right?

There was the gal who wouldn’t load up information for months on end, but had no problem billing me when the yearly hosting renewal approached. Never mind that I asked her to complete the work which she had neglected to do, before I would sign up for another year. When she refused, I refused. Then she charged my credit card anyway, changed all my passwords to MY website, and told me I had to pay a cancellation fee on top of the yearly renewal, and that I would never get the passwords. So I fired her.

Then there was the exuberant guy who seemed so excited to revamp my website. He begged me to let him work on revamping it. He ended up dismantling my site, literally sat in front of my during a meeting at a coffeehouse and said, “Oh shit, this isn’t good”, then completely bailed on me and wouldn’t respond to voicemail messages or texts. Fired.

Then there was the guy who generously offered to set up a landing page for me. I was so happy with his work that I inquired about his services for my medical website. He gave me his rate, and I agreed to it. As a courtesy, I informed him of when I would get paid (payday was eight days away, and I was planning to send him payment in full at that time). He flipped out, said that I needed to pay him RIGHT NOW, then wrote me a four page essay on how his best friend had suddenly died, how much he hated life, and how he no longer felt that life was worth living. Fired.

The next guy did a bang up job of consolidating sites and using an eye-catching template, but then he sat on work which he promised to do, left things unfinished. I kept getting a different story as to why he was dragging his feet. it was always, “so sorry, I’ll get to it tomorrow.” Tomorrow would come, and nothing would be done. Then he pulled a bait and switch and said that if I wanted him to finish the work which he had promised to do for over a month, he said he would have to charge me extra. He actually got nasty about it. Fired.

The last web guy I dealt with promised to give me an outline of all the things he was planning to fix on one of my sites, and insisted that I wait to pay him. Days turned into weeks, and when I realized I might have to prompt him a bit, I sent him an email inquiring about the status of my website. I got a response in which he apologized and said he was overwhelmed and simply lacked the time to work on my site (so why the f&#% did he take on the assignment in the first place?). Technically he quit.

I am sick and tired of web designers. They do whatever they want with your site, and if you don’t like the way they have done it, they’ll argue with you about why their vision is so much better than what YOU want. They sit on work, and how dare you even ask them about the status of the work. Some will even hold your site hostage and prevent you from accessing what is rightfully yours.

I am back at the helm with my websites, with FULL CONTROL over them. If I want to add something, I know I can rely on myself to do it. I have experienced major learning curves to master all the different interfaces, platforms and mapping, and am damned proud of myself for figuring it out.

Not Holding My Breath For You!

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unreliable people

When I was younger, I would go out of my way to accommodate other people’s requests, and always believed them when they promised to follow up with me. Then, when no follow up call came, I would always blame myself, as if I had any control over another human being. Nowadays, I automatically assume that nothing is set in stone until the appointment is booked and the person shows up, the deposit is paid (if a business transaction is to take place), the contract is signed, etc. I certainly have learned my lesson over the years and would rather have no expectations and then be pleasantly surprised when someone with integrity whose word is reliable comes through.

The no-expectations attitude which I have adopted has definitely helped me deal with people in the fitness and entertainment industries, both of which seem to attract some of the flakiest people on the planet. The more grandiose the ideas and promises made by someone I am just meeting for the first time, the more I suspect that their words are simply verbal diarrhea, so I just tune them out.

I now de-prioritize all individuals who fail to call when they are supposed to, who fail to respond to reasonable and friendly follow-up requests, or who offer some bullshit excuse about how things are still “in the works” and how my patience would be appreciated. I have done business with too many people who are complete flakes, and I am DONE. It isn’t MY job to follow up with them, and I am sick of the aggravation. My message to all of them is to put on grown-up pants and show some respect and some initiative!

In keeping with having to deal with unreliable and unprofessional people, I refuse to suggest ideas or offer information without a written contract in place. I also will not provide a service unless it is paid for at the time of services rendered. And no, I do not accept checks.

What frustrates me is that I still find myself wondering what it is that I did to cause this person to ignore me, yet I know how unhealthy such notions are. I can’t take it personally. The best thing to do is to brush the negative experience aside and move on.