Monday 8 October 2007

Let down

I worked late on Friday night to avoid coming to work over the weekend and because I had an order to complete for Sunday. My graphic designer who has become a friend is a rugby coach and had wanted some waterproof jackets for the coaches, they required a standard left hand breast embroidered logo and printing on the back, now I don't do printing but I do have another colleague who does. The jackets were dropped at the printer at 6.30 on Friday night and the graphic designer was collecting them on Saturday directly from the printer. Easy. Job done. Of course not.

Saturday morning as I'm standing watching the last 15 minutes of my son's football game the printer phones to say the printing is not working, it won't stick. He believes because the jackets are waterproof. Bugger. So I call the graphic designer, the only solution is I check other printers (on Monday) but they may not then print just the odd 1 in the future should there be other coaches join or I embroider them. She suggests I go ahead and embroider them that very afternoon. This is all very well coming from the lady who works from home. But I had several reasons why I couldn't. The main reason being due to the size of the embroidery it would take approx 30 minutes for each jacket and there were 9, so 4.5 hours to complete the jackets. I had arranged to go into town after football to get my friend a very belated birthday present as she was having a small party that night. My friend would not have been offended had I explained the situation but my hubby was going straight to work after the football so I had two children to deal with. Two children who I was unwilling to take to the unit for hours, if it was a proper shop opposed to an industrial unit, where they could lounge in warmth and amuse themselves then fair enough. I could have got a babysitter, but that required a car to transport them and I knew hubby would be in a hurry to get to work so I had to say no, I don't think she was to impressed, I offered the jackets as they were and they could be embroidered at a later date, she said there was 'no point. ' They are now off for a couple of weekends so they will get them for the next time. Was I glad it was a lovely day yesterday, there was no need for warm, cosy, waterproof jackets. I assume she was glad too.

I wouldn't normally have said no, but the situations was all too much for me, made me feel stressed and subconsciously I must have known all was not well, by Saturday night after an afternoon in the town with the children and a relaxing late afternoon getting ready to go to my friends house I had a streaming cold, sore throat and felt miserable.

But still I feel I let her down.

6 comments:

dgibbs said...

Good for you. Better to know your limits and say NO when you need to. Hope you're feeling better soon.

Casdok said...

I ditto that.
Chin up!

She's like the wind said...

Thank you I appreciate your support and yes I am feeling better today, thanks.

Anonymous said...

I hate that feeling! I think that is one of the prime reasons I could never run my own business - living-up to the expectations of others can be such a huge burden! Thank goodness the weather was nice. Hope you are feeling better soon!

She's like the wind said...

Hi Driving.. thanks for coming over, nice to see you. I had a meltdown yesterday where I thought if I had to do it all again, leave a job and set up a business could I do it, I don't know if I could, but then I know all about it now!! And I'm so much better thanks x

Suzy said...

You can only do so much.

Boundaries my friend, boundaries.

XOXOX
Suzy