Entries tagged with this is my life

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(no subject)

I got over having that sadness for no reason a couple weeks ago and was doing better for a bit, but then a couple days ago got knocked over by it again.

And just in time for family to start REALLY pushing a lot of buttons since yesterday morning.

Pushing them hard enough that I'm too pissed and upset about it to even write it out and post it.

I know a few followers are entertained by family shit and the way I present it but it ain't coming out nicely 😂

It's nothing that horrible. It's just coming on top of other things, and I've had two days of NOTHING going right at all.

It's very frustrating.

It feels like every single thing I try to accomplish gets screwed up so badly that it takes no less than three times as long as it should to take care of it and every one of them also creates new problems in the meantime 😭

Not sleeping as well because of it, so that doesn't help. I usually run on around 5 hours a night, but lately it's 2 hours at night and an hour nap when I conk out sometime during the day.

But the family and businesses are up during the day, so when I'm trying to nap, they're calling and texting with situations they've created and want me to fix.

It doesn't help that I'm still doing the counseling thing and more shit is hitting me hard recently.

So I'm overtired, grouchy, and still realizing just how many anger issues I have when I thought I wasn't an angry person (when you're not allowed to show anger as a kid/teen it doesn't mean it goes away, you idiot).

People I know being shitty around me or to me IRL and online is just really testing that "never loses it on anybody" thing I've got going. I need a babysitter for my life so I can take a 2-day nap.

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I'm way too grouchy today.

I lost $900 today because my family STILL won't double check things.

When I first got covid, I was REALLY sick, and they knew it. My brain wasn't functioning right (still isn't but it's better than it was) and I wasn't double checking out-of-state orders for the shop personally for a couple weeks.

It had been a few months since they sent something out that was obviously paid for with a stolen credit card so I was like okay I'm gonna just step back and take care of myself and let them do their thing. It's a slow time of year anyway in the tattoo industry.

more whining under the cut

( Read more... )

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usps you guys are killin' me!

I shipped a Priority Mail package out on September 27th.

Customer emailed me October 27th to say it still wasn't there. I don't know why he didn't say something earlier, but by then he was nasty, as people always are when they contact me.

I contacted USPS and submitted a missing mail search and refunded the customer.

October 27th was going into the Holiday weekend but November 1st, their first day back to work, suddenly they delivered the package!

Like my dudes. Did you forget to actually give it to the customer? Did you guys leave a month early on vacation? What are you guys doing?

It happens all the time. I send out hundreds of packages a month and I deal with no less than 2 people a week who have ridiculous issues with their package.

And of course customers are never mad at USPS. It's always me they think did it even though I have no control over USPS.

There's also this cute thing USPS does where they lose packages but list them as delivered.

At first I thought it was customers scamming me, and I'm sure there are some who do...

but USPS has done it to me a bunch of times when I order things myself.

The tracking will say "delivered to front desk" or "delivered in mailbox" but there's no front desk and we have a locker across the street, not a mailbox on the house.

They also say random names signed for it/took it.

My house isn't wonky on Google Maps or USPS, so it's not like it's sending carriers someplace weird like it does with my uncle -- Google and USPS say he lives one street away from where he really does and it fucks up his deliveries, so he has stuff sent to my house.

It really cuts into small business income and turns customers away, but USPS is the service most customers choose because it delivers to more places than any other carriers.

I lost $400 on one customer a few months back because they fucked up so badly, and in the last few years they rarely honor the refund policies for the service itself and never refund for the cost of the products.

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(no subject)

Another day, another customer screaming at me for something completely out of my control.

He waited until yesterday to order something he wanted for tomorrow morning.

He cut it close, but he paid for overnight shipping.

I make sure it gets into a UPS worker's hands, and I not only mark that no signature is required but to leave it at the door even if he's not there because that's what the guy requested. And I told the UPS worker too just in case.

I have to pay extra for this, BTW, and that cost doesn't get passed on to the customer.

Dude just got done screaming at me because the UPS worker DID NOT leave it at the door as instructed and instead left a note to pick it up since the customer was not there.

Customer doesn't have a car, so he's screaming about having to pay $50 for an Uber ride to pick it up after he already spent $150 for the product and overnight shipping.

Like I control all the package carriers in the world and I purposely targeted him. Because that's how I get off or something.

I was nice to him and said I was sorry for the inconvenience, blah blah.

He ended with "well I guess you got your sale and I threw money in the garbage"

And it's like yes I got a sale.

But if you just go to the UPS store and get your product that was delivered less than 24 hours after you asked for it, then you can go get your tattoo tomorrow that you KNEW about for weeks ahead of time and failed to plan properly for.

Oh and don't worry, you can still slather my high-dose lidocaine cream on your skin because you can't handle the needles Mr. Tough Guy.

I don't look down on people who want to use numbing creams for tattoos. Unless they're assholes. Then all bets are off and yeah you're a big fucking baby for using the cream. You can scream at somebody who went out of their way to make you happy and the problem isn't their fault, but you can't take a tattoo without lidocaine.

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i did the thing!!

I think I may have burned myself out over the last couple weeks.

I knew the changeover to the new system would wear me out but damn I can barely breathe! But I’m so proud!!

Marissa helped with some of the stuff but most of this was me. Charlie and Marissa set up the hardware in the shop after I got it all working together here at the house.

new stuff

new point of sale system with completely new hardware and software (five different stations/sale points when before we only had 2
new inventory program
new purchase order program
new credit card processing company with SEVEN readers
new website theme/design
3 new manufacturers who let me become distributor for their stuff
2 new manufacturers who are letting me do drop-ship sales
350 new products we carry complete with at least 3 pics each, marketing materials, and descriptions that I had to program myself in our POS/online store
2 new warehouse locations (1 is our tattoo shop suite and I’m only using that suite address so I can program the online store to force shipping when people buy the drop-ship stuff compared to our shop where they can ship OR pick up in-store. The other warehouse is in Maryland and isn’t really mine but a business associate is letting me use his warehouse as a shipping portal as long as he gets a small cut)
a new app for Android and iOS that locals can use for more convenient in-store pickup and anybody else can use for regular orders

I decided to do it a couple weeks ago because usually our slow time of the year is July-September, but for some reason the business never slowed down.

Thought for sure the way the economy is that we’d have a REALLY slow time this year but it’s like people don’t give a shit? I dunno. It’s weird.

But the new stuff is all up and running and I’ve just gotta do minor tweaking and get back to ordering more supplies.

I did an order from my biggest manufacturer 3 weeks ago - an order from him usually lasts us 2 months - but we’re so busy that I just sent in a new order yesterday 😲

Everybody loves the changes to the system and ordering and all that!

And so for we’re loving it because we’ve never had systems that sync with each other and now EVERYTHING is run by the same main system so everything is synced and so easy for all four of us to access anytime we want on any device we want!

I’m so proud of how well the shop is doing!

Current Mood: relieved
Current Music: Pendulum - Pearl Jam

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Saturday Story Time #2

As mentioned in my Previous Post, I’m finally feeling better and can laugh at the epic shit-show my family has been putting on for the last few months.

Last you guys read, I was desperately trying to sell the shop.

I opened the shop with a 5-year plan (make it successful and sell at 5 years) and it’s now going on 12 years, interrupted by the pan/demic -- I was in the middle of selling it in February 2020 but that deal was dropped in the middle of March for some reason 😝

2020 and 2021 were spent making the shop work without me being there - doing everything from home. 2022 was spent putting a ton of time into getting everything in the books all shiny and ready to sell again.

In the meantime, for the last 3 years, Charlie and Marissa have been harassing me every chance they get, saying how the shop is holding them back, why haven’t I sold yet, they have things to do, and being snippy with me, blaming me for the heavy quarantine me, my mom, and my dad have been under even though it was a mutual decision between us 3 because of my mom’s cancer & immune system + my dad’s heart issues.

Charlie and Marissa treated me so bad that at one point my mom wrote a letter to them explaining the situation and that we were just being careful of the pan/demic because otherwise she MIGHT DIE.

And she also mentioned that I was actually still doing A LOT of the shop work, just from home - she said it tactfully and in a way that didn’t sound like “she does way more work than you so shut up.”

They took it well and started treating me A LOT better after that which made me bitter about the whole thing, because I told them all those things but apparently schizophrenic me didn’t say it the exact right way for the normal people to understand/care about it. (you guys talk in feelings?!)

But at least after the letter they were letting me adjust how they worked and they stopped getting bad reviews for the shop once they started behaving 😡

I’ve been talking with tons of different people in the tattoo industry, working out the sale, and got to the point where I was in serious talks and ready to take the next step.

I’ve been working so hard on all of it for so long that I was beginning to get burnout. Knew it was coming and that I was dangerously close to a psychotic episode, and I knew I had to sell quick and seriously relax.

Mom said we should have a meeting with Charlie and Marissa to make sure we were on the same page so things with the sale went smoothly, and so we all met at our house, mom and I in masks but Charlie and Marissa refusing (aren’t they so loving and wonderful?).

As we’re talking, Charlie kinda chuckles and says that he and Marissa were recently talking and they decided that maybe we shouldn’t sell because the shop pays all our combined bills.

Which they already knew. They’ve known for years.

They’re in real estate and sell about 2 houses a year normally and it pays for their vacations and hobbies, but their bills are paid by me.

They could’ve done more real estate in their spare time (they only work a 30-hour week for me at the shop) but didn’t because the real estate market has drastically changed due to the pan/demic and big real estate businesses that came in and have made it nearly impossible for independent real estate agents to get any work. (A real estate agent friend of my dad’s can’t get any work at all and is now driving an ice cream truck)

So I hid my shock when Charlie and Marissa said they didn’t want to sell the shop, and I let them continue talking.

Turns out they’ve been all pissy about everything because they just didn’t really want to work at the shop but when faced with the possibility that they’d have to support themselves through real estate, they had a record scratch moment.

Throughout the rest of the meeting I didn’t let them know anything was getting to me. We just talked about where we go from here and that because of business/industry changes, they’re going to have to take on more responsibility.

They agreed and even suggested more things they could do I wasn’t even planning on dumping on them.

In the end, I’m still kinda thrown by it, but I’m to the point where I can laugh about it.

The shop does make good money, and it’s still growing year over year, but I REALLY REALLY wanted to go into a completely different field -- one I’ve been dreaming of for years and already have people/businesses ready to pay me lots of money for including benefits. Way more $ than I make after splitting profits at the shop with my family!

But selling the shop would financially devastate the rest of my family and they’d have to get their asses in gear real quick or lose everything.

For now, I’m seeing how this goes.

I’m giving them more and more responsibility, taking more time for myself, and the shop is doing REALLY well. Even Kaylan (family friend who is paid to run social media for us) is stepping up her game and our advertising is awesome!

I’m going to keep shifting more and more onto Charlie and Marissa until I get to the point where I have a comfortable amount of time every day to work, write, game, cook, clean, and enjoy my fucking life.

So far it’s going well, and I’m hopeful that it’ll keep getting better.

I’m already to the point where I’ve started gaming again and I’ve got some stories in my head raging to get written. I also feel as though I could travel if I wanted to, and I’m ready to jump back into social media/fandom.

Now that my head is clearing up, things are SO MUCH EASIER LIKE YOU HAVE NO IDEA and the creative part of my brain is waking up again after a long time of nothing 🥰

The bitterness will hopefully fade, and in the meantime our bills get paid.

Current Mood: aggravated

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(no subject)

I spent 2 hours chatting with 2 different employees at Intuit only for the 2nd person to get ONE STEP away from getting me a new card reader when chat stopped working and wiping out all the things 😡😡😡

All I needed was a new card reader. It's not even covered by warranty. Just take my 💲 and send me a new card reader for my retail store. Why does that take 2+ hours?!😭

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tide

Addicts are drawn to tattoo artists because tattoo artists treat people like human beings even when others won’t (a lot of them are recovered addicts themselves), and they also don’t have qualms about buying stuff off them if it’s decent.

I just gotta be careful because some of them like to dump their entire backpack of loot onto the table in the lobby, and it’s usually dirty, so most of them in the area know they can only pull one or two things out at a time, show it off, and put it back, not dump all their inventory.

Yesterday an addict came up to Ash, one of my artists, with a canvas bag and in an over-the-top secretive way leaned in and slowly pulled a bottle of Tide partway out of the bag.

“This sells for $20 but I’ll let you have it for $10.″

It was so over the top secretive that Ash had to work very hard not to laugh. He didn’t want to insult the guy, but it was like the dude was trying to do a super secret drug deal, worried there were cops watching from the corner or something. For a bottle of Tide.

Ash didn’t want it so he politely said he wasn’t interested.

“Oh is it because you a Gain man?” was the response

Ash lost his cool and ended up laughing so hard he doubled over.

He gave the guy a $20, took the Tide, let him have one of his cigarettes, and stood outside chatting with the guy while they smoked.

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(no subject)

It feels like my job has become nothing but tending to willfully ignorant people.

I sell numbing cream online.

There are instructions:

on the product page in the description section
on the product page in the form of detailed pictures alongside the product pic
on the blog
on the return policy page right after I explain we can’t take returns on opened skin cream
on the shipping page
on the checkout page
included in the shipment
on the box

And yet I still get people complaining that the products don’t work and they’d like a return label and a refund.

All of them, in their complaints, somehow reveal they haven’t read the instructions or used it properly by the little things they say.

The most recent? “It didn’t work. It just made my skin shiny so I washed it off.”

So ya obviously 1) didn’t put enough on 2) rubbed it in when you’re not supposed to 3) didn’t cover it with plastic wrap and 4) didn’t leave it on for 45 minutes.

I know this because it doesn’t make your skin shiny unless you rub it in. It also soaks into the skin within about 3-5 minutes, so it’s no longer shiny. This means she didn’t even wait 3 minutes before declaring it didn’t work when it takes 45 minutes to penetrate the top layers of skin and start working on the nerves.

Now I have to deal with a bitchy person who is gonna scream at me for being an asshole because I won’t let her return it even though it says everywhere listed above that we don’t take returns on opened skin products and she used it wrong.

I miss being in the shop where I could help people face-to-face and they don’t reduce themselves to internet trolls because they don’t have the internet to hide behind.

I sell hundreds of tubes a month, and for the most part people read the instructions, but I wonder how soon I’m going to lose it and just start sending people a pop-up kids book that shows them how to use it and they have to use a code at the end of the book to get the box open before they can use the product.

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salespeople need help

I get that I have an advantage having grown up in a cult/commune, having had a father who was a used car salesman and later a self-employed flooring installer, and a mother who taught me from a very young age how to really think about and use words carefully.

But damn the quality of sales pitches in the last few years is SO BAD.

Like are you even trying?!

Or has the general public changed so much in the last 2 years that these pitches work? Y’all falling for this? Am I out of touch?

I’m the type of person who will be so impressed by a really good sales pitch that I might consider switching to you just because you’re such a good rep that you make the company look good, especially if the service/product is good.

But if you suck at sales pitches or you pull a stupid sad puppy routine or you’re so badly prepared that you’re more interested in playing with your phone? I’m not even going to consider the company you rep because they hire people like you so they must suck.

This last guy messaged me on my website, sent a paragraph about who he reps and that he’d like me to use his company’s service.

I said thank you but no.

He replied with, “But I didn’t even get to explain?”
So I texted back, “You’re with ____.com, you’d like me to become a customer, but I’ve looked into it before, and I’m not interested, but thank you.”

He replied, “But I can get you 66% off? I can’t sell to you over chat. I need to email. Give me your email address. I guess you don’t want to save money but ok :(”

66% off isn’t even the going rate for the company he reps. And I get 72%-86% off for the same service because I’ve signed up directly with a provider instead of a middleman.

Maybe it’s because companies are hiring over the phone because of Co/vid and taking anybody who will work cheap? Not bothering to train?

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shopify pinwheelpay and crying

I’m an extremely patient and tenacious person. I don’t mind putting in a lot of hard work, even if it’s tedious and neverending.

But POS systems, banks, and payment processors are wearing me down to the point where, after reading an email from one of them today, I actually broke down and cried. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, I really don’t cry often or easily.

It takes A LOT to push me.

I’ve spent the last three and a half years trying to set up a POS system and online store system that work with each other, are convenient for my customers and my family (who work with me at the shop but aren’t tech savvy), and that doesn’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The old system from Intuit worked great and could handle all the in-store stuff we needed, but Intuit is stuck in the dark ages and only in the last year have started to offer contactless payments, and they have no online store options, no way of connecting their system to any online stores either.

So I’ve made workarounds.

It’s taken a lot of time, a lot of patience, and I’ve been doing this while also running the business.

I’ve recreated our entire inventory system three times for POS systems and four times for online store systems in the last 3 years. This isn’t a small job, and each system didn’t support the other for proprietary reasons, so no easy way to transfer thousands of products.

The workaround I’ve come up with is to use Intuit POS in the store, Shopify online store, Wegbility to do a really shitty job of syncing online purchases and inventory with Intuit (it’s $100 a month and I can’t let it do anything automatically because it sucks so bad), and until recently I’ve used Shopify’s payment processors.

In my original post above, I complain about how a few weeks ago Shopify informed me they don’t like the fact I’m selling C/B/D and lid/ocaine products because it’s “high risk.” So they suggested several third party payment processors.

I did my research and went with a place called PinwheelPay, which charges way more than a regular payment processor, but I had no choice because Shopify was going to cut off my credit card processing in 6 days.

A few days ago PinwheelPay informed me they don’t like that I sell tattoo needles.

Even though when I first talked to them on the phone I told them I sell tattoo, piercing, and medical supplies along with body jewelry, and topical C/B/D and lido/caine products. I don’t sell injectables or ingestables, but they still call the tattoo needles injectables.

I emailed them yesterday to ask for some time to change my online store to comply with their demands, but today they emailed me and said no, they would be cutting me off immediately.

A few weeks ago I made a second online store. It’s expensive between monthly fees and everything, but I need to be able to sell all my products. It’s going to be a joke to have customers use two sites, but what else can I do?

But the site hasn’t had enough time to get an established SEO status. It’s only a few weeks old. It need at least 3 months.

So if I don’t do anything, my customers can’t buy anything online. If I take down my needles, they can buy the creams and that’s it, and I lose out on the majority of what I sell online. If I take down the creams, I’m losing out on $12k-$20k in cream sales a month.

The stupidest part of this whole thing is that Shopify doesn’t give a shit about the needles or medical supplies.

It’s the “high risk” payment processor that doesn’t like them! They’ll let me sell the creams, but heaven forbid I sell needles and medical supplies!

If I take down the creams, I can go back to Shopify payments, but I lose out on about $20k in sales a month from the creams until the new site gets better SEO status, which will end up being 3 or more months, so that’s at least $60k.

It’s probably going to slow down sales even after that because my established site has been there for years and is very popular. Sites under 1 year old don’t inspire confidence in customers.

I’m so frustrated and tired of everyone and everything working against me, everything being hard, and no one actually listening and telling me what I need to know even when I ask detailed questions.

I’m tired of places saying they can help me because they want my business but ultimately not listening to what I actually need and dumping me after I’ve put in days, weeks, months of work for absolutely nothing.

And I’m so fucking tired of big business getting away with whatever they want while small and medium business owners have to put up with this utter bullshit that slowly breaks us.

A great-sounding solution would be to sell, right? Yeah, but I can’t sell a business that doesn’t have a working payment system. I have to fix this before I sell or do anything else.

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create the ILLUSION of a problem

Almost everyone has heard of creating a problem and then charging money for the solution to that problem.

But lemme tell you about an even sneakier thing!

Creating the ILLUSION of a problem and then charging money for the solution to that illusion.

I own a business that sells products locally, and we also have an online store. Despite the industry we sell to (tattoo and piercing artists), our customers either pay cash or have surprisingly good credit, meaning even though we pay a high percentage for credit card transactions when we first sign up with a credit card processing company, they always quickly lower it because we’re so low-risk they want to reward us for staying with them.

Square lowered our rate three times in the first year we used them and promised to lower it again the next year. Customers with good credit AND I’m very careful about checking for fraud with every purchase that goes through my online store, and I flag anything I’m suspicious about. Only one fraud transaction slipped by me in 1-1/2 years.

So Square lowered our rate three times, but that was right before they dropped us after labeling us as being high-risk because of our products, namely topical pain relievers with lido/caine and C/B/D. Nothing ingestable.

Shopify gladly processed credit cards for us for over 2 years, lowering our rate twice until they decided to pay more attention to what we were selling.

They recently informed us we needed a third party high-risk management company to assist us, and we needed to do this within 7 days or they would pull our products from our online store. Not only that, they also started to hold our money.

I’ve dealt with merchant accounts for years. I know how they play. I know how they try to nickle and dime small and medium business owners to death. And I also know how much risk is involved for a credit card processing company.

Which is to say ZERO. NO risk.

Even if I were to sell g/uns, ill/egal substances, or even bo/dy par/ts, the credit card processor goes into it with no legal risk whatsoever because they only provide a service. You sign documents when you first create an account with them that says this, and I’ve looked into it to verify. No one can touch them.

Yet C/B/D, h/emp, lido/caine, g/uns, medical supplies, and a ton of other items have been labeled “high risk” by credit card processors, and they refuse to handle it, insisting you MUST run it through a third party.

It’s a huge issue with e/cig, c/b/d/, and ed/ibles online store owners. They’re all very frustrated by this.

The third party charges (in general) 1.9% plus a monthly fee between $5-$299, the credit card company itself charges 1%, and the company that provides your website also charges 1%. That’s standard, though it can fluctuate some depending on the companies you use.

It might not seem like much, but when you’re used to paying a flat 1.4%-1.6% for credit card processing, it’s a smack in the face.

Oh, and you might think this covers chargebacks, fraud, and other issues, but it doesn’t.

As a business owner, you’re still responsible for those things yourself, and with no questions asked and no appeal process, that money can be taken directly from your bank account at any time. There’s no such thing as insurance for stuff like this.

It also doesn’t cover cash back awards. Credit card companies split those with us as a business 50/50.

So if you want to support your local businesses, please don’t use reward cards when shopping there. Use it at Wal/mart -- they can afford it. If possible, use cash for local businesses. Even G/oogle Pay and A/pple Pay ding us!

Back to the subject: With no risk for the credit card companies no matter what I sell, they still label us as high risk because of the products, so they’ve created the illusion of a problem.

BUUUUUT they’ve also charged money for the solution!

And that’s not all.

I recently went through the whole process of signing up with a third party so I could continue to sell on Shopify. By the time I was done reading all the fine print, I realized Authorize.net owned the third party company.

Authorize.net is what Shopify uses as their credit card processing company, as many businesses online do.

My credit card processing is still going through the SAME company as before, but now I’m paying a much higher percentage.

There’s nothing any of us can do about it. A lot of shop owners have complained and tried to work around it, but there’s nothing we can do.

Major credit card companies and banks have decided this high risk thing is a thing and we NEED third party processing to be able to sell our products.

It’s yet another way to screw over small and medium business while big businesses STILL get away with tax breaks they don’t deserve, loopholes, and lots of other things we have no hope of taking advantage of.

BTW if anyone reading this sees a mistake or misunderstanding on my part or knows of a way around this, PLEASE message me!!

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tattoo artists + stickers = 💕

So I’ve told y’all before how tattoo artists are totally head-over-heels in love with stickers, right?

This morning I found out that several artists who regularly buy from us online have become loyal customers because we send stickers with every order.

I mean they like us for other reasons too, but when you do a side-by-side comparison and prices are the same, products are the same, and service the same with a couple other supply places online, the deciding factor for a number of artists was the fact that we send random stickers and nobody else does.

Which I think is adorable!

In fact one guy admitted that he paid more for a certain product we carry (I don’t have a distributorship with that particular manufacturer so I can’t offer big sales when other places can) ONLY BECAUSE he wanted some stickers 🤣

They claim that the stickers along with great service, great prices, and a wide variety of supplies has made some very loyal customers, which I think is awesome.

How many companies can say they have an edge in their industry because they give out random stickers that the owner finds and hands out because she loves stickers herself?!!?!

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(no subject)

I have a chat feature on my shop’s online store. It’s great for helping customers and answering their questions -- it’s linked to an app on my phone so I can talk with customers 24/7.

A guy messaged me this morning to ask if he could pick up his stuff at 10:30am on Wednesday even though we open at 11am. He was really nice about it!

I said I’d make arrangements for it and I texted Charlie and Marissa. Marissa was like sure we’re in there by 10:15am cleaning and prepping anyway, but Charlie went off on this rant about how we have to have our own lives and we can’t cater to customers’ every whim

and it’s like dude. We’re in the service/retail industry. And we’re running our own business without help from anyone else.

It sucks but YES you do have to cater to every customer. That’s why our shop is getting all the customers and every other tattoo supply shop in the metro area is losing customers.

Is it THAT hard to open the door to a customer and hand him his stuff at 10:30am when you’re already there cleaning and prepping to open? The customer is ordering today, so they don’t even have to let him inside on Wednesday if they don’t want to.

Besides that, when I used to go into the shop every day, I was there from 10am to 8:30pm because our hours were 11am-8pm (there’s a lot of morning cleaning involved -- even before the pan/demic).

The hours are now 11am-5pm and Charlie complains ALL the time about how long he has to work there. Funny given that one of the reasons he thought the shop was a great idea in the first place was that we were open longer than other places -- artists constantly complained they couldn’t buy supplies after 5pm anywhere.

When we first opened years ago the hours were 9am-10pm Tuesday-Saturday and 11am-5pm Sunday and Monday.

He should be glad I’m not insisting they go back to those hours 🤣

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(no subject)

There’s a supply shop owner back in the area I used to live south of here, and he has a 5-star rating at his shop with hundreds of reviews even though he only opened 2 years ago and the shop is tiny with not a lot of variety in supplies.

I checked out his shop via the pictures people took of his place and put on Google Maps. Not only is the shop dirty and messy, he breaks down inks from several big name manufacturers and sells it with his own printed labels. It’s obvious enough I can see it in the pictures. His friends probably didn’t realize people looking at the pics would be able to tell.

Breaking down ink is unsafe because most people break the seal on the legit ink bottle, water it down with tap water, and put it in a non-sterile bottle.

That’s a big no-no.

And if the manufacturers found out he was doing that, they’d not only pull his ability to buy, they’d sue him.

So I started reading the reviews and looking at the names and pics.

This dude has a HUGE family, and they all gave him 5-star reviews. I looked up the family on Facebook, and all the other reviews made sense once I looked at the names of the family friends.

Shit like this is so frustrating.

I’m antisocial, don’t have a huge family, and I wanna do the ethical thing of not asking friends to review me. I want organic reviews from people who have actually used my shop and liked it.

But something like 1% of the people who use and like your place will leave reviews while most of the people who don’t like how things went leave a bad review.

I’ve even got 2 regulars who have been coming to my shop for years who had never left a good review before and during the pan/demic they left 1-star reviews because they didn’t like that we were being so safe and were only letting 1 customer in at a time with a mask on. They still come in and buy from me, but they won't change their reviews.

I *could* ask friends and family to review me. I could PAY for reviews if I wanted, but that just feels wrong and like I didn’t earn them.

But when everyone else is winning with bad practices, it’s hard to stick to your guns.

This is why I’ll never be super successful and a billionaire. I want to earn stuff the right way and not screw anybody over 🤣

My whole family is like this.

Entry tags:

social media misman

I've got a social media manager named Kayin. She's a friend of the family living in Uncle Charlie's house. I agreed to "hiring" Kaylinas a social media manager in return for room and board at their house.

I knew from the beginning it was a bad idea (because she's definitely a product of her parents dad=manipulative bastard and mom=manipulative drama queen who starts shit, and both leave behind devastation), but it was either watch her live there for free or have some help with the social media stuff.

I don't have time to do the stuff I already should be doing, and social media always loses out when I prioritize what I need to do.

Granted, Kaylin is really nice to people who ask questions online and she gives them contact info for my artists when people want a tattoo.

She presented herself as a social media manager. Her deal sounded good. Like she knew what she was talking about.

I'm not social media illiterate, but I'm also not that good at it. I don't know the algorithms. I'm not super social so backlinks don't really happen for me other than the manufacturers I distribute for. Etc.

She's been doing this for almost 2 years now and it actually seems like she's hurting more than she's helping.

Even though she's only 30 years old, she has an old soul. Unfortunately, she doesn't realize it and thinks she's young and cool and cute. She's also manipulative-flirty and thinks it's cute.

So when she makes advertisements, it always looks similar and it always looks like something you'd see in a fashion catalog from the 60s.

She has no clue what's popular right now even though she's into fashion.

It's really sad that I know what's in fashion right now and she doesn't considering absolutely no interest in fashion and never have. I have 2 pairs of black jeans and 15 of the exact same black shirt that (before the pan/demic) I wore to the shop every day.

She also isn't good at tailoring her advertisements to her audience. We're advertising to artists, specifically tattoo artists, and everything she does is a 16-year-old girl living in the 60s.

It's boring with bland earthy tones. It's not exciting. It's not in line with any tattoo styles, of which there are TONS to choose from.

It's to the point where when my mom and I look at her advertisements, we're actually annoyed by them.

I KNOW tattoo artists. They have certain styles, and they don't like cute and/or fake. Kaylin is so fake and tries way too hard to be cute when she's not.

But if I fire her, Charlie won't start charging her rent, so I'm kinda stuck.

I also don't know if I'm expecting too much of her. I've never used a professional social media manager, but I've watched them work on projects I've been involved with online over the years including comic-con advertising.

The amount that Charlie isn't getting on rent would get us 60 advertisements a month created by people who know how to use graphic design programs and know how to use hashtags and link to products. None of which Kaylin seems to get even though I've shown her how to do it multiple times.

I also bought a subscription to Hoosuite so she could schedule posts. I gave her a lit of what times it's best to post adverts on each social media app. But she can't even figure Hootsuite out and when she does schedule posts, she does it for 10am across all social media.

I had her watch the instructional videos Hootsuite put out, but she still doesn't get it.

No one else in my family can use graphic design programs, none of us are artistic, and I'm the only one who has any useful knowledge of social media. Marissa has some, but it's just because she posts pics of her dinner on Insta and FB.

Any time I post an advertisement, I get tons of interaction (not as much as I could be getting if I was good at this), but the most Kaylin gets is maybe 2-10 views, no likes, no shares, no comments. And after 2 years of doing this, she has gotten exactly ONE click from Google posts to our store. ONE.

But I don't have time! I don't have time for a personal life or even enough time to do everything else for the shop that needs to be done.

I know the social media aspect is hurting the shop, but I feel stuck. If I could clone myself or Kaylin could step up, that might be another story.

*WHINE*

Entry tags:

dick

It’s rare that I complain to my family.

My mom and I vent to each other all the time, but other than that, nobody knows how I’m doing.

But the few times I have complained or said I’m not doing well or whatever, my uncle (Charlie) ALWAYS has to chime in with how horrible he’s doing and “oh man my anxiety is through the roof I just wanna run away this is horrible I’m so overwhelmed!!”

It’s not that I don’t want to hear any complaints out of anybody. The rest of the time I’m like oh sorry you’re feeling bad and I try to say something encouraging.

But to reply the way he does when I dare to say I’m not doing well?

Dick.

Entry tags:

social media manager, my ass

I took a little extra gummies Saturday night because I wasn’t sleeping well and thought I could use an extra long sleep.

But it’s now Monday and I’m still... not high but I’m like really drained.

I’m also bummed about our “social media manager.”

She’s a friend of the family living in Charlie’s house, and for room and board she does our social media stuff.

When she first sold herself to us it was with all this stuff that she just couldn’t follow through on.

But if I fire her, Charlie won’t kick her out or make her pay rent. He doesn’t even make her pay for gas or food. So I’m kinda stuck using her or she’ll just be a leech and give back nothing.

She’s so bad at it that I’ve actually had to take some of her stuff down over the past 2 years because it pisses people off or isn’t correct.

And I’ve tried to get her to use a variety of graphics while creating adverts, but they all look the same.

I pay for Hootsuite and Canva, and she STILL makes all the adverts look the same, leaves ugly URL links in, won’t tag products so people can easily buy off FB and Insta, and she doesn’t pay attention to what type of stuff she’s advertising, so while I’m getting in all this new really cool high dollar stuff she keeps advertising squeeze bottles and paper towels.

And yes, we’ve all talked to her. I’ve even SHOWN her how to use Hootsuite and Canva. She’s just too much like her dad, who my uncle had a soft spot for. I hate them both, but she doesn’t know that.

I’m gonna go play games for a while. I’m just too tired and grumpy and blah :(

Entry tags:

medical supplies

I recently got a new distributorship for from a medical supply manufacturer.

I don’t know what their prices were pre-pan/demic, but

HOLY SHIT MEDICAL SUPPLIES ARE SO FUCKIN GCHEAP OH MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY I’M LOSING MYFIUCKING SHIT!!!

*tries to calm down*

I always wondered how I was able to order some of the medical supplies we sell so cheaply when the companies I ordered from weren’t manufacturers themselves. Now I know. It’s because they were already charging SO MUCH MORE than they were paying and it was still super cheap on my end.

Like seriously I hated medical shit in this country already but this just

Okay I gotta calm down.

Insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and medical resale companies need to burn to the ground.

I don’t even order in super huge bulk amounts and yet ammonia inhalants (smelling salts -- tattoo artists and piercers use them when we have customers pass out during a procedure) are $3 my cost when buying from the manufacturer.

The same amount of caps from the wholesale supplier I used to buy from was $30 and that’s not even close to what the retail value is.

Oh and I can buy my parents super nice sturdy shiny fancy brand new medical-grade canes for $13 each.

Yes you read that right. Something that will cost the average consumer hundreds of dollars when they walk into a medical supply store to buy and a hospital will charge even more for will cost me only $13 (I’d still have to pay tax of course).

Don’t even get me started on the wheelchairs, hospital beds, and other assistive devices.

I just submitted a small-ish order to the company and the estimate in my head (because it took forever to get a price sheet from them) was $9,000 to $10,000.

My total is $2900 with shipping included.

Oh and I’ve never had more difficulty setting up with, getting info out of, and communicating with a company before setting up with this medical manufacturer. It took months and was super frustrating. But I’m persistent and patient.

Even though I wanna sell my shop and never go into retail again, there’s a part of me that wants to open a medical supply store to the public and charge NORMAL retail markups, which is 40% over cost (40% over cost covers your overhead/bills and also gives you enough money to live on if you run a retail store).

Selling at 40% over cost I’d have to beat customers off with a stick at night just to close the place!

I had this same reaction when I found out how much jewelry actually costs too. That was a completely separate rant.

Entry tags:

that's what it's for

I bought the same brand of counterfeit detector machine that I saw our local bank using. I was surprised it was only $100. We’ve used it now for 3 years.

Charlie sent two $100 bills home Saturday night with a note on them saying “these wouldn’t go through the machine but they looked good.”

I don’t know if you know anything about counterfeiting, but they’ve gotten good enough that pens/markers don’t work and when you hold bills up to the light they have the little strip in them just like real bills.

That’s why we bought the machine.

So now my brain hurts because who does that?! Who just says oh they looked good even though this machine says they’re fake?!

Maybe he’s never gotten a fake bill?

I’ve gotten tons of them, but I’ve also told Charlie and Marissa about those times before and said how awesome the machine is because once the bill is in your possession, you’re out that money. The machine paid for itself within the first week I had it.

The bank will just shred it in front of you and not replace it, of course.

I even told him about the time a dude gave me a huge stack of $20 bills and the first five were real, and the dude was really surprised when I kept going after the first five.

Because all the rest were fake.
Dude was really pissed at me 🤣