indydebi wrote

Good point!

That point aside, kids will eat cake no matter WHAT it tastes like .... it's cake, for goodness sake! It's sugar on top of baked sugar. Never met a kid yet who spit out cake and proclaimed it "inedible"!


do kids even use the word "inedible"? i dont know any!


(Spuddysmom ) yes i agree after her tone in the second email its hard for me to keep my best face forward!

this is what i wrote back,


Lisa,
i understand your disappointment, could you please provide what is remaining of the cakes, so i can see exactly what went wrong, and i will provide a full refund.

First of all, clearly she is full of BS.

Second, I don't think it does any good to ask her for the cake back. It's been several days since the party. IF (and that's a mighty big if) there really was cake left, I can't imagine she would leave it lying around the kitchen. I'm sure by now she's thrown the cake away (if there really was any left over. I suspect everyone actually loved it and ate it up )

And I'm sure that's what her reply is going to be: I threw the cake away.

IMO a better response would have been to simply say "I'm sorry you were unhappy with your order. I wish you luck in finding another baker to provide you with cakes in the future."

Does anybody else find it weird that her writing skills improved so much between the two emails? It's almost like two different people wrote them.

Not only the way she wrote but her tone. That's what I'm thinking, perhaps Hubby intercepted the return email and took it upon himself to respond. It just doesn't even sound like the same person, although I know its up for interpretation.

Just for comparison, here are the two emails side by side (I had to flip thru the screens to find them and just thought I'd make it easier on anyone else who wanted to compare)

and the response.....

I don't think a hubby wrote the 2nd one. It has too many emotional words in it and men don't write that way. Men don't usually use terms such as "slap in the face"; they don't blame things on their kids' emotions ("daughter was disappointed"); a woman would feel that another woman would "feel my pain" if she throws out how bad THE CHILDREN feel over this ... guys just tell you it sux..

A woman will point out they have to "make it up to her" .... a man would point out how it was going to "cost me another cake this weekend" w/o an emotional reference.

Describing personal feeling as "disappointed and hurt" is DEFINITELY woman-speak. Describing the "expression on my daughter's face" is definitely an emotional play ... definitely a woman tactic.

I think there's a difference in the writing simply because the first one may have been whipped out pretty quick and the 2nd one, some time was taken to compose it carefully.

Too much filling is left on the plate. You eat cake, you eat filling, you eat icing. You just don't eat all the filling if there's too much for your taste. That doesn't mean you don't eat any of it.

I have 3 grown kids so you can imagine how many parties I have hosted and attended over the past 20-some years. There's always lots of cake left on plates. If the kid doesn't want all the frosting, they leave it on the plate and eat the part they want. Most kids are "3 bites and done" anyway. The remainders all moosh together with the ice cream left on the plate and it all looks quite disgusting after awhile. LOL

My kids leave various bits and pieces of food on their plate all the time. They eat what they want and leave the rest. It doesn't just happen with cake.

This woman is rude and you're better off w/o her as a client. I'm with Indydebi's husband. When people stick to one problem then I'm more apt to believe them.

"Know" instead of no, "their" instead of there in her first e-mail then she doesn't misspell any words in the second e-mail even inedible? I find it hard to believe that the same person wrote both e-mails. Just had to point that out

I noticed the 'know' instead of 'no' thing right away! Another person could have helped her compose it ..... but even on here, I've made some pretty yucky typos that have made me cringe when I saw them later ..... I can only attribute them to the "passion of the moment" and the "intensity of the typing"!

But just because of the verbage, I dont' think it was a hubby who wrote the second one (just finished a chapter on men/women styles of communication in one of my classes and this just fit too perfectly!)

I'm still stuck on someone thinking that you can have "too much" cookies 'n' cream filling!

well, i certainly dont think you should be offering her a refund... the woman is clearly a crackpot.

wow, that's all I can say...
and no refund, plain and simple..

Maybe the "heartbroken" kid wrote it! I think it was written by the same person but the 2nd one was with more emotion. She was angry that she didn't get the response she was hoping for.

I just had to cut one of my repeaters off! They complained about a tiny detail that was not on the cake.. something they forgot to specify when placing the order. Luckily I still had all the emails.. I feel they were fishing for a discount on their next order so I've told them the last 2 times that I was booked! Just call me the Cake Nazi.. NO CAKE FOR YOU!

We aren't perfect! Mistakes happen.. you tried to be nice by offering her a discount. Then she turns all "inedible" on you! I honestly would have just responded the way someone else mentioned before.. Apologize and move on. She clearly will never order from you again! I personally don't want to deal with PIA customers.

Maybe she did write them both but her grammar certainly did improve. I'm still laughing at the "heartbroken" kid reference.

sounds to me like a spoiled little girl complained about the flavor of her cake and mommy is doing anything and everything to get her money back so she can buy MORE cake to "make it up" to her princess!!

Am I the only one that finds strawberry cake with raspberry lemonade and cookies and cream filling a little different?? Maybe all those weren't together in one cake huh?

All those in one cake... yummy! I *think* the cookies and cream was with a white cake.

Here is what her response was:

very good observation everyone, when i was reading the emails i noticed the grammar and had to re-read the email to see why it did not make any sense! i do believe that maybe she just typed out whatever was on her mind the second email, because she was pissed at my response. Im almost positive that she will not like my response to her second email, but you guys are sooo right! DUMP HER! she is a headache anyways, i just try to please every client, but in this case, i think nothing, and i mean NOTHING will please this woman other than her getting something for FREE! and here i thought after 3 years of baking cakes, i was never going to get a bad client, oh well!

I also agree that the flavor combinations were odd, but hey Im here to please the client! lol

I think you said this PIA client was referred to you by another one of your clients. That is who I'd be concerned about. If the referring client is a good client, there might be some damage control to do there. PIA will certainly whine and complain to that person as well. And, perhaps you could refer PIA to the Wonka Factory where she'll find the goose that lays the golden eggs.

I can almost guarantee this is how it went........

Guest: There is a bit too much filling for my taste
PIA: asks everyone a negative question
other guests: well I guess there is a lot of filling
PIA: Well I am going to complain and get my money back!

Now if she had said to that one guest "well I think it tastes great" and then if she had said to other guests the cake tastes great dosen't it? Everyone would have raved about it.

In my experience working with the public negative questions lead to negative answers and positive questions lead to positive answers. Now she is feeding on negative energy and has that oh so fun entitlement attitude that many people seem to have these days.

How much filling was "too much" and not enough cake? When I do cookies and cream filling I usually put a thicker layer in just because the filling is so thick and I like chunks of cookies in it. It is rich, but never TOO MUCH filling in relation to the cake. If you used 2-2" layers and put your filling between those 2 layers then you'd have to put a hell of of a lot of filling in there for there to be too much filling to cake.

It's a subjective issue. I find it hard to believe that every single guest thought it was inedible because there was too much filling and what the heck is wrong with white cake and strawberry filling? Sounds good to me. Definitely not inedible.

I sure as heck wouldn't be offering her any cash back. I might however offer to make the cake over in the flavor that she originally wanted, but I wouldn't decorate it, just a simple cake in the flavors she wanted and the rest she can choke on.

Micheala I didn't seem to see if you said you had a signed contract/order form stating exactly what she ordered. Did you infact have an order form with the flavors & filling choices available to refer to?

Just send us her address.... we'll go over there and beat her with a spatula while cramming cookies and cream filling down her throat