Now I Want To Quit. Seriously.
Decorating By summernoelle Updated 30 Sep 2007 , 8:53am by CoutureCake
I agree with the others, it's moments like this that make us "earn our stripes". They happen. I also agree that she sounds like a person who will never be satisfied and am glad that you didn't send the email, but for another reason. In my early days in the performing arts, my trainer and other pro's taught me the lesson that the most important thing is to "Just SHUT UP!".. I use that lesson more now with cakes than I did then and wish I had learned it earlier in my stage career (LOL... pays better than cakes for far less work)..
The thing is, if you act like nothing is going on other than what is expected, no one else is going to know the difference. Last week I was running late again for a wedding cake delivery and in near panic when I got stuck in a traffic jam going over a bridge into a town south of here after being detoured onto a windy-### road before that one. When I got there, I acted like nothing was up, told the Caterer it was real whipped cream as the filling so needed it to get there as late as possible, like I was suppose to get there when I did... Set it up, and about, oh, 3 minutes after I had retreated to the kitchen, in come the wedding party and B&G... Then I got all critical of the cake, yada yada, but told myself "just shut up, don't say a word of this to ANYONE there, and chances are, no one else is going to notice"... Sounds rather cynical, but
The point is, all of the lessons like this are teaching you how to handle the situation in the future. Earning your stripes now is what will help make you successful in the future. The fact is that everyone gets complaints. You can minimize it by delivering stealth customer service with handling the situation. When someone is complaining for the sake of complaining, there isn't anything you can do other than listen to them yap and stand up and take a bow after they've inserted the metaphroical sword to the chest then move on.
Give yourself a break. Leaving the name off completely sure is a LOT less embarassment than spelling the name wrong on a cake that's impossible to take it off of and start over!
As for the cake being lopsided or whatever... I have yet to see a cake outside of one made from a cake dummy that was completely flat and level. There's always one angle that the cake will look that way from. I tell my brides, the computer image I print out for you is going to be the most perfect cake you'll ever see. In the real world, it's physically impossible to make the cake flawless and color matched in every single light. Competition quality cakes are only done at competitions because no one could afford to have any of those cakes recreated in real life. Remember, they weren't able to get that design from a bakery, cut yourself some slack!!
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