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Cookies if you get the title reference. 
Anyhow, I have this *surreal* situation where two customers have ordered the same thing, under the same terms, and both had similar problems with their item when they were given photos of the finished thingy. (In this case custom, hand-made plushes.) But from that point on their two stories wildly diverged.
Good idea:
Telling your artist exactly what you're disappointed in and why, (with an apology for not having made your desires clear enough in the first place.)
Bad idea:
Telling your artist exactly what you're disappointed in and why, including a lengthy, emotional appeal designed to try and make them feel guilty, ashamed that they messed up, and obliged to "fix" their "mistake."
(And I'll say that the "mistake" was nothing of the sort. The customer verbally told me that she didn't like my initial sketch, and wanted the tail smaller, then sent me a sketch of her own with a smaller tail. It also had subtle differences in the shape of the nose and the placement of the eyes, but as she'd said nothing about those, I didn't even look at them. So it was not a mistake on my part to do the shape and placement as per the original sketch I'd given her. A misunderstanding, yes. Something I might even be willing to fix under the right circumstances, yes. A mistake? Not on your life.)
Good idea:
Politely asking your artist what she can do to fix your problem. (VERY good idea! The artist may have better ideas for fixing it than you do.)
Bad idea:
Telling your artist (even politely, and with praises for her skill which surely is up to the task, surely *gag*) what she can do to fix your problem.
(I hope you catch the difference there.)
Good idea:
Offering a little something extra for the additional time spent on the fix.
Bad idea:
Insisting that since it's the artist's mistake, and since they have to re-make the whole thing in order to fix it anyhow, they can sell the old version at a profit and thus aren't out any money, so you shouldn't have to pay anything more for the extra work. (Gah, I wanted to BITE this girl when she kept insisting that I wasn't going to be out any money. BITE HER RIGHT IN THE FACE. Selling a pre-made plush never brings as much money in as selling a custom one!)
Good idea:
Keeping it all business, except for a little bit of excited squeeing about how awesome your stuff looks.
Bad idea:
Going on and on and on and on about how you feel about it all, what your friends said about the situation,
and how very upsetting everything is.
Good idea:
Being polite.
Bad idea:
Pretending you're being polite by couching it in "well I'm not saying that you're lazy but," terms and calling the artist lazy, among other things.
Yeah. To sum up this lovely mess, my Good Idea customer got her fix, promptly and without any fuss. My Bad Idea customer has just spent the last several hours wrangling with me over e-mail, and finally just to get rid of her I did the single *tiny* fix I could do without completely re-doing her plush, which thank heavens seems to have satisfied her. I don't know how or why, it's such a tiny difference that my husband couldn't tell what I'd changed when he looked at the thing. I can't even fathom being that picky!
And I have to wonder about how bright Bad Idea is, because she seemed to think that I could pick up features on this plush and just move them around. Move the nose a little lower, move the eyes a little lower, make the tail a little bigger. HELLO. It's all measured and laid out and cut, and so to move anything I have to redo that entire area, all the pieces that touch in any way on the bit being moved! Hand made plushes are not modular! And you can't just widen them, you have to completely re-make a piece to make it larger! Smaller maybe I could do, but not larger!
Anyhow, I have this *surreal* situation where two customers have ordered the same thing, under the same terms, and both had similar problems with their item when they were given photos of the finished thingy. (In this case custom, hand-made plushes.) But from that point on their two stories wildly diverged.
Good idea:
Telling your artist exactly what you're disappointed in and why, (with an apology for not having made your desires clear enough in the first place.)
Bad idea:
Telling your artist exactly what you're disappointed in and why, including a lengthy, emotional appeal designed to try and make them feel guilty, ashamed that they messed up, and obliged to "fix" their "mistake."
(And I'll say that the "mistake" was nothing of the sort. The customer verbally told me that she didn't like my initial sketch, and wanted the tail smaller, then sent me a sketch of her own with a smaller tail. It also had subtle differences in the shape of the nose and the placement of the eyes, but as she'd said nothing about those, I didn't even look at them. So it was not a mistake on my part to do the shape and placement as per the original sketch I'd given her. A misunderstanding, yes. Something I might even be willing to fix under the right circumstances, yes. A mistake? Not on your life.)
Good idea:
Politely asking your artist what she can do to fix your problem. (VERY good idea! The artist may have better ideas for fixing it than you do.)
Bad idea:
Telling your artist (even politely, and with praises for her skill which surely is up to the task, surely *gag*) what she can do to fix your problem.
(I hope you catch the difference there.)
Good idea:
Offering a little something extra for the additional time spent on the fix.
Bad idea:
Insisting that since it's the artist's mistake, and since they have to re-make the whole thing in order to fix it anyhow, they can sell the old version at a profit and thus aren't out any money, so you shouldn't have to pay anything more for the extra work. (Gah, I wanted to BITE this girl when she kept insisting that I wasn't going to be out any money. BITE HER RIGHT IN THE FACE. Selling a pre-made plush never brings as much money in as selling a custom one!)
Good idea:
Keeping it all business, except for a little bit of excited squeeing about how awesome your stuff looks.
Bad idea:
Going on and on and on and on about how you feel about it all, what your friends said about the situation,
and how very upsetting everything is.Good idea:
Being polite.
Bad idea:
Pretending you're being polite by couching it in "well I'm not saying that you're lazy but," terms and calling the artist lazy, among other things.
Yeah. To sum up this lovely mess, my Good Idea customer got her fix, promptly and without any fuss. My Bad Idea customer has just spent the last several hours wrangling with me over e-mail, and finally just to get rid of her I did the single *tiny* fix I could do without completely re-doing her plush, which thank heavens seems to have satisfied her. I don't know how or why, it's such a tiny difference that my husband couldn't tell what I'd changed when he looked at the thing. I can't even fathom being that picky!
And I have to wonder about how bright Bad Idea is, because she seemed to think that I could pick up features on this plush and just move them around. Move the nose a little lower, move the eyes a little lower, make the tail a little bigger. HELLO. It's all measured and laid out and cut, and so to move anything I have to redo that entire area, all the pieces that touch in any way on the bit being moved! Hand made plushes are not modular! And you can't just widen them, you have to completely re-make a piece to make it larger! Smaller maybe I could do, but not larger!
I AM the evil bastard!
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