Lacking in Moral Consciousness

I've had a series of bad luck recently when it comes to my side income of making handmade cards and mini photo albums. It's not that I am losing customers but more like, losing money not because of I lack customers but rather, these customers lack empathy over someone's hard work, time and effort. 

The often situation is that I would have shown them the pics that the cards or mini albums have been done. These are the explosion boxes that take considerable amount of time and effort to make because within the box, there are 8 panels and also two or four of the panels, will have the pull out tab each. That means, it has this mechanism to pull and a series of 4 mini photos will cascade down. I would have shown the picture but I'm currently too upset to even look up for one, lol.

As for the mini album, it's a 6 inches and 10 pages picture album done in the style of scrapbooking with photos and decorations. For each page, I have to creatively design the layout and I do a mixture of stickers, cutting and stamping. And for almost all projects, I also use the electronic die cut machine for the words and numbers. So it's not just manual handiwork but electronically too.

So can you imagine the amount of work and I mostly do this before and after I get ready for work. That means I have to wake up earlier, shower and dress up for work and continue again before leaving. 

Not all of my customers are of this attitude where they simply don't care and just go MIA after promising to collect. There was one customer who had physically collected, said she would pay me via ATM machine at that MRT though it was already fishy back then that she was not going to. And I was right. The funny thing was that when I texted her, a week later (coz I am that nice to give such a long grace period), out of nowhere she sent me a picture of a toddler in hospital saying that she was facing a personal crisis. That item was $12. I didn't respond after that because I knew at that point of the time, it's a gone case already. If she couldn't afford, she shouldn't have bothered taking, and giving the empty promise you know. If I say, I don't care..she still owe me that $12, I am heartless. But if that kid is not even hers, coz from the photos, she's too young to have a kid coz her friend was only 16 but kids nowadays, I don't even know what's going on too since well, I work in the education line so it may not be surprising.

Whatever it is, in short, she cheated me.

I thought nothing could top that. Later I will be writing on how someone else managed to topple that cheater. 

The most common one was after I'm done and their promise to collect later, they did not. The best thing was that they would ask for updates, and when I had done it, they would be like..okay, i'm not free now. Will collect next week. That next week will be turned to the following week, with no response and if they did, to so called still act 'interested' by asking when I'm free or can I post to them, when I replied..they went MIA again.

So for recently, I had two of such cases where they would just randomly drop messages, in a duration of once or twice a week. For one, I just had to ask if she was still keen coz she had not made any arrangement to collect. Of course, there was 101 excuses but when she said, she felt bad coz I had done the card already so she felt like she ought to pay me, I said no need and stop responding after that. So it just went to show she didn't have any interest but instead, she owed me something coz I had done it. 

Logically, when she asked for the bank account, I would have just given and who knows, she may just pay me. But what's the point, really. First thing, she may not even end up paying since she was already so wishy washy over it. Second, I don't want to sell it to her just because she lost interest but was obliged to collect, after more than a month, mind you...just coz she felt bad. And only coz I suspect, she was taken aback by what I said since I had been giving polite replies until that time, I was sorta triggered. I just want to know, what was her motivation of asking me a question, and then only replying a week later. Like girl, don't waste my time anymore.

Okay, this is something that is easily solved and many others I know are doing this as well. It's just me acting 'different'. I know because I got people saying that I practised differently. I am bearing such consequences as I do not take deposit or payment before collection. So this MIA thing or that one time rare occasion of collection WITHOUT paying, was the negative result of this dumb practice.

Why am I so silly?

First of all, it doesn't cost much. At most, the item is $18 for the mini album and that is already quite cheap because it contains almost 18 pics, decors, papers and cover page. The explosion box is either $12 or $14. And honestly, though it's time consuming, as I have been doing for years and started to simplify the process quite recently, I take lesser time but it doesn't mean that I can have it done flat in 30 to 45 minutes. The earliest timing I can complete is within 1 and a half hour. I cannot do it too quickly either coz I can easily mess up and I hate it when I get glue on places I don't need the glue to be. It's often a nightmare to get it cleaned.

Secondly, it's because I don't want to take the cash when I am not done with doing the item. I don't really feel comfortable. Because at times, I may have a few orders coming at the same time, I may lose track or missed it even if I write down. Then it will be like, I have taken the money without giving the product, unless of course, the person reminds me by asking for update then I would have remembered if say, I had missed it.

I totally understand the rationale of people taking the money first. It makes perfect sense. But of course, they have to deliver it as well which I'm sure they do or risk being blacklisted. I'm not saying for all though, if not we won't have any cheating cases at all.

Oh yah, earlier I talked about how something happened this week which I thought really was the pinnacle of the MIA cases and that one cheating girl with the 'sad' story.

I have communicated with the lady on WhatsApp, switching from email, and earlier I said I could not do it because I was busy that week and on a break. She said okay but few days later, she asked again if I could make as she really needed it before a certain date. Since it was after my break period, I said ok coz I thought I would have done with most orders.

I had it done quite fast because the timeline was very short and I barely got out of my break but you know, life goes on. Went out to post office in the hot sun as I had to walk there during my afternoon lunch so that I could post it and she can receive it in time. She promised to pay me via bank transfer that evening after work.

I said no hurry, because I didn't want to pressurise her into paying even though I was hurried to get the item done and to post quickly. I can tell you confidently, that usually if they can't pay that day, they will eventually pay the next or the following day. Coz it was the right thing to do after I had fulfilled their order and requests on time.

I have this tracking number to see if the item was delivered. Fair enough she said she didn't receive it because the delivery date was that day itself and that she may not be home yet, like me..to check in the mailbox. But it had been three days since she last promised to pay so I also asked her to update me on the payment status, besides whether she had received the item.

Guess what. The next day, she blocked my number. She didn't respond to my last message with an okay or thanks..there was no double tick..she just left it hanging. And I know it was blocked because her profile pic was gone and there was no 'last seen'.

I was BLOCKED ON WHATSAPP TO AVOID BEING PAID. The item was $20.50 including postage and she didn't protest like ooh..the item was expensive..but just said she should pay me that evening after work.

To me, that was the LOWEST one can go in terms of avoiding to pay for an already done up item. It puzzles me, for this case, and for all the other cases of people going MIA, not responding to messages whether online or via WhatsApp, and I'm thinking about where the heck is their moral conscience.

Look, I am not perfect. There is no one perfect human being no matter how saintly one can portray himself or herself to be.

But how do people EVER live with such conscience. Going MIA is one thing and since they didn't pay, they didn't feel the guilt. But collecting or receiving the item, and then avoiding payment is, to me, a very very very very LOW of them to do such thing. Blocked me some more? Might as well dig the ground so you can go lower.

Seriously, why. Are people getting more selfish these days that everything has to be me centric. People can tell you their sad stories or make you do things for them these days but when it comes to YOU, they just dismiss you off like you're nothing but just a subordinate or that your stories mean nothing compared to them.

So nowadays people, in the general sense, put their own selfish desires ahead of others first, quick to judge on others and make false assumptions. It's really easy to make enemies but they don't care. But I'm still optimistic that there are still nice people around. I've read or hear about them and it's really heartening to know that there are also people who work tirelessly to make this world a better place and help other individuals get back on track or to improve for the better. 

For those people who wreck on other people's happiness, by cheating or whatsoever methods you have up your sleeves, hope you will realise one day that by doing so, you will only live in regret especially when the tables are turned against you. Then you know how the person feels.