Grumpy’s not very fond of custom orders. When Grumpy was a shiny-new Master Architect with a shiny-new store and showroom, Grumpy thought custom orders would be great – and the bigger, the better! Grumpy’s not so stupid now.
About a week ago, Grumpy was passing through Bestine on his way back to the main location when a “mark” (that’s a customer to you noobs) sent a tell asking if Grumpy did quantity orders. Grumpy replied in the affirmative. The mark wanted Grumpy to shuttle over to one of the Mos triplets to see his large house and give opinions on what huge city fixtures would overwhelm the entry room and give it that warm municipal feel.
Grumpy tried to squirm out of that one. Grumpy was on a schedule and didn’t have time to go see some large Tat house in whichever-Mos city. For crying out loud, Grumpy KNOWS what a large tat house looks like. The mark was persistent tho, he needed a large order fast!, so Grumpy ran over to nod his head alot and see the floorplan for the large Tat…again, for the hundredth time. The mark used of a lot of emotes to show Grumpy how huge and spacious his house was and that he lived here ALL BY HIMSELF because he was such a rich and famous BOUNTY HUNTER, and all feared him.
Grumpy feared him now too, because all this talk about how lonely he was in his large Tat was making Grumpy nervous. Grumpy was glad he wasn’t running around in his underwear that day, as he usually does now that the item decay “feature” is in place.
Grumpy hurried him along and finally got him to reveal what furniture he wanted in what quantites and which city fixtures would give him that warm municipal feel he so desired. Problem was, Grumpy wasn’t paying much attention at this point and misquoted the price on some of the MA furniture. Grumpy cursed himself later but was of course going to honor the quoted price. Unfortunately, Grumpy had to go find some specialized ore to make the order so had to do some floortile camping at the starport to find it.
MEANWHILE, another mark sent a tell wanting huge quantities of upholstered furniture. O great, Grumpy’s hide suppliers have been busy with homework lately (and other school BS — what can their mothers be thinking? Don’t they know Grumpy has a business to run here?!) so Grumpy was going to have to pay retail on hides for mark2′s order. Grumpy was on his toes now tho, and quoted a proper price for upholstered-type furniture. Mark2 was flabbergasted. That much for dozens of chairs that use 150 hides each??!?!??! Grumpy checked his math. Yes, that much.
Mark2 then went on to tell Grumpy how much Grumpy SHOULD be charging for furniture especially to a PA with their stature in the community (yes, rich and obviously famous). Grumpy is not making this up….he told Grumpy that he should probably make the furniture at near-gratis for the opportunity to service them. Grumpy said something irl that would be edited by the board filter then replied to Mark2 that he could shop around and get back to Grumpy. Well, Grumpy TRIED to reply, but Mark2 had logged off. /shrug
Grumpy finally found a nice quantity of his ore for Mark1 (and by nice, Grumpy means the seller wasn’t on crack), loaded up the factory, answered a few game emails, gloated to his gf/business partner about how much the stores had sold that day, and logged off to end his SWG day.
The next day, Grumpy put the LonelyTatMark’s order in a pack, put it on his Bestine vendor and emailed the mark that his order was ready. Not even 5 minutes later, he gets a tell from the PAMark, inquiring if his chairs were ready. W-T-H. Had Grumpy somehow become an indentured slave without getting a notification memo??? Grumpy replied they hadn’t agreed on a price, so no chairs would be forthcoming. Grumpy thoought this was much more professional than calling him a sonuva…
PAMark explained that he had to log quickly yesterday and just assumed they had a deal. BuuuuuuulllllShhhhhhh*********!! PAMark had obviously shopped around and couldn’t beat Grumpy’s price or delivery schedule and was trying to avoid crawling back to Grumpy by pulling this “I assumed we had a deal” BS. Grumpy re-quoted the price to make sure they understood each other, and to his credit, Grumpy resisted the urge to tack on a “You’ve annoyed the h*ll out of Grumpy” surcharge.
No matter, credits is credits. Grumpy made the order, whistled for his trusty steed and prepared to ride through armies of red and angry mobs to hand-deliver the chairs to the PA vendor. (How in the h*ll PAMark got Grumpy to agree to do that still puzzles Grumpy, he must have been AFK when the mark asked.)
A week later, TatMark tells Grumpy that he’s running short on credits and won’t be able to pick up the MA furniture order for a few more weeks. (So much for rich and famous.) But, good news!!! TatMark wanted to visit Grumpy’s main location now to buy a couple fountains, a crate of streetlamps and 2 statues instead, k?
Show Grumpy the money, k?
The Grumpy Master Architect ©
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