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Games People Play
July 15, 2005

Three weeks ago I took a call from a potential client who's daughter is getting married. The Trick is a large weddding; 450 people, sit down dinner, full bar, and all the trimmings. And money was no object.


A thrilling prospect.

The Client's mother-in-law is (MIL) a very well known party planner but The Client was planning this function behind her MIL's back in an effort to "prove herself". The MIL is a very controlling woman, I have dealt with her on many occasions. But quite honestly she has to be controling to be in her line of business. Although I will admit that my controlling nature and her controlling nature have clashed on more than one occasion. Her control flows over into everyone else's business and I get irritated (read: Bitchy) if someone tells me how to run my kitchen, which she has done more than once. And because of this we've had a few heated discussions, but I respect her. She's the best at what she does.


So The Client, knowing full well I knew her MIL, approached me with the argument that she was doing this without help in an effort to prove she could do it and also in an effort to give her MIL some time off.

Fine. Whatever. I don't ask the why's. I just ask the when's, the how many's, and the what's, and then when are you going to pay me's.


We talked for nearly an hour on that initial call and decided we would talk more after I had time to get some menu ideas down on paper. And it wasn't 1/2 hour after I hung up with The Client's MIL called. Her call was for another client, another function. But she managed to slip in the question asking if her daughter-in-law had called me. Because she assumed she would.


I told her I hadn't heard anything. Because A) It was none of her business and B) I am just anal when it comes to customer privacy. The Partner and I have had a long standing agreement that we don't even admit to catering a Trick until people actually see us coming out of the kitchen. We deal with The Clients, only. And we leave the rest of the world guessing. We think it's just good business. We also like to torture the nosy-ass people of the world.


Anyway.


The MIL persisted and went on to tell me that her daughter-in-law was very disorganized and that I needed to stay on top of her. Again I acted dumb and skipped over her comment to redirect the conversation back to other business.


I hung up disgusted. Because I knew this little game The Client and her MIL were playing would somehow come back to bite me in the ass.


So the very next day The Client called me and and we discussed some menu ideas she had and then she changed the course of the conversation to her MIL. Apparently her MIL had called her and told her to get more organized and call us to book us, and The Client wondered why I lied and didn't tell her MIL the truth that she had, in fact, called.


And here it started.


What happened over the next three days was a series of "she said/she said" phone calls. And what became clear in those 3 days was that The Client and her MIL clearly have a very unstable (read: immature) relationship. And The Client was using us as a middle-man pawn to drive her MIL crazy. And the MIL was doing to same. The phone calls becaume ludicrous and my stress level was going through the roof.

So I put an end to it because I could see the writing on the wall. We were going to battle this until the last plate was served and I refuse to Trick like that. So I pulled our proposal and told The Client we would be unavailable to work for her. She was floored. And angry. And upset. And then felt foolish when I told her why. And I think mostly mad because her stupidity screwed it up. But it was too late for her to talk me back into it - I was just done.


And honestly, I hated to do it. The Trick was going to be a good money maker. But it's not always about the money. In this case it was about working without hassle. And we weren't going to be in a stupid high- school duke-out between Mother-in-Law and Daughter-in-Law.


We've got better things to do with our time.


I, for one, could use a night off to devote to lemon drops.

Posted by Foodwhore at July 15, 2005 11:36 AM

I turned down a job yesterday, too. Not quite as dramatically as yours, I mean, after all, how COULD it be? :-D but the woman was floored that I wouldn't cater her party for $12/person.

I have an analogy I like to use (click on my name/link or copy & paste: http://chefjoanna.blogspot.com/2005/ 06/chef-joannas-psa-on-wedding-budgets.html) to explain how much they should budget.

She was audibly miffed that I turned her down before discussing menu, but why waste time with her if she was never going to hire me?

UGH!! What makes people think that they can host a formal party at their home for less than a restaurant? They still want gourmet food and five-star service... It's MORE work, why would I charge LESS?

Why don't people get it?

Posted by: MisChef at July 15, 2005 01:39 PM

Posted by: MisChef at July 15, 2005 01:42 PM

smart woman not getting involved in the middle of a DIL/MIL war.

Posted by: Kim at July 15, 2005 02:18 PM

Good for you! Even my kids don't pull that stuff on me.

Posted by: Barb at July 16, 2005 03:03 AM

Good for you. You know your business is about right when you hire clients, not visa versa.

I've worked for years based on the "A.P.D. (Aggravation Per Dollar) Index" on a potential client/project. When the APD gets too high, ya gotta go.

Posted by: the pragmatic chef™ at July 16, 2005 11:31 AM

One of the benefits of being self-employed is that you can choose to turn down pain in the ass clients no matter how much money you stand to make...good job for sticking to your principles.

Posted by: denise at July 18, 2005 07:00 AM

There ARE things in life that money cannot buy. Sanity is one of them. A very wise decision on your part.

Posted by: HomefrontSix at July 18, 2005 03:12 PM
 
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