It’s safe to say that yesterday I reached my breaking point. Let me explain that I don’t yell, I rarely get upset and generally nothing bothers me… so for me to reach a breaking point, it’s gotta be realllllly bad.

Quick recap of what led up to my breaking point:

COVID-19 pandemic impacted the entire friggin world, starting in March (here in Michigan). Our Michigan governor shut down our state. MOST businesses were forced to close. Our warehouse is an exception to the rule; meaning we can choose to stay open or play it safe and close. BUT, 100% of our staff wanted to stay open because we know that if we close our customers won’t be able to get merchandise, which will financially impact their families.

Fast forward to April. Our state is still shut down. Shit is getting really hard. We have only been able to have 1 person work at a time so everything is piling up on our end and everything just feels 10x harder and lonelier.  Work is becoming overwhelming and almost miserable, but we are pushing through.

USPS (United States Postal Service, whom we ship through) has been operating with a “skeleton staff”, meaning LESS than the bare minimum number of employees required to operate smoothly. The USPS employees working are Volunteers who are literally risking death to get mail moved during a deadly pandemic.  Due to our shutdown, employees cannot be forced to work. 

Because of this, USPS is taking for-friggin-ever to deliver parcels. I call this “Understandably crappy”... because what else can you call it?  Can you really dump on someone who could easily just choose to go on unemployment and collect government benefits instead of risking their life? (Spoiler Alert: To my surprise, YES, you CAN indeed fly off the handle and throw a tantrum over Volunteers not moving fast enough. Wow. Simply wow.)

Fast forward to last week… Our customers start flipping the F out on us because USPS is operating slowly … like instead of delivering their parcel in 3 days, they’re taking 7-12 to deliver. And, instead of “THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BEING OPEN DURING A DEADLY PANDEMIC!!” they’re like “If YOU don’t get the parcel delivered to me I am calling the BBB! I am calling Channel 2 News! I am slamming you with bad reviews on every site, including sites you never even knew existed! I will even MAKE a site just to post a bad review about you!”

This goes on and on and on, 24 hours a day, all last week. By Wednesday, our customers are calling our customer service staff “f*cking retards”, telling them they deserve to be fired, calling them every name in the book, even threatening their children…. All because USPS Volunteers haven't scanned their parcel in 3+ days…

People can only handle so much abuse before they can’t handle it anymore and nothing gets under MY skin more than seeing great people being verbally abused over something they have 0 control over… especially when those same people are literally going out of their way to do a favor for the person who is screaming at them. Sigh.  It makes you feel like, "Why try?".

Then Friday, April 10th comes. By the 10th the verbal abuse reached an all-time-high. We cannot have our staff crying or having nervous breakdowns. It’s not ok because the mail carrier is running slowly. I would rather pull the plug on the whole thing than have someone cry hysterically from completely undeserved stress.

So on Friday, I decide we are just going to close for the weekend. We are going to start fresh next week and if we can’t get our customers to be respectful and understand a pandemic makes transit slower then we will close until the pandemic is over and our state is off Lockdown. Meaning, instead of SLOW inventory, they’ll get NO inventory.

I then sent out an email blast, basically venting my frustrations in the most polite, calm way possible.  You can read the email here if you missed it.

NOW YOU’RE TOTALLY CAUGHT UP, so here’s todays post:

So, after I typed the email on Friday, as I clicked the “Send” button, I have never felt so deflated. I really felt like all hope was lost. Of course COVID-19 is depressing, but humanity can be even more depressing. I had legitimately, at that moment, had lost all faith in people.

After the email was sent, the replies started rolling in. I was DREADING opening them. I was expecting the replies to be “So when the F is my $24.99 grab bag going to arrive?” type-stuff.

I clicked “open” on the first message and while the page loaded, I grit my teeth, bracing for the verbal lashing….

And then, the first thing I see is the NICEST-EVER reply. An amazing uplifting message from a seller named Janice who pointed out that “Even if you gave everyone a million dollars, some would complain about the color of the bag it came in”. It was the first kind words we had heard in over a week. It was the virtual hug we really needed. I actually laughed out loud then got choked up because sometimes all you need during a pandemic is a hug.

I opened the next reply from Kerry and she also wrapped us in virtual love from afar.

Then Sherill reminded us that we are all in this together.

Kerry took the time to remind us that everything will be ok and we will get through this!

Then Amy, who hasn’t even ever bought from us, took the time to reply with kind words that gave me strength.

Throughout the rest of the day the kindhearted, often funny, replies kept coming. If you know me, I am all about funny. I love to laugh. So it meant the world to me.

It got me thinking:

My sons used to come home from school and say “MOM! EVERYONE in school is SO MEAN!” And, as a parent, of course you sit your kid down and do the “parenting thing”; you remind them of how awesome they are and, I always tell my kids, “That’s not true. There’s tons of great kids in your school who are just like you. It FEELS like everyone is mean because those couple terrible kids are just really, really loud.” then you remind your kid that the people who are super rotten are just REALLY UNHAPPY people who come from really unhappy situations. And I always finish out my mother-son-chat with “Stay focused. One day you will be those kids' boss. People who act like that will never get ahead in life because nobody in the real world wants to work with them.” and that always makes them smile because the best revenge ever is being victorious in the face of adversity; nothing pisses a bully off more than your success over them.

  - Nailed it.

But why don’t adults take our own advice? Hmmmmm… I pondered this while I started making a new garden yesterday, and here’s what I came up with...

When you’re an online seller, you rarely ever get to meet your customers. The customers who do email you are usually complaining about something because, unfortunately, people seem to rush to complain but few people rush to praise. Some of the complainers are what I call “Keyboard Gangsters”; people who think they’re tough guys because they’re hiding behind a keyboard. Those same people would never act like that to your face, but give them a cell phone and they turn into some weird Marvel villain… Oh no! It’s Bad Review Man; he’s going to take down your star rating!!! … and look! His sidekick is here too, Unreasonable Girl! Shes going to pepper you with idiotic demands and try to kill you with 4-letter-words! Run! She just threw another F-Bomb!!!!

Anyways, my point is this: While your trying to fend off Bad Review Man who is threatening to unleash the wrath of hell on your profiles and Unreasonable Girl who is carpet bombing your inbox with curse words, you forget about Super Janice or Sargent Amy, Commander Kerry or Captain Sherill who are your supporters. You don’t realize how many people LOVE your products or respect your hard work or have had a great experience. Or, in the case of Sergeant Amy, have never even bought anything but is such a nice person that she cared enough to send words of encouragement to a small business going through a frustrating time.

Believe me when I tell you this, when all hope feels lost, there are so many people standing right beside you, fighting on your team, who want you to stay strong and want you to succeed.

And even though we have never met, we are really all in this together and we would be disappointed if you gave up. And we would be genuinely sad if you quit because of the mean kids in school. Just as you are standing beside us, we are right next to you too.

Remember -

Stay strong. Stay focused. Someday you will be that mean kids boss.

- Tori Thompson

BigBrandWholesale.com