May 16, 2019

Three Saints 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon

I decided to blog this bottle today because I surely need the help of a few saints.  It’s the end of the school year; several hundred people in my world need everything five minutes ago.  Add in a slow business cycle for the last four weeks.  Now sprinkle in some extremely difficult customers.  You’ve got a stew made for high stress.

The frustration level is off the charts and then the crowning moment of “are you kidding me” comes in this morning.

I have a customer who is being very difficult about educational policies at my business.  We have been extremely accommodating but we are not going to re-write or change the policy specifically for her.  It has worked, and continues to do so, for thousands of families.  Policies exist for a reason – in this case to protect in integrity of the teacher.

After multiple conversations (and she’s a talker, a phone call could go on for twenty to thirty minutes and will usually include the list of things she feels we need to change), I made the decision that I can’t continue to waste other customers time any longer.  Every moment I spend on this issue I am not giving to someone else who has a solvable issue.  I emailed her, explained in detail what we were doing to help her, and put in writing that we couldn’t change the policy she was unhappy with.  (Yes, my legal council looked at the letter first.)

Enter the husband.  Now he wants to talk. (Keep in mind, this is a debate that has been going on for a year now.  Yes, folks, a full calendar year.)

When I reiterated the same email, it didn’t go over well.  I won’t repeat the accusations thrown at me, but here’s the interesting part.  I gave the letter to someone else, pretending a male owner wrote it.  No problem.  Very professional, to the point, and not at all accusatory.  So here my dilemma of the week:  why is it a female owner of a business writes a professional, firm letter and she becomes a crazy, terrible person who kills kittens?

I hate to throw sexism into the mix, and I feel like I hold my own most of the time, but seriously.  I’m only sad that she wasn’t at all creative of her opinion of me.  She stuck to “unprofessional, childish, unintelligent.”  (She also wrote her email using “u” instead of “you.”  Just saying.)  Once, I was accused of being a sorceress who put dark spells on people to make them like me.  That, at least, was creative.

Cleansing my world of irritation, I came home to an unusual afternoon glass of wine.  Three Saints from Happy Canyon, Santa Barbara, California, seemed the way to go.  It’s such a light cab, I had to look to be sure it was a cab.  Light, easy to drink, fermented in stainless steel instead of oak.  (But oak aged.)  Cherry and blueberry.  It’s lovely and, maybe, can get me through to June 😊