Tag Archives: clients

on clients and friends…

10 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by in friends, twitter, work

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , ,

So this was my today, spent with these three lovely people…

I had an appointment with María Paz to help her revive the blog I’d made for her a couple of years ago, and integrate that with new social media accounts I’d created. Our appointment was for 11 o’clock, and I thought we’d finish in time for me to get to the gym, shower and have a quick bite to eat before my Spanish/English class with Pablo at 3.00. Well, due to this and that María Paz didn’t show up until 1.40 which kind of put the kibosh on, well, everything. Though I did manage a quick shower before she finally arrived. And then made a sandwich after Pablo got here. A part of our class involved helping Pablo get connected with London people on Twitter for an upcoming trip there, and it ended just fifteen minutes before my “proper” English class with my friend Agustín’s son (also Agustín)… and whew! Not the day I’d expected or planned but lots of cool stuff happened, and I was inspired in a many ways. But the really cool thing is how my personal life is also becoming my professional life, which is turning into what I’d want to do anyhow when I get out of bed in the morning. So it’s sometimes hard to tell when I’m working and when I’m not.

After all this it was suddenly 8pm and I remembered that another Twitter pal from Madrid was in town for a bloggers convention, and so I called Graeme and he met Nog and I for a lovely dinner out at one of my favourite places, La Azotea. And I actually got to eat! Which doesn’t often happen on my tapas tours, so that was a nice change.

And now I’m home and thinking about all the social media stuff I need to get done in the morning before I go to the gym and then prepare for an impromptu gourmet tapas tour that was booked by a group of Dutch people who happened to run into the group of Dutch guys that had been on my tour the day before… yeah, I know!

I really love how some friends have become clients, and how clients and online acquaintences end up becoming my friends. It’s all mixed up and it’s great. Just how I like it. And now to bed! There’s a little black cat waiting for me…

once bitten…

06 Monday Dec 2010

Posted by in tapas, work

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

, ,

Never again! Last week I got an email from a guy in Tel Aviv who was interested in booking a tapas tour for December 5th (yesterday) and said it would be for four people. Sounded good to me, so I sent off the usual information including prices and how to book and waited to hear back.

He got back in touch saying he wanted to book the evening tour and that he’d be staying at the EME Hotel, but that he’d never used Paypal before and wondered if we could just arrange to meet in the lobby at 8pm on the 5th. And well, I’d never done this before – the deal is that people have to send me a 50% non-refundable deposit – but the tapas tour was just four days away and thought what the hell, especially as I really needed the money.

Well, you know what’s coming, don’t you? Yesterday it was bucketing down all day and I stayed inside working on some stuff for a new social media client until about 5 o’clock. Then some grocery shopping had to be done and so off I went with Nog and got totally soaked, feet drenched, coat dripping … when I got home I had to take a hot shower to warm up, but instead of being able to get into my comfy pj’s and curling up in front of the electric fire with the cats I had to get dressed up and go out again. And so I headed back out into the rain and was at the EME Hotel five minutes ahead of the appointed time, and I waited in the lobby as had been planned. And then I waited, and waited some more. The clients never turned up. Half an hour later I checked at the front desk and they told me this person wasn’t even staying there. It totally sucked. And so I sloshed back home through the driving rain, got into my pj’s, made popcorn and opened a bottle of wine…and tried to get over it.

I don’t get it though. Why didn’t they at least cancel? The guy had said they were flying to Spain on the 1st and would be in Seville the afternoon of the 5th. In his last email he said they were all looking forward to a wonderful evening in Sevilla with me. I mean, it was bad enough that I got soaked through twice in one day, and was left waiting in the hotel lobby for half an hour, but I also didn’t get paid! If I’d insisted on the deposit then at least I would have had that. Live and learn, eh?