#smocksinabox

To recap, these are folks that do not tattoo, and know little about running a tattoo studio - which is why they have me *ostensibly* manage it for them. The problem is, they want certain things but do not give me the agency to do them, or completely ignore my advice, or disregard the fact that some of the things they want just aren't feasible.

When we went through the fallout with the artist that was stealing from them, the owners had me draft a very simple contract to outline our working relationship - the artists are independent contractors, not employees. One of the agreements was that the artists would "dictate time of performance", or in other words we would determine what hours we work. This is pretty commonplace for independent contractors in general, and I drafted our contract from a standard industry one with just a few tweaks. This contract was signed by the owner, and a copy has been sitting on site, properly filed, for several months (I wisely made copies for myself and made sure the other artists did too). The owner is now denying any knowledge of this agreement and demanding we work certain hours, to which I politely but firmly reminded her she could not do. Both her and her husband are now raising hell about it, saying it will be "talked about" at our next meeting.

Every meeting with them seems to go the same way; they say what they want to happen, I tell them what is or isn't possible/advisable, and they act like they don't hear me or just do what they want anyway. They don't actually listen, they just wait for their turn to speak and expect what they want to be reality. This has gotten so frustrating, because they keep my hands tied in so many ways and set me and my colleagues up to fail, then blame us for it:

They were upset when clients had trouble finding our venue, but dragged their feet on obtaining signage for almost two years, even though I set up all the paperwork for them early on. They just had to sign it and get approved by the landlord, which is both out of my hands. So, we've had no sign for our business. For TWO YEARS.

They refused to set up a business account for their venture, instead asking me to use a credit card attached to their other business, so the charges are all mixed together, and they frequently want me to use OTHER cards despite the fact that I set up all our ordering through the one they already gave me.

Nine-Tailed Fox

Started linework on the nine-tailed fox; client had me change his mouth to look less toothy.

What is Penguicon? 

A non-profit, open-source and sci-fi/fantasy convention held in Southfield, MI (just outside Detroit city limit), April 28th-30th.

But this convention hosts all kinds of panels, interviews, tutorials, and workshops. They have covered things like cooking, cosplay, software, writing, music, parkour, board games, publishing, dealing with death, gardening, programming, fanfiction, scrapbooking, dealing with harassment, building business models, dancing, publishing, card and video games, metal crafting, networking, anime, sewing, languages, sword fighting, comics, politics, fine arts, marketing, dating... the list goes on and on. 

This year I will be hosting the panel “All About Tattoos”, where I’ll cover the basics about getting your first tattoo, including the designing/consulting, what to expect/FAQs, and aftercare/safety.

Since I've recently given birth to my first child, they have been relentless. Some of this is "first-time parent syndrome" I'm sure, especially being cooped up with little else to focus on.