As I have said already, I have been fighting an infection and fatigue for some time now, and at the beginning of last week, I was quite exhausted. I had orders to fill, and did the best I could to get them together, packed safely and shipped out in a timely manner. Unfortunately, I received an email from a customer saying the doll I had sent her had a spot on it. I had seen what I thought was a brushstroke of blue on the back of the head that didn’t blend in well, and I had debated over whether it was disturbing. I decided it was not, but I felt very bad that it obviously was to my customer. I had been more concerned about packing the doll so she would be safe, and padding her skirt so it wouldn’t get wrinkled. It was just one detail of many and I felt I must have underestimated the importance of it.
I apologized and I offered to repaint the spot. I then looked at the photo I had previously taken of the doll to see what needed to be done. There was no spot on the photo I had taken after painting the doll, which indicated to me it was not paint. My mom did some investigating and found the bag the doll had been stored in had some blue print on it that, in all likelihood, had transferred to the doll. It was soluble with soap and water, which I thought was good news, since the spot should come right off. My customer had said she wanted the doll for a gift, if only it had not been for the spot. I told her it might come off and asked her, if she would not mind, to please try washing the spot off, and told her either way, I would still be happy to repaint it. I meant only to save her the inconvenience of returning the doll, but she became angry and told me the doll was coming back to me the next day. She didn’t want a repaint, and she didn’t want to clean the spot off. I apologized again and told her I would refund her money as soon as I received the doll, thinking for some reason she just decided she didn’t want the doll, regardless of the spot.
I was feeling terrible about the whole thing, thinking I must have really missed how disturbing the spot was because I was tired and not feeling well. I am normally very particular and detail-oriented, but I felt I must have slipped. The doll arrived back, and I saw the spot, 1/8 of an inch across, not solid, but a spotty blue-gray color. There was a note complaining about the postage too, saying I overcharged her. The postage included handling: the cost of the packing materials, tissue, bubble wrap, packing peanuts, but I didn’t bother explaining. I just refunded her money and her postage, both to and from.
I had sent the doll carefully wrapped in bubble wrap, with two thick layers over the head, and tissue to pad out the inside of the skirt.