You ever fire a customer?

Last year, I had a neighbor bug me about cutting and baling 7 acres for him. He lives a mile down the road, never stopped in to introduce himself or anything, just drives by. I didn’t return his call because I was just too busy with my own stuff, so he stopped by and pleaded with me. So in the spirit of “love thy neighbor” I agreed. Terms were simple: cash deal, cut anytime after July 4.

On June 30, guy calls and insists that I come now because of favorable weather window. I was in the middle of trying to fix an irrigation problem and I told him exactly what I was up against. I was not nice about it. He called again a couple of days later and bugged me again. I decided that I would go ahead and cut. What a crappy piece of land. Uneven, gopher mounds all over, swather high centered. I remember laying on the ground digging the dirt out of the machine and sending him a text message saying I’d never do this again and he said he understood.

It got rained on. I turned over the windrows. As soon as it was dry, he wanted it baled immediately. It was mostly alfalfa, some grass and a lot of weeds. And by immediately, I mean 2:00 in the afternoon. I clarified he meant RIGHT NOW and he said yes. Fine by me. Leaves were crunchy dry and humidity was very low but I wanted out of this deal, so away I went. Not my best work. But I wanted this pain in the butt out of my life.

Guy calls me a couple months later and needs some grass hay for his lady friend. I didn’t have any, all sold out. Then he calls again, begging. Well, I had a customer back out on me so I had his 2 tons after all. This was good looking stuff, but he continuously questioned me about mold. I moisture test periodically, so I got him to shut up about that after I explained. Then he bickered about the bale count with my daughter. Then he bickered about the weight. I told him 70 pound bales. He shook his head “no” and I asked him what he was thinking. He said 68.

Good grief. I explained to this jackass that we have a scale, take bales from throughout the field to create a random sample and weigh each bale individually to come up with an average and this guy wants to whine about 2 pounds?

Got him loaded up and out of here. I pulled the next 2 bales off the stack and weighed them. 69 and 71, I kid you not.

So when this guy came around this spring to ask me if I was interested in continuing the arrangement, my immediate reply was HELL NO. The look on his face was as if I had just kicked him in the nuts. I just told him I didn’t have time and let it go at that. I decided that this guy was incapable of understanding that he is a jackass and that explaining this would be a waste of time.

So I gotta admit that felt pretty good. I’ll never do business of any kind with that guy ever again. And my life is better for it.

Anybody else fire a customer?

You ever fire a customer?