Crying Wolf
It happens. Let’s face it, America is in the midst of a recession and people become desperate. My local bank was robbed 3 times in the last 2 weeks. So what happens in the body art world when it’s slow? They have to stir up business through advertising, specials or, unfortunately, by putting other shops down. When business is slow and some piercers and tattooers are bored, they talk, and not all of it is good. How do you impress people? By talking. Some people require sales pitches, some require being left to their own devices, some are OK with being talked down to (pierce-atude), and some are tired of that shit because so many body artists do it.
So we had a situation this week. We just got in a ton of beautiful Indian 18k gold jewelry; belly dancers rejoice! One of our cute customers bought a nostril pin and we had to stretch her nose to put it in (some Indian jewelry is 16 gauge). Well the poor thing got alarmed because it hurt, and the gold filigreed strip dangling off of it was denting her skin. We personally prefer that when a customer has a problem they come back to us directly, but she went to her local shop out of convenience sake. It’s a good, clean, shop, but what she was told kind of freaked her out.
Now I am not god’s gift to piercing; I am human and can make mistakes and will admit to them and try and do the right thing; customer satisfaction is incredibly important to me. The other piercer told her a variety of things that were inaccurate that I believe was not intended to be malicious, but they were wrong. The dent in her nose became an “allergic reaction”. They diagnosed that the piece was not 18k got but brass plated with 8k gold. The piercer determined this by borrowing the jewelry from her and grinding down the hollow shaft until he hit the inner pin mechanism which is NOT gold, but does not come in contact with the skin (and unfortunately the piece is now irreparably damaged.) So instead of simply bending the piece to relieve the pressure, it became a monster of a problem. After coming back to Robot trust was re-instilled and reestablished, but the customer was afraid she caused drama and was caught in the middle of something. I assured her no harm was done and that she could still trust her local shop for being clean and experienced, and that they simply misdiagnosed the problem.
We body art folks can hypothesize ‘till the cows come home, but like doctors, we are not always correct in our diagnoses and it’s important for both us as body artists and you, the customer, to remember that. This city has some amazing talent spread throughout several shops, we don’t care where you go as long as you are comfortable, and if the piercing freaks out, go back to where you got the work done and work with them until you are satisfied. If you feel dissatisfied, go elsewhere. If the next shop you go to talks shit about where you came from, go elsewhere to a shop with more tact. Identify what makes you happy in your body art needs, and then cater to yourself. You deserve it!