We had to terminate our piercing artist today.

By “we” I actually mean the husbear did. I support him though. (I didn’t work at the tattoo shop today, else it would have been me doing it. Well, maybe. I have a hard time with “HR” stuff.)

The husbear found out—from another stylist at our hair salon—that our piercing artist had been extremely rude to a tattoo customer in the tattoo shop. So rude that the customer left and took some other people with her. She said she would never be back and she would tell her friends and everyone else to never come to our shop.

We can’t have this—at any business. It infuriates me (and the husbear) to no end. We have worked hard to build a reputation for the tattoo shop of NOT being the typical, rude, dirty, scary, drug-filled, gang-related shop. Then to have that reputation tarnished—even for just one person—from someone on the inside! To be honest, the piercing artist had been walking on thin ice for a while. His attitude had been poor, and his performance wasn’t where I expected it to be. I was trying to give him a chance. My mistake.

We have attempted to contact the customer to apologize and to find a way to make it up to her (no answer, but left a message… will try again tomorrow), but I feel the damage has already been done.

Damn.