AIBU to expect the birthday cake booking date changed without extra charge?

No. In this situation the client didn’t get the haircut. The client still had to pay for the service they didn’t receive. The hairdresser in the salon still got paid. No haircut, no cake.

I think because it’s a vegan cake ichanges things, if she comes back to say it’s another £100 that’s a good compromise.

Not everyone who works in a salon would still be paid depending on how the salon operates. You can hardly compare the NHS to a hair salon or an individual cake maker. The NHS is one of the top five global employers and has a spend of over 10% of GDP. A hair salon and a cake maker cannot operate on losing 1-2 hours of business, or in the case of your cake maker probably a whole days worth of business and still be financially viable.

Also a salon can operate whatever reasonable cancellation policy they choose as long as it sits within a legal framework. I think it’s totally reasonable for a hair salon and other services to have a 24 hour cancellation policy. In fact, my dentist has a 24 hour cancellation policy and if you contravene this too frequently, you’ll be off of their register. The NHS as a whole spends a lot of time and effort trying to reduce the number of no-shows at appointments, recognising that it is both wasteful and costly.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The biggest issue here is that you cancelled the cake order with insufficient notice and there are some costs that you can expect reasonably to have to cover for the cake maker. It was an error not to ascertain what would happen with your money with the cake maker as you were cancelling your order. I think she should offer you a reduced rate for a future cake taking into account any fair costs that she has already had to pay out.

I have posted supporting you previously, but sorry you cannot compare the two.

The NHS is publicly funded. Someone is paying for the missed appointments, it just isn't the person who missed it. Its the government budgets that will be covering the costs. Every individual working in the NHS will be fully compensated for their time.

A cake maker is self employed. So her pay is dependent on people paying her for what they have booked her for. Which is why you should expect to pay something to compensate for the time she spent and allocated for your original booking. However, as she didn't complete the cake, she should still have items bought for the original that can be used for the rearranged booking. If she made the cake second time round with no further payment, she is not receiving any pay for the first period. Regardless of whether she actually did all the work or not.

If someone cancelled on you in the NHS with hours notice, you would be upset if the NHS said they weren't going to pay you for that time, as you didn't use it as they had planned for. By paying nothing extra, that is effectively what you are doing. But paying in full twice and only receiving one cake isn't right either. The best place is somewhere in the middle. So you need to see what her expectations are

There you go, follow through….then the cake maker should also get paid (by you) for her time.

I’m not inferring you’re lying. As somebody with knowledge of the profession, I’m saying it doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

So if you describe the design as closely as possible (you don’t have to be specific re theme), I.e. flavours, type of icing, filling, toppers, fondant figures etc, that should explain everything to my logical brain.

Yes, I guess the ops and others expectations are like zero hours contracts, but zero hours contracts work both ways. If you’re on zero hours, you can also say no at the last moment. I’m not sure how happy the op would have been had the cake maker called her the day before and said ‘I can’t make your cake any more’.

It’s not even just about slots tbh. They calculate their prices based on an hourly (@ skilled) rate they charge out, plus ingredients, plus overheads, plus any toppers and additional decorations they will have ordered way in advance, plus cost of the cake board and box. They factor in the time required, then book out their time for the order. So, as you say, this time could have gone elsewhere.

In scenarios such as a sick child impacting the occasion date, the pro baker would normally at such late notice make the cake available as contracted to the customer at the date contracted. The customer can then take it away to keep it chilled for a couple of days or freeze it.

I’ve personally never known a pro baker effectively bin/give away casually a cake they’ve made in these circumstances.

I'm self employed, although not a cake maker.

I think she should have :

Frozen the sponge for your new date
If icing takes (say) 3 hours, and her hourly rate is £25, charge you £75 for the time slot she would have been icing it, because it would be too late to sell that time slot to anyone else.

Regards materials, if they last for months and can be used for the next time, then no extra charge, but if anything was perishable I would charge you for that too.

That seems fair all round.

I'd agree if it was a massage or a hair appointment but the "slot" created a physical product and that should have been given/offered to the OP.

But you still get paid for going to work that day, right?

So are you saying that as an employee of the NHS, if you are being paid a salary to work eg 8-5, and a patient cancels their 2pm hour long appointment the day before, that you will no longer be paid for that hour? As that is the equivalent, not the customer, but the person doing the job role.

i dont think it matters about whether she should charge more for her time to give the Op a cake for another day

the cake maker should be clear about her terms

if she can’t give a cake on a date in the future she should say no and provide the op with the cake as per the original agreement

if she can’t freeze the cake for what ever reason then it’s a quick message to the op to see what can be done

it’s mad to give it away before giving op a chance to collect the cake!

Yeah. And no way would a pro leave all that to the morning of the party. It doesn’t add up.

People think a change of date doesn't mean the vendor loses out, but they do, every time. She could have got another booking for the date you now want. You've taken two slots but only want to pay for one.

This did actually happen to me once (flooded shop) and I was OK with being sent home, although as some colleagues grumbled, we ended up being paid for one hour as travel time.

But if the cake maker had no other prospective bookings for that Saturday, isn’t it more like your boss ringing up with a change to the rota. “Sorry, we’re having to close the shop this Saturday, so we won’t need you then after all. Would you like to work next Saturday instead?”

I’m not suggesting SHE said otherwise. I’m saying it would have been iced the day before.