AIBU to want to give this person a piece of my mind...

[Itchingforbitching]

I'm self employed and work on the basis of a free phone consultation for potential clients (or in person if they come to my office.) Had a call set up last night. The time was their choice not mine, planned my day and evening meal around it ( which mean throwing my dinner down my throat when I came in from work and told DP he could fend for himself) and the person didn't pick up the call. It was only planned and confirmed less than 24 hours ago with their last email saying they looked forward to talking at X time. It was to a mobile so not really any excuse not to answer and no reply to my follow up email just confirming I'd try to call.

If you let a professional down in that way for an evening appt would you expect a bit of a curt retort for your thoughtlessness? (bar any terrible accident or event being the issue.)

I understand. Happens to me too sometimes. I had a client reschedule three times last week and then cancel at less than 12 hours notice

same thing happened to me 3 weeks in a row - the problem is it's blocking spaces for genuine clients - the next appointment my flaky client asks for will be at my convenience!

Are you very new to this?
I mean surely this has happened before?
It is a PITA, you have inconvenienced yourself a little, and a bit rude but you will surely have factored this in to the fees you charge for your paid work? It is part of the nature of freelancing, no?

I thought you were going to say '3 hour appointment ' after your intro... 30 minutes? 😨😨😨 poor husband, having to fend for himself for half an hour...

I think you are overeacting somewhat.

Prep can be done anytime though so meals etc don't need to be planned around it in the same way. No one is saying it's nice to waste time - of course it's not, but it happens. Part of being professional is maintaining emotional distance.

planned my day and evening meal around it ( which mean throwing my dinner down my throat when I came in from work and told DP he could fend for himself)

This is the most unreasonable bit. If your DP was fending for himself, why didn't you arrange that he cook for the pair of you and you eat together after the phone call?

Oops, he or she. Of course the DP could be female. Sorry to assume otherwise.

scholes 😁 Chill. There's really no need to wear yourself out being so 'correct' 😁

But she did say 'he could fend for himself'

This happens to me all the time. The way I see it is that I get an extra half hour to do whatever else I need to.

YABU. When you're trying to sell a client something you come bottom of their list of priorities below anything else that comes up at work or home so this will happen pretty frequently and you just need to suck it up.

There's no point leaving any sort of bad impression which may impact future business with them, their colleagues and any connections they have who may hear word of mouth about a bad impression.

It does suck though.

So your marketing attempt failed OP- and you are trying to blame the potential client?

Are you sure you are in the right line of work?

I don't see what you'd gain from contacting them, and you might have something to lose.

Remember a negative experience is shared 10 times more than a positive apparently. So if you ring to tell them off she is more likely to tell her friends not to use you than if she used you and you gave a good service.

Also did she contact you initially or you her? Sometimes people say yes call me back at that time because they aren't confident enough to tell you to just go away during initial contact.

Gingerbread - I did notice the "he" when I posted. AIBU to wish there was an edit option on posts?