Choosing to walk away

After repeated frustrating emails with the loser musician, my choice of action is to do absolutely nothing.

He’s been a total jerk, and I’ve told him he is unprofessional multiple times.

I have written eloquent, polite, and very clear emails telling him what we think of him. At least I got a chance to do that.

I told him how professionals would act, and he ignored that.

I negotiated what I thought was fair: 25% refund for failing to play the right song, 1 song out of 4. (processional, 2 hymns, recessional).

and for showing up without a songlist and demanding the song list from me right before the ceremony, playing the wrong song, ignoring our emails and behaving unprofessionally, another 25% refund.

(I was starting the negotiation high, willing to negotiate a fair refund).

We paid him $200, we figure $100 was a fair and generous amount to pay for a musician that acted like he did, showing up unprepared, messing up the song, failing to handle the mistake professionally.

His earlier replies to us, after 11 days of ignoring my first email and us sending a new email asking him for a reply, said “I dont want to talk about it,” (the unprofessional ass).

His reply to the request for a refund was to finally explain that he lost the song list and it was not in his file, and admitted his human mistake.

and admitted that he played the wrong song.

he refused to refund us for our “emotional distress” because that was all our fault.

He said $50 of his fee was for the consultation in which we picked the 4 songs.

He said he played 8 songs, 3 preludes, 2 processionals, 2 hymns, and 1 recessional song.

He figured 1/8 of $150 is $18.75 and asked where he could send his check.

So.

My response is to say nothing at all.

He’s flat out lying about the two processional songs. We had one processional song that was about 4 minutes long. We had a director who planned out the procession according to that one song, we had a relatively small wedding party, and she timed it all to fit one 4 minute song. V did a Beautiful job of it and we were so happy with her.

So the musician is flat out lying about that.

We never chose any prelude songs, he never mentioned them in the consultation.

And basically, we have told him we are unhappy with his work, and asked him to make it right and that we trusted his faith and his honesty to make it right with us.

I told K this morning, he is not offering $18.75 as a way to make it right and to apologize for his mistake. He is offering it as an insult. He doesn’t bloody care that we are unhappy, that he was unprofessional, and that he blew it. He is definitely not trying to make it right.

And I think some people are just terrible about dealing with their mistakes. He didnt even want to acknowledge his mistake, nor did he apologize for it. any “apology” he made to us was followed by an insult. pretty obnoxious.

So. There’s no point in asking him how he came up with 8 songs, or telling him his offer is insufficient, or even to tell him we will tell everyone we know, and on facebook, and on blogs etc that he was unprofessional.

he isnt worth this unhappiness.

he just flat out isnt worth it.

he knows he’s lying, he knows he’s being a jerk. we’ll let karma deal with him.

I dont want his bloody $18.

I’d rather focus on all the things I am grateful for.

I’d rather focus on our one month anniversary yesterday, and how happy I am with K.

I’d rather be happy.

K and I have decided this experience left a bad taste in our mouth and we dont really feel like attending the church where we got married. we’ll see the jerk musician there, and we dont much feel like seeing him.

so K is going to call the church and ask them to stop the direct deposit payments he was tithing.

and I might still edit and send that letter I composed for the church, telling them of our experience with the musician (since they recommended him). Just to make it more brief, and concise.

and then we’re done.

very done.

I was in that awful place last night where I was just so mad, that thoughts kept circling in my head about how I’d like to tell Andy Canepa off.

I kept trying to think of something else and to calm down, and I’d get mad all over again and start telling him off in my head.

It took a bit for me to remember the only way out of that constant loop of angry thoughts is to replace them with other thoughts.

and it takes practice.

so I worked on that, I filled my head with neutral thoughts: I imagined the intricate details of a purple rose.

and I filled my thoughts with happy memories, like our honeymoon. I tried to remember the view from our balcony at the hotel, in as much detail as I could. I tried to fill my mind with all the senses – how the ocean sounded, how the tiles felt under my feet, how it smelled, how beautiful the room was, the colors of the room. how the sheets felt on the bed.

every time angry thoughts tried to sneak back in, I tried to focus on details of happy thoughts.

eventually it worked, with a lot of work to just consistently fill my head with good thoughts to the best of my ability.

We are just going to move on, and not give him a response.

He is definitely not worth it.

I am grateful that my wedding was so happy, that his mistake was minor, and overall, the wedding was so utterly beautiful.

I had a favorite ask for more details, and I will eventually write them out here! I’m plotting entries on the topic, it will likely be several. 🙂

I’ve got so much to be grateful for. That’s all I need to know.