RWRiley Wright
For Prayer Support Stool I initially found this website because my Buddhist wife wanted a "prayer stool" made. I'll call it this for lack of a better name. It was a low-to-the-floor, cushioned, bow-and-pray support platform. In her worship, she must stand and bow many times, so this platform facilitates that type of worship ritual.
At first, no one on the website offered to take on my custom project. Then finally, Derrick contacted me and offered to do so. He seemed sincerely interested in helping me out, as if he had seen me standing in the rain waiting for a bus pickup. As is my wont, I reviewed Derrick's user reviews. They were almost all positive except for two reviews that were quite negative. Since these were more recent reviews than the rest, I gave them greater weight, so I thanked Derrick for his volunteering to do my project, but I turned down his offer, and I told him why. I felt he had a right to know why I declined his offer. Apparently, I was not the first customer to do so for this reason.
Not willing to have me leave with a negative impression of him, he engaged me in a conversation thread where he explained to me the circumstances of those two incidents that led to the bad reviews. Could he be lying to me? Possibly. However, I was impressed by his honesty, his passion, and the pride he seemed to take in his work. By rejecting him outright, I had wounded his pride, and this had hurt him. He told me that he loved doing these projects as kind of a hobby but those two negative reviews, out of hundreds of good ones, had put a dent in his accepted offers.
I work in the nuclear power plant industry, and I know well the adage that says, "One 'aw-shit' wipes out (cancels) 1,000 'attaboys' ". So, I decided to give Derrick a chance. I gave him the specifications for my project, and over the next month or so, he and I went back and forth with questions and answers. He was very communicative, sending me pictures of my project in progress and asking me questions when he needed to make an artistic or creative decision, such as what color for the cushion, what material, were the dimensions still acceptable if a minor change had to be made, etc.
I always knew what he was doing and when and why he was doing it. He kept me informed and made sure he always got any needed input from me before he deviated at all from what I had asked for. Within a reasonable time frame that we had both agreed upon, I received my project in a timely manner, undamaged, and it was exactly what I had asked for. My wife was very pleased.
I enjoyed every minute of my interactions with Derrick, and I am very pleased that I accepted his kind offer to take on my project when no one else would. My project wasn't his usual type of project, but he understood that I had a need to fill, felt sympathy for me, and he graciously volunteered to fill that need for me.
Thank you, Derrick! It was a pleasure working with you! :)
