Years ago, I used to work for a Dry Cleaners in town.
An elderly man used to drive between the local branches, dropping work off/collecting work etc. One day he came over to me and handed me a dress to shorten for a lady who worked at a different branch and asked if I'd shorten it for her.
I didn't know her. She could have left it at her own branch to go through the system ( and would have received a staff discount) but she especially wanted me to alter it for her because she knew my work was nicely done.
It was a jersey dress, so I didn't dare sew it on the industrial machine at work. It was a vile machine which I never got to grips with, so I took the dress home. I wasn't working from home at this time, and I hadn't got any ballpoint machine needles so I had to buy some. They cost me 95p
.
Altered it. Took it back to work and it got back to the lady.
Next time the old chap came to the shop he smiled and said how pleased she was with the dress and handed me a £1 coin from her.
On another occasion, he got me to alter some trousers for him and I got a couple of packets of sweeties for doing that.
The final straw was when he started talking about some old red velvet curtains
which needed shortening? or narrowing down or something. He asked if he could drop them off for me to do and I said I would, but I jumped in first and told him how much I'd be charging for it, which wasn't much, but I couldn't allow him to pay me a couple of quid, or literally, peanuts.
He looked offended.
I didn't, and still don't care.
He never mentioned them again.
Fine by me.
He, his wife and sister-in-law all worked for this company. They knew exactly how much alterations cost.
Sandra.
xxx