In my years of tattooing I never got a cool nickname unlike many other artists. But recently I've begun playing around with the idea of calling myself Doctor Scott. Much like hairdressers and bartenders we tattoo artists often hear all about our clients lives and even hand out helpful advice. I've seen and done a lot so my advice comes from experience. But where do I go for a mental release? Here, to my blog hahaha. This is where the voices in my head can speak freely and instead of punching people in their throats as suggested today by a client, this way nobody gets hurt.
Sooo, where am I going with this? Lately I've had some things go down that didn't sit well with me and I've begun to become a tad more bitter. And this bitterness when traced comes back to one thing, lack of respect. Respect is earned, not merely given. But I will respect you up until the point where you disrespected me. For instance, if you want me to draw you a picture for a tattoo I will do so with no problem. If you want to make changes to the tattoo, I will gladly make these changes. A tattoo is forever and thus you should be happy with it. I have in fact drawn and redrawn and redrawn and redrawn to make a client happy. Tweaking things until they are just right. What you might not know or understand is that each time I produce a drawing it was probably drawn about three times prior to you seeing it. Still it's not an issue, unless suddenly you decide to make changes that never existed in any conversation we've had prior. When you asked for an evil demon chick with huge exposed breasts with a background of flames and have me draw it in three different styles only to then send me reference pics completely different and have me yet again put hours into a drawing that I then show you. Please don't ask why she doesn't have an umbrella in her hand. The umbrella was never a part of the original idea. So please know what you want before I spend hours drawing for you. I do have a life and other clients as well who also need my attention.
Often life gets hectic and things come up that interfere with our plans. I understand, really I do, but cancelling or rescheduling your appointment an hour before it is completely unacceptable. The receipt we give you when you make an appointment clearly states that a 24 hour notice is required to change your appointment. And please, if we trust you to not leave that deposit don't make us regret that decision by you doing the last minute cancellation or worse the whole no call now show routine. Here soemthing you might not have known. Tattoo artists don't get paid hourly we get a percentage of what we charge you. Out of that comes expenses for all that fancy equipment, bright colors we use on you, the business cards, stickers etc. So if you bail we don't get paid. I depend on my appointments to pay my bills and put food on my table so while it may not seem like a big deal to you its a huge deal for us. I commute 2 and a half hours to work, and I've been late only a few times and missed only one appointment in over 2 years.You made a commitment (freely, no one forced you) which should be honored, we uphold our end you should be doing the same.
I am very committed to my job and take it very seriously. I take pride in it and push myself and strive to get better. I experiment and try finding the best products and equipment to use on my clients. I spend hours drawing for clients instead of spending time on things for myself. So please try and remember these things when it comes time to schedule an appointment. Much more is going on then just people getting tattoos. This is my life, I don't shit on you so please show some respect and don't shit on us. If you remember that we will probably get along just fine. And I think I'm back to being fairly happy again. I do hope you enjoyed reading this rant as much as I enjoyed punching the keys to create it.
