Get Your Balls While They're Hot!

The meatball war is ON!  As usual, drama is impossible to avoid no matter how much I try. Incredibly enough, it just shows up on my doorstep, knocks, and then lets itself into my life. A couple months ago I hired a former classmate to help me at the market and I spent her first morning introducing her to many of the other vendors at the market. We were almost at the end of our tour when I introduced Makia (this is not her name, but this is what my husband insists on calling her, so I guess it's a perfect alias) to the Drama Queen (DQ).

It went something like this, "Hi DQ! This is my friend Makia. She's going to be working with us from now on." DQ LOUDLY replies, "Oh, so I heard you wanted to hire my girl (the chick that runs her lemonade stand)." Huh? So I repeated, "Um, DQ, this is MAKIA and she's going to be working with us from now on. Your girl introduced herself to me a few weeks ago along with her boyfriend who was looking for a job, but I didn't hire him." DQ apparently doesn't understand English so she said, "That's ok, you don't have to offer me any explanations. I know you wanted to hire my girl over there. By the way, what the EFF is wrong with this EFFING generation? Why do they think they're so entitled to everything nowadays? Can you believe this girl already asked for a raise after working for me for 2 weeks?!". DQ proceeded to LOUDLY continue going on and on about all her grievances regarding this chick while Makia slowly began to step away. I cut DQ off and continued our tour.

A few hours later, I hear that the chick quit on DQ in the middle of her shift. Not long afterwards, the chick is at my booth personally telling me that she had quit and proceeds to tell me the reasons. We talked about it, I agreed with most of her complaints, but I told her that she made two fatal mistakes. First of all, she quit on someone in the middle of a shift leaving them completely stranded. You never burn bridges that way and it's incredibly unprofessional. Secondly, she quit before she got paid for the previous day of work. She was intimidated by DQ and afraid to ask her for her pay of $50 for the previous day, so she asked if I would accompany her to talk to the DQ.... and my bleeding heart agreed.

At the end of the day, I approached DQ with the chick in tow and said, "DQ, I'm here because this morning you shared something with me and then later on the chick shared something with me, and I was hoping you both could come to an amicable resolution to this problem. The chick was nervous about talking to you, but I told her that you're perfectly reasonable and there's no reason why this issue can't be resolved." Why did I do that? WHY?? DQ went off in a dramatic rant insulting the chick, the chick attempted to defend herself, and all that was accomplished was that DQ ripped off the chick, who is only 16 years old, and didn't pay her (DQ called it a $50 lesson), the chick never attempted to stand up for herself after that by having her parents assist her with this problem, and DQ decided to retaliate against me personally.

So what's my punishment for being Miss Goody Two Shoes? DQ decided to sabotage my business by copying my signature menu item: Meatball Subs. Her disgusting mediocre frozen meatballs with her ragu sauce were being sold on the same premises as my glorious tender delicious meatballs with my finger licking sauce. How daaare she? So now the bar, aka DQ's Tropical Escape, has meatball subs and chicken parmesan on the menu. My sales immediately took a nose dive and my anger nearly ate me alive.

I was overwhelmingly advised not to tear her head off or even demonstrate that I cared, otherwise she'd continue doing it. I spoke to the manager who has done nothing but give me some lame cop out to justify her lack of ethics and professionalism considering that DQ has done nothing but complain since the market opened a year ago that everyone copies whatever she does. Suddenly, it became ok for her to copy my signature item, not that she hasn't copied at least three of my other menu items in the past.

Although I've heard customers complain that her meatballs suck (of course they would), she's still selling the damn things. The only thing that gives me a little satisfaction is the knowledge that she's losing her ass and she was forced to close her lemonade stand because nobody can work with her. HA! But it's still annoying.

Now I'm making it a point to let people know that my meatballs are authentic delicious balls of heaven and my newest employee and friend has made it his mission to sell them to everyone and anyone who passes by - not even vegetarians are safe from his efforts. So if you walk by my booth and a good looking young man says, "Get your balls while they're hot!", please don't slap him.