Sometimes things get a little personal with my work. I get too attached to designs. I say things I probably should keep to myself. I have breakdowns that I often can’t control. I hate to admit it, but occasionally I act out of desperation…lack of time and lack of proper resources sometimes makes a girl act desperately. This is what happened last week. I had to pull a project from one artisan to give to another. In this case, it wasn’t a personal decision. It was a business decision. Was it difficult for me? YES! But it had to be done. Was there misunderstanding? YES! But we worked it out.
When I pulled the project from Zakaria, he really took it personally. The morning after I told him to stop, we were supposed to meet so that he could return the materials. I thought this could and would be a smooth transaction but I was very wrong. First of all, he made me wait for an hour outside the post office…remember, time is money and I can be quite impatient. During that hour, I took on the role of advising everyone that approached the post office only to find it closed that the post office was closed due to a strike. I guess the task kept my mind off of the fact that I had been waiting for an hour.
After several text messages and a phone call, Zakaria finally pulls up on his mobilette. I knew I was in trouble when I saw the jumbo bags hanging off the handlebars and he wasn’t looking me in the face. Clearly, he was the one taking it personally. I tried to explain but it wasn’t getting through to him or I just wasn’t getting my point across. He handed me my bags and we decided that tomorrow we would meet to have a proper discussion as outside the medina, in front of the post office, with people staring from all directions, was no place for this type of conversation.
Before he left he handed me the large yellow tote with a shopping bag attached to it and off he went. Perfect…just how I wanted the morning to start off. There I went with what felt like the heaviest bag ever as I walked back to where I was staying….good thing I wasn’t staying to far. The bag was so heavy, I switched from left arm to right arm to just holding it like a sack. I was once again the bag lady and I was so ready for it to be over. I guess I could have taken a petit taxi but I was so close to home and that might have just added to the drama that I just decided to carry the bag home on my own. (I seriously need to let go of that kind of thinking.)
What a relief it was to finally arrive to the apartment. When I got inside and opened up the bag, I realized that the reason it was so incredibly heavy was because he had returned every single pattern, scrap of fabric, leather, tool, rivet, ruler, sample that I had given to him. Geez, this was more serious than I thought! He was really breaking up with me or maybe he thought I was breaking up with him….either way, this was not good.
The next day we met, Zakaria, Fatima, my amazing assistant, and me on a park bench along the street. Random place for a business meeting but this is Morocco and as I learned a long time ago, anything goes. In an hour and a half he shared his gripes about me, I shared mine and Fatima was in the middle to translate it all between Arabic, French and English. Let me tell you, Zakaria had A LOT to say!
In the end, we decided to focus on his strengths and going forward we would be completely clear and honest about everything. After the discussion, he meekly mentioned that he needed something he had returned to me. I know it’s not nice, but I couldn’t help but smirk. Apart from the smirking, I was also very happy to know that we were back in business.
