Tod, thank you for the kind comments. I appreciate your honest and open feedback -- and your business -- more than you can know.
James, that's beyond cool! Thank you for being a gracious FABO member. You're an asset to the board and I'm sure Snake will be delighted to learn about this.
* * *
In the meantime though, the comment left yesterday by SuperDart426 -- deleted by a moderator even before I saw it for myself in my email notifications -- needs to be finally and fully addressed. (I had to copy and paste it from my email so the format is different from a typical FABO quote. I assure you though that it was there.)
"---Quote (Originally by cudachick1968)---
*this sale starts tomorrow and applies to all fabo members' parts arriving
between february 3, 2013 and april 24, 2013.*
---End Quote---
lets be honest not all members as you kicked me off the customer list cause i had a real problem and instead of working it out you dropped me as a customer..cowards way out...all members beware..pm me for more info if needed...sd426"
:-D Oh yeah Bob, let's finally
BE honest, shall we???
I have already received a couple PMs about this comment from current and past customers asking what's going on. Though it really doesn't concern anyone else, in light of my relationships with those customers and the fact that I've never been less than honest with anyone on this board prompts me to respond to this in public and to finally share with FABO my side of the story.
I hereby present the
Top Ten Reasons Why Phoenix Specialty Coatings Will
No Longer Work For SuperDart / SuperDart340 /
SuperDart426 / Bigboy 68
aka Bob Mills
1. My first dealing with Bob Mills was while I was working on behalf of another FABO customer. The parts that arrived here from Bob Mills on that gentleman's behalf were in such bad shape and the condition was so misrepresented in the original For Sale ad that my initial estimate to do the work went up by $40 when the parts arrived here at my shop; it was also patently obvious that fresh paint was applied right on top of old grease. My customer changed his mind on having the work done at all and had me return those parts to Bob Mills.
2. On November 9, 2009, Bob Mills posted the following comment in response to Memike's "
Thank You PSC Leanna" thread showing off some work I'd done for him:
Since hindsight is most always 20/20, I now realize that if I'd listened to my gut and saw this initial "red flag" for what it truly was four years ago, then none of the rest of this post would have been necessary. But I agreed to take him on as a customer nevertheless, believing that everybody deserves a chance.
3. Over the entire duration of our resulting business relationship, I experienced a lack of cooperation from him unequaled by any other customer. As just one example, I waited for nearly TWO YEARS for a color sample from him that was never forthcoming despite multiple promises that it would "be mailed out tomorrow" ... and tomorrow never ever came.
4. Bob Mills routinely used my shop as an apparent free storage facility for his pending parts sales. He would send jobs for me to work on and then, while they were in line awaiting that work, he would sell them to someone else either "raw" as they arrived or, very rarely, after I was finished with my services. He never offered to compensate me for the time spent in boxing up his unfinished parts and shipping them to Florida, Texas, or Canada (though I insisted that he pay the shipping charges himself, which he always did). The fact that he has seen my work with his own eyes ONCE out of a three-year business relationship is very telling on this point. I care a lot about my work product and, perhaps to my own detriment, probably take it too personally; but custom jobs are just that -- custom -- designed and made for one person.
5. Bob Mills has openly complained to me in private and now to all of you in public about my turn around time. Most of you (including Bob) already know that PSC is not a big corporate powder coating facility and is instead a "mom and pop shop." Further, it's mostly just "mom," though Billy helps out with prep, welding, repairs, and shop maintenance.
I have a busy shop. I've had 15 or more jobs here at any given time now for nearly four years mostly thanks to FABO members, and the vast majority of that work is on custom one-offs and trim restoration which takes a bit of time to complete. If I had received adequate cooperation from SuperDart and didn't have to wait for almost two years for his sample of red for a pair of Cal Customs 3-tone valve covers, that job would have already been done a long time ago. And yet my turn-around time is a recurring point of contention for him.
I am a powder coater, not his babysitter and certainly not his secretary. It never was and is not my responsibility to "hold his hand" and remind him constantly by email and/or phone that I'm awaiting cooperation
from him in order to perform work
on his behalf. But if you believe any of what Bob might be inclined to say, then I am the bad guy here.
It's also interesting to note that none of my other customers has ever complained to me personally (or apparently in public) about the turn around time and fully seem to understand that there are other jobs ahead of and behind them in line. I assume this is because THEY cooperate and give me the information and assistance I need to do their work in a timely fashion. Everyone is on their own build schedule and most of my customers have long-term projects going so they're not in a particular hurry. I keep a calendar of due dates and sometimes have to juggle job order around for various reasons, but there isn't and never was a so-called "powder coating clique" of my friends who I regularly -- or even occasionally -- bump ahead of everyone else solely because they are a friend. The simple fact also exists that most of my customers eventually turn into friends because I treat them with professional courtesy and respect, and they do the same for me. For what it's worth, since the shop opened on May 31, 2007, I have never once missed a deadline for any customer.
6. Mostly as a result of his lack of cooperation backed up by his penchant for less-than-kind commentary in public both here on the forums and in the chat room, I ultimately made the decision to fire Bob Mills as a PSC customer last April. This was done by way of a VERY extensive and detailed email outlining these and the other reasons why I no longer wished to work with him which can quickly and easily be added here if necessary. His attitude and actions thereafter over the last ten months have (as indicated in his comments above) been one exciting turn after another.
Since then, nearly a year has gone by and I have received no less than 32 private messages and personal emails from him almost begging to be a customer again. Here's one from yesterday at 9:44 a.m. Central time ...
Originally Posted by superdart426
can i please get back on the customer list and take advantage of the sale please....you are the best.. please..please,,,i will do whatever it takes...bob
My verbatim reply (the same one it has been for almost a year, though not ever as short as this one was) is as follows:
"No."
Then he sent me this one:
"ok then i guess your not a person of forgivness and really hold grudges,,,you were just as much at fault as i was,just know i forgave you but no more kind words from me...take care..sd426"
My reply, sent to him at 2:27 p.m.:
"I DO NOT hold a grudge against you Bob and never have. The biggest problem I had with you was the lack of cooperation in never sending me the color sample of the red you wanted on those Cal Customs valve covers. If I don't know what color you want, I CANNOT DO YOUR WORK. You promised me on multiple occasions that you'd "send it out in the mail tomorrow," and yet tomorrow never came.
What did and do you expect me to do under those circumstances, sit around and wait and let my other customers behind you in line suffer from your failure to follow through??? That stuff were here for TWO YEARS. I am a powder coater, not a babysitter or your secretary. It is not my responsibility to remind you every day to send me your red paint sample and I should not be expected to do so.
You have said on more than one occasion that you feel you were treated unfairly as a customer but you've never once elaborated on that except about bumping other people's jobs ahead of yours ... and I have explained why I took those actions to you before, just like I did in the preceding paragraph. You left me with no other alternative. I'm just a business person who's trying to make a living here. If you must know, trying to guilt me into working for you again through all that talk of forgiveness and grudges and a self-serving "greater than thou" attitude is what turns people off on you to start with around here.
I DO appreciate all your kind words and I try to have some for you too. We have done fine being cordial with each other in public and I can live with that. But I have no interest in working for you again in the future. I hope you can finally understand where I'm coming from and just find somebody else. They're out there ...
Try CustomCoaters.com. It's organized by state. You used to only be able to get on their list by recommendation but now it seems they take anybody and their dog, so check out references first."
I want you all to please understand that I am loathe to reveal the content of private messages on an open public forum, but I feel that it's absolutely necessary under these circumstances to demonstrate just how unpredictable, vengeful and volatile SuperDart Bob Mills can be. Less than an hour and a half after my refusal to welcome him back into the PSC Fold, he edited his prior glowing post (which claimed I'm "the best") in this Sox Memorial Sale thread to instead now "warn" other potential customers about dealing with me and to PM him "for info." ???????????????????
So it frankly seems that he's voluntarily and rather quickly gone from being ready to take on the position of "President of the CudaChick Fan Club" to being ready to dole out some seriously slanderous commentary in private.
It is also interesting to note that most of his private messages and emails to me are humble, apologetic and very flattering ... but when I see through it and refuse to do work for him again he goes off like an atomic bomb on the forums in public. Reasonable, rational, normal people do not behave in such fashion. Whether the ultimate cause is medical or otherwise has nothing to do with me or my shop, but any decision to work for him again in the future is only mine to make. I've "been there, done that."
7. Some of you reading this may know that prior to opening my shop, I enjoyed a 20-year tenure in the legal field. Anyone who's also done so knows that note-taking and "covering one's backside" is of paramount importance to lawyers. As a result of that other career, I KNOW how to take notes and have fully documented numerous phone conversations between us; I also have all these PMs and emails ... I'm really not making this stuff up and I can prove it if I have to.
8. Before his unwarranted and untrue comments were deleted by a moderator, I think it's truly sad that Bob chose THIS THREAD to openly bash me and my shop and to invite others to contact him "for details." Further, it shows nothing but insensitivity, transparent bitterness and a total lack of respect or feeling for my beloved mascot Sox who passed away a year ago TODAY after an extensive battle. I took this picture on February 2, 2012.
View attachment 1714589449
9. Since I've had to bring all of these bad memories to the forefront in my head again and spend even more hours dealing with Bob Mills' volatility and penchant for slander, libel and conveniently only telling his side of a story (on a Sunday no less), let it be known that from now on every PSC Sale here on FABO will specifically and patently exclude SuperDart Bob Mills in all of his former and any future user names to avoid any confusion on his part. He made the bed, singling himself out from everyone else in writing in his comments above. Now he can enjoy not only laying in that bed in front of the rest of FABO, but can finally know in his heart and soul that
out of 27,000+ other members of this board that I've been on for over eight years, HE IS THE ONLY ONE I ABSOLUTELY REFUSE TO WORK FOR.
10. I have plenty of good, cooperative, happy, non-bashing, non-harassing, and non-stalking customers that I TRULY enjoy working for here who I feel deserve my time and never fail to appreciate what I can do for them. They and all of you can rest assured I will no longer devote any additional time, attention or energy to explaining to SuperDart or to anyone else why he's on the shortest list I have. Like all of you, my time is also valuable and this is merely nothing but a waste of it; it can be better spent elsewhere. I trust this exhaustive and open explanation will finally put this crap -- yes CRAP -- to rest forever, and he and PSC can get on with their respective futures without any further contact between us at all.
Though I personally despise drama in any fashion, it's not a big secret around here that I've had quite a bit of it the last few months with Billy's mother moving in here and that situation changing almost everything I know and love about my life. Having a destructive, disruptive, volatile, insensitive "Drama King" on my customer list is not and will never be in my company's best interests. I already have enough on my plate as it is, and am further not particularly happy at having to dredge up all of this in response to irrational and untrue allegations (especially on my day off, and most especially on the anniversary of Sox's passing).
This will also advise SuperDart Bob Mills formally and publicly to please immediately refrain from responding in any fashion to any of my threads from now on regardless of whether your comments are positive or otherwise. Keep it to yourself instead; I've had enough.
EDIT: He called the shop and left a message on the machine. Putting it in context, I had donated a PSC Gift Certificate to a FABO Benefit Auction. Knowing I wouldn't work with him, he tried to conspire with another member here to bid on the gift certificate through that other member's name without my knowledge. When that other member, well respected around here and a prior customer and friend, advised me what Bob was trying to do, I took measures to prevent his bid. Here is the message he left for me afterwards, forever memorialized on YouTube for the entire world to hear. (It is NOT suitable for work or young ears.)
Now with all of that being laid out fully and finally for the whole FABO World to see, digest and hopefully appreciate for their own dealings in the future, let's please put all of this behind us and get on with the First Annual Fallen Mascot Memorial Sale. It starts today and ends on April 24, 2013 and is being extended to everyone on the FABO board
except for Bob Mills. It is not discrimination in any manner; Phoenix Specialty Coatings has always retained the right to refuse services to anyone for any reason. The fact that this is the only time that refusal has ever been exercised is most telling.
Thanks for taking a couple hours to read this. :-D I hope you feel as I do that it was indeed worth the effort and, though it's sad to admit it, I have to say that it feels really GOOD to finally get all of these facts off my chest, out of my life, and out into the open for everyone to know about for themselves. He started this exercise with his comments. I am now finishing it in entirety with my own.
I look forward to working with the rest of you in due course and hope in the meantime that you can appreciate all the reasons I just spent six hours on a Sunday to type this up and share this with you all.
