Unfiltered Story #192482

I’m the manager of a portrait photography studio. We have a certain procedure we have to follow for every session, at least 4 backgrounds, 60+ shots. Our corporate policy won’t allow us to load the photos on the computers without the minimum required number of shots and backgrounds.

This story was from a couple weeks ago. I had a session where parents had me taking photos of their newborn baby girl. She was about two weeks old. The mother had called the day before to set up the appointment, and I let her know the policy on number of shots and backgrounds, as I do with everyone. She said that was fine, and that was that. The next day, she and her husband come in with the baby, and we get started. We get through two backgrounds and the baby starts to get fussy. Since we don’t have any other customers for at least 3 hours, I tell them to go ahead and feed the baby, change them if need be, and to take as long as they need, and then we’ll continue. At first they’re totally okay with it, and sit down with the child to feed her. The father leaves, and when he comes back, he’s carrying two Starbucks drinks. We don’t allow food or drink (aside from baby bottles) in the studio, and it’s clearly labeled on the door. My employee (we’ll call him Bob) notices first.

Bob: “I’m sorry sir, but we don’t allow any food or drink in the studio.”

Father: “What? Since when?”

Bob: “We’ve never allowed food or drink in here sir, it’s posted on the door.”

Father: “Well, what am I supposed to do with these then??”

Bob: “Look, we can make this exception – as long as you don’t go past the tiles, you can drink it.” (Most of the studio is carpeted, except for the entrance way, which is tiled)

Father: “I paid for these, they’re going to go to waste now! This is ridiculous. These drinks cost more than any of these photos!!”

All of us working there are having a hard time keeping a straight face at this statement – the cheapest our photos run is $20, for one pose. Other packages run from $70-$300.

Bob: “I’m sorry sir, but that’s company policy. You’re going to have to leave those here.”

Father: “So let me get this straight. You don’t allow food or drink in this studio, but you allow babies in, who p*ss and sh*t everywhere?”

At this point, I come back from the printer room, where I was finishing something up on the computer.

Bob: “Um…we can’t exactly tell people that they aren’t allowed to bring their babies into our studio, sir.”

Not to mention, babies make up at least 70% of the photos we take. At this point, the father turns to me and tells me he wants to just load up the photos now and look at what we’ve already got.

Me: “I’m sorry sir, but as I explained earlier, we have to take a certain number of photos before we can even load up.”

He gets annoyed and goes over to talk to his wife (leaving the drinks on the counter. A few minutes later, they pack up their stuff and come back to us, telling me they don’t want to continue.

Mother: “It’s just too many photos, she’s not going to sit through them all patiently, she’s a baby! No baby could go through all those photos with no problem!”

(Actually, babies go through them all the time with very few problems)

Me: “I understand ma’am, but that’s our company policy, and we do it for everyone.”

Mother: “Well, thanks anyway. We’re just going to go. It’s just too much.”

Father: “So you’re saying if it was a family of 5, they’d still have to go through at least 60 photos?”

Me: “Yes sir. We give everyone the same experience.”

Father: (shakes head) “That’s ridiculous.”

They leave after that, leaving Bob and I glancing at each other.

Bob: “So…they really think we’re going to tell people they have to leave their babies outside?”

The reason I’m posting this now, instead of when it happened, is because I put it out of my mind. Until I got a call from my corporate office, telling me that these people called them and complained. I wasn’t in trouble, they just wanted to get my side of the story and make sure I wasn’t being rude. When I told the guy what the father said about babies, he let out a disbelieving chuckle and said,
“Wait, did he want you to tell him his baby wasn’t allowed in?”