The Tesla automobile company owned by Elon Musk was strongly denounced last week for having canceled a large order of 4,000 tartlets from an independent pastry shop at the last minute… without any compensation.
“My hopes were dashed when I received a text … casually informing me that the plan had changed and Tesla would no longer need the order. (…) I invested time, resources and effort based on Tesla’s assurances, only to be left high and dry,” lamented Voahangy Rasetarinera, the owner of The Giving Pies, on Facebook last Thursday, reported the “New York Post”.
The San Jose, California-based pastry chef took to social media on Thursday to denounce the nonchalance of big companies after being left in the lurch by the auto giant, which contacted her for a large and expensive order last week former.
On February 14, the company ordered 2,000 tartlets for the following Tuesday, before contacting her again two days later to double the order, valued at US$16,000, according to the American newspaper.
At that time, payment was still pending, but given the assurance of the Tesla employee and the time running out, the pastry chef would have mobilized all her employees to get to work.
It was then that she received the text message announcing that plans had just changed and that Tesla would no longer do business with the pastry shop, even though she had already invested time and money in the ingredients for the preparation.
“This experience is a stark reminder of the vulnerability small businesses face when dealing with larger companies. Despite all our efforts to respect our commitments (…) we are often left at their mercy,” the owner continued on Facebook.
Fortunately, the post did not fall on deaf ears, as hundreds of customers showed up at the pastry shop over the weekend to order pies as a sign of support: a gesture that touched the owner right to the heart.
“I didn’t do (the publication) for that. I am so grateful. It’s incredible. The people are extraordinary,” she said.
For his part, Tesla’s big boss, Elon Musk, tweeted on Friday that he had just been informed of the situation and that he would make sure to resolve the situation with the pastry shop, which confirmed on Tuesday that it had received a payment of US$2,000 from him, to cover the cost of the ingredients, according to “The Guardian”.
“When you’re a big company, $2,000 is pocket money, it’s nothing. But for us, it’s a lot,” the owner would have added.
