Dear Customers of TheContractorsGroup

Our son's deteriorating mental health has dictated that I unfortunately can no longer offer telephone support in a timely manner. Below is a more detailed explanation...

When I (Diane) started our downloadable construction forms business so many years ago in California we had a healthy daughter (Shelby, 8 years old) and a not-quite-so healthy son (Cameron, 6 years old) but he was able to somewhat cope with life, and I used to list our home number for support to my customers. That has unfortunately changed.

While our daughter is, thank goodness, pretty much cruising through life ace'ing everything she tries, our son Cameron is having worse and worse difficulties.

He has Asperger's Syndrome (a form of Autism), and suffers from Bi-Polar Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Executive Dysfunction, Central Auditory Processing Disorder, severe depression, possible mental retardation and several other issues (he has been psychiatrically hospitalized 3 times in the past 9 months).

As he grows older his problems are worsening. He's currently 13 1/2 years old physically, but mentally and emotionally in many respects he's only 6 and even younger.

It's understandable that things are worsening for him because as you grow older you're expected to conform more and more to the "norm" but with his problems he cannot conform. It's like an immature 6 year old trying to cope in a 13 1/2 year old's world; in many respects it's just not possible and his "melt-downs" (often violent towards himself and/or towards us) have become a regular occurrence.

The doctors have told us that he will probably have to live with us forever because he'll be unable to keep his life together on his own. I don't like to think about what will happen when we're gone.

He needs constant supervision which takes up MUCH of my attention.

In addition I'm constantly taking him to doctor appointments, psychiatric appointments, counseling appointments, special needs group gatherings, attending meetings for his special education, making never-ending phone calls to schedule appointments, and so on.

Because of the huge amount of time I have to spend with him and on his growing issues, my normally outstanding phone support has been suffering greatly over the past couple years. I often can't even answer the phone when it rings and it sometimes takes days, even weeks, to return calls.

It's become very apparent to me that I MUST figure out a way to be able to handle our son's many on-going needs while still supporting my customers.

I have found that, unfortunately, the best way to do this right now is to discontinue phone support indefinitely and handle everything via email.

There are a couple reasons for this...

First, because Cameron needs intense supervision it's impossible to talk on the phone without constant interruption to do something for him. When working via email I can stop typing immediately to tend to him whereas when on the phone I have to repeatedly ask the caller to hold while I take care of him/his needs.

Second, because I'm gone a lot for various appointments for him, I purchased a Verizon wireless card so that I can get online anywhere to answer emails (this wireless card is the coolest thing, it works almost everywhere, doctor's offices, waiting rooms, on the road, etc.!).

I totally understand if my lack of telephone support causes you to not want to purchase from me. All I can do is:

A) promise you that I'm really very good on answering my emails, usually within less than an hour of receiving them, and

B) hope that you'll give me a chance. :)

I do promise you a 100% refund if you're unsatisfied with my service and/or the documents that you purchase.

If you have any concerns, questions, comments, etc., please do feel free to email me and I promise I'll get back to you asap. :)

Sincerely,
Diane Dennis
www.TheContractorsGroup.com
store.construction-business-forms.com

ps: To get back to the page you were at before this one, please close this window, and thank you for your understanding. :)

pps: While we used to live in California we are now in Washington. We moved here December of 2006 in an effort to get more help for our son than we could get in California. I still have all of my California connections however so if you have any questions or need any help with anything please do not hesitate to email me. :)

Thank you again, Diane

UPDATE June 21, 2007

Due to some new counseling sessions we have just started, Wednesdays will now be a tough day for customer service, even via email. The specialists we're seeing are roughly 3 hours away one-way from our home in Oak Harbor to Seattle, thru some of the worst traffic I've ever seen. I'm going to do my best to check for, and respond to, email after the drive and before the session starts but I've no doubt there's going to be times where I won't be able to respond until after 5:00 pm or so, once we get back to our home. This will be on-going indefinitely. I'm very sorry about this and I promise I'll do my best to take care of you.

Thank you for your support. :) Diane