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External Link/Members OnlyWas contemplating a negative, but seems like wires got crossed and as Ava is no longer working in this area full time it could be that she is finding difficulty in balancing this work with other commitments.
To cut a long story short, a very lengthy booking (overnight) was arranged so that Ava could keep me company on a business trip. For this and due to travel being involved, Ava requested a small deposit. I was reassured via AW messaging that she would take time off work (this will allow her to attend to my booking request and everything would go smoothly).
This all changed. The timings got restrictive, shorter, and that she would need to rush back to work the next day and that she would not get paid if she took a holiday. I copied and pasted the message where she confirmed she was happy to take leave from work. At this point I realised she may be trying to have her cake and eat it - get a punt in and dont lose out on her day job, at the cost of compromising my time with her.
I politely said in that case dont worry, we could do this some other time, and I reiterated this on 2-3 occasions through messages (not to book leave). At the risk of losing her booking, she ignored those messages, went ahead and now decided to take time off work. However at this point, you start to think about what kind of pressure she is in to rush back and will I actually have a decent booking considering the amount I am paying.
Needless to say, this didnt go down well with her, even though I immediately told her not to take time off work and I dont feel comfortable compromising our time and my money on a rush job. She blocked me and kept the deposit too stating that I cancelled on her.
The other point to note is that all of this was happening 10 days in advance of the booking date (not on the day, or day before or even in the same week), she had nothing to lose, she could remove her leave request and she wont lose anything. For me, I lost my deposit and I have to start from scratch to find a provider to replace her.
Very unprofessional and quite disappointing. You live and learn.