Whether peacefully resolved or a source of bitterness, disputes over prices were an integral part of the custom trade, as dressmakers and clients each argued their version of the moral economy of clothing prices. These disagreements were compounded by two other customer practices that financially hobbled the Tirocchi business. First, customers often delayed payment. A quick look at the client account books makes clear why Anna so warmly praised Charlotte Luther's promptness. While most customers paid their bills within two weeks and many sent checks by return mail, some - often those with substantial balances - delayed far longer. A bill for $678 sent on October 6, 1916, for example, was not paid until the following February. Clients' letters give the story behind some of these delays and reveal that certain persons were more considerate than others. Cornelia Ely asked to have a bill sent at once, promising that "I will send or bring check so you can have it before you go abroad." More peremptory was Mrs. E. A. Loomis, who wrote from her Maine vacation home that she had found errors in her bill and would not pay until she returned to Providence in early September. Even during the prosperous 1910s and 1920s, customers wrote to delay payment because they had not received dividends or other expected income, and sent partial payment or postdated checks. At least one customer ran up bills amounting to $4,000 during the 1930s and had serious, protracted difficulty in paying them, to the point that Anna Tirocchi charged her twelve percent interest on the balance. The only dunning letters from Anna date from the 1930s. To one customer she wrote in exasperation, "It is not the time to joke any longer, as people need their money, and I must have mine so that I can pay my bills."(25)

The Tirocchis' business calculations were also disrupted by customers' cancellations of orders. It is not always possible to know if work had already begun on the garments, but sometimes this was clearly the case. Some customers reneged with good reason, such as serious illness or mourning. When Ella Fielding-Jones lost two close relatives, she revoked her order for two evening dresses and expressed concern that "I am not inconveniencing you too much." Others canceled because of disputes about other garments. Most simply canceled because they had changed their minds. A Fall River woman baldly stated, "I don't need [the dress]. I would rather have it new sometime in the winter." Such incidents increased the overhead of a business that was already very expensive to run and made it all the more difficult for the sisters to hold to quoted prices when extra work was required. As is always the case in retailing, the customer was both the key to success and the source of ruinous problems.(26)

The historical record tells much less about the lives of the women who sewed in the Tirocchis' shop. Only one letter survives from a worker, Sofia Johnson,(27) but it is undated and her name does not appear in any of the surviving employee time books. The time books are very sketchy, usually listing only seamstresses' first names and weekly earnings and sometimes the number of hours worked. A few interviews have helped to fill in the outlines of their world, but far less documentation exists for the workers' experience than for the lives of the customers. A happy coincidence allows for the construction of a relatively complete picture of the hours and wages of Tirocchi workers in late 1920 and for a comparison with a larger group of Rhode Island wage-earning women. One of the most complete Tirocchi employee time books covers the period from April 1919 to January 1921. During the last three months of 1920, the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor investigated the wages and hours of Rhode Island women in other branches of manufacturing (chiefly rubber, jewelry, metals, and paper-box factories), as well as in stores and laundries.