Clients from Hell

Submit your story
May 20, 2012
"We need someone who sounds Hispanic, but doesn’t have an accent."

— Client’s description of their ideal voice actor

May 18, 2012

Client: Please edit the attached 241 page manuscript. Each page is a seperate document - sorry about that.

Each page was also a .jpg

An incredibly low-resolution .jpg

May 17, 2012

Me: About my pay - it’s been 4 weeks since the due date and I haven’t received any money yet.

Client: What? Why are you wasting my time with this? It isn’t an issue until it’s at least 6 weeks overdue.

"You’re a designer, your brain is different. My customers are normal people. Do you need me to talk slowly until you understand that?"

— Someone with a normal brain. 

May 16, 2012

Client: I think my keyboard is broken.

Me: What makes you think that?

Client: When I login and type my password, whatever key I press shows up as a little black dot.

Me: How do you want your customers to pay for your products on your site?  I suggest using PayPal.

Client: What’s PayPal? Can I just have them send cash or write checks and mail it to my address?

May 15, 2012

Me: We’ll add security to your contact form so that you won’t get spammed. No one likes that.

Client: Actually, I enjoy spam every now and then. 

Me: Spam in your inbox? 

Client: They can do that!?

The client was thinking of the meat Spam. 

Client: Make the logo bigger.

Me: There really isn’t any space.

Client: Make space.

I make the image a bit smaller and the logo 3% larger.

Client: Whoa whoa whoa! No need to make the logo Mario on mushrooms!

I make the image 2% larger than the original. 

Client: Now it seems smaller than what we started with! Why don’t you put a bit of thought into this and stop making such ridiculous changes!?

May 14, 2012

I was doing publicity for a client.

Me: A reporter from Detroit News wants to interview you tomorrow. What time are you available?

Client: 10am. What station will it be on?

Me: It won’t be on a station - Detroit News is a newspaper.

Client: Okay.

Me: So you’re all set for 10am.

Client: Great. What is the station’s call letters? I like to research the station prior to the interview.

Me: This isn’t a radio interview. A reporter from Detroit News, a newspaper in Detroit, will be calling you to do a phone interview. She’ll then write a story based off your interview.

Client: Oh, so it’s for print?

Me: Yes, exactly.

Client: Like a magazine? 

Me: Yeah, but a newspaper. 

Client: Oh, why didn’t you just say it was for a newspaper? 

Client: We won’t be paying. We didn’t use your material.

Me: You didn’t? I saw the brochure today, it is exactly what I designed for you.

Client: No, it isn’t. You sent us a PDF of the document. We did not print the PDF, we took a screen capture of it and pasted it into Word. That’s what we printed.

Me: Regardless of format, I designed it. I delivered what we agreed upon in the contract you signed.

Client: Well, we didn’t print from your file, we used it in a different format. 

Me: Okay, I think you’re misunderstanding something. I’ll have my lawyer explain it to you on Monday.