Clients from Hell

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Check out the deal here. 

Me: You want your main character on the cover, okay. What does she look like? I need to find a model that matches.

Client: She’s a person of color.

I appreciate the sensitivity, but I might need a bit more information than that.

After spending three months working on a new website for a financial planning company, they were required to submit it to their compliance department for final approval.

Every time I made their tiny revisions, the department would tell me that I didn’t make the changes and they weren’t live on the test server. I told them to clear their cookies and try again since they were probably seeing a cached version of the website. Finally, they asked me this:

Client: Is it possible to print out your website, including all links, dropdowns (such as your bios)?

Me: You’re asking if I can print out an entire website worth of pages, including a different sheet for each version of the “About Us” page with each team member’s bio?

Client: Is it possible?

Me: Nope.

I needed a few 16 GB flash drives to share data with a client’s customers. The client offered to buy them for me while out running errands.

Client: (calling from the store) They’ve got some with a keychain loop on them – is that what you want?

Me: Sure, that’s fine.

Client: Oh! Wait, I found others. I’ll bring those.

Me: Okay, as long as they say “16 GB.” It’s okay if they have a higher number but I need at least 16 gigabytes.

Client: Yeah, it’s bigger than 16. Gotta go, I’m in line!

When she dropped them off I noticed that the bags were MUCH larger than they had to be. She’d bought two 1 TB hard drives, and both came with a free 16 GB flash drive as a bonus.

Me: Uhm, these may be a bit much. I can’t give these to the customers. The little one is fine, but I don’t need the big one.

Client: But look! You get four for the price of two!

Me: Well, we only need two for the price of two.

> Want to know if freelancing is for you? 

This is an email I received from a woman who wanted to get free website building, branding, and promotion work. It’s been edited only to preserve privacy.

Client: I’m thinking that the relationship between us would be beneficial for us both even though there isn’t pay involved.  I think we can both learn from each other.  Since you are just starting out, I can help you get better - just out of sheer experience and since I’ve learned a lot in the areas of English and writing (mostly through home schooling my kids) and even with advertising (as a consumer).  I may not know what’s new and hot out there in the marketing world - or how to use it - but I know a bit about how people perceive images, and writing, etc. etc. And I know about photography - just can’t seem to get it out there because of my issues with computers!  There is a lot to learn in the area of photography.  It’s a TON harder than people think.  And obviously I could learn from you as you are actually going to school for graphic design.  It will be an honest relationship with the intent of getting better as we go - a team mentality.  We’d be working together to promote [my product] and you would be benefitting by learning how to do this for a company - by doing it!  If we get this thing going great it will look awesome on your resume. And I know that businesses don’t hang their hats much on hiring people solely because of their degree.  More than anything, they want to know that you are already doing the things in your field.  They see good work done by you - and THAT will impress them.  They want people with hands on experience and knowledge. So I think we could greatly benefit from one another.

> Want to know if freelancing is for you? 

I was working with a small business owner in his 40s who wanted a website. He’d been sending me group pictures of his office managers, but they were poor quality images, with bad lighting, taken at an angle, and used the lowest image quality setting his cell phone offered. Essentially, they were the worst possible images he could give me for what he had in mind.

Client: I don’t like the way those look.  I look orange.  Fix them.

Me: Yeah, the skin tones are a little off.  I think it’s because of the lighting in the room you took the photos in. I have already color corrected them to the best of my ability, and there’s not much else I can do since these were taken with your phone in poor lighting.

Client: Well my skin doesn’t look that way in real life.  And the image is blurry!

Me: Is there a way you can have the photos redone?  Maybe with a better quality camera?  That would solve a lot of these problems.

Client: My phone is the newest iPhone they make!

Me: Well, I would recommend either increasing the photo resolution settings, or maybe just seeing if you could borrow someone’s digital camera if you don’t know how to change the settings on your phone. 

Client: Digital… camera?

Me: Yeah, you know - it’s a camera that stores photos on a memory card?

Client: You mean like an iPhone 4?

Me: No.  A camera.  A digital camera. Like the old cameras that use film, but this one uses a memory card?  Do you know anyone who has one?

Client: Well, I know someone who has an iPhone I could borrow….

Me: Okay, but if he doesn’t know how to change his camera settings either, taking another photo at the lowest resolution isn’t going to help much.

Client: I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU WANT ME TO TAKE PICTURES WITHOUT A PHONE.

> Want to know if freelancing is for you? 

I responded to three emails in thirty minutes from a client, but was away from my computer for twenty minutes before responding to a fourth.

Client: Your service is piss poor and you should be ashamed.

I do social media for businesses, and one of my biggest clients, when their contract came up for renewal, told me they’d decided to hire someone and take the work I do for them in-house. They sent me over the job description to see if I’d be interested in applying. There wasn’t a salary on the job ad, and they’d told me they were trying to make a saving on what they were currently paying me. I decided against working in-house for them - while they’d been pretty good all round, and paid well and on time, I didn’t fancy taking the pay cut. 

When it came to the end of our contract, they disputed my final bill because they thought they were paying in advance (rather than arrears, as stated in the contract). They continued to dispute it, despite me repeatedly, in a number of different ways, demonstrating why the invoice was valid. Eventually they agreed to pay it if I came in to fully handover my work to their new hire. I agreed. 

Me: Okay, so this is what I’ve been doing on the Facebook account….

My replacement: How do you do that? I’ve never used Facebook.

Taking it in my stride, I go back and explain a few of the basics for Facebook that she’d need to know. 

Me: …and this is the Twitter account.

My replacement: Cool! I’ve never used Twitter.

After a very long day of explaining the very basics of social media to this complete newbie, the client asked me to set up a LinkedIn profile because - you guessed it - she’d never used that before either.

I declined.

> Want to know if freelancing is for you? 

I have been a graphic designer for 6 years, but recently I graduated from a dev bootcamp. I was looking for clients that needed a website to get some experience under my belt. One day I get a phone call from a Mexican restaurant whose owner who needs a website. He didn’t speak English very well (I only mention this because it’s relevant to the story) and asked me to go meet him at his establishment.

Me: So what are you hoping to accomplish with this website?

Client: Well, I would like to bring more Americans to the restaurant, and when they come, they will try different dishes other than tacos, chimichangas, you know? We have really good dishes here.

Me: Oh that’s a great idea. If attracting American customers is the goal, I guess you’ll want the website to be in English?

Client: No, I want it in Spanish.

Me: Well, if you want more Americans to come to your restaurant, an English website would help. Why don’t we make it bilingual?

Client: Hmmm…. That could work, I think.

Me: Do you have any photos of the food to showcase on the site?

Client: Oh, do you think the website would need pictures?

Me: …Yes. Look at other restaurant websites, they always have picture of their best dishes. If you need some quality photos, I have a photographer friend who is good and very affordable.

Client: How much are you going to charge me for this? I already spent a lot on radio promos and advertisement. 

Me: Well, for the design and then creating the website it’s going to be $800.

Client: Oh no, that’s too much. I was hoping I could pay you with food.

Me: I don’t really like Mexican food that much, sorry, but I think I can offer you a solid return on your investment. To compare, what radio stations are you advertising on?

He started listing Latin radio stations.

I think I know why he’s not getting any American customers.

> Want to know if freelancing is for you?