October 2011
Client: “Okay, I’ve totalled everything and I’ve come up with $543,698— double check my math.” Me: “…I got $562,552” Client: “That’s wrong. Do it again.” Me: (adding all of the numbers again) “Okay, $562,552” Client: “What? Now we have three different numbers!” Me: “No we don’t. That’s the same—”...
Client: “Okay, I’ve totalled everything and I’ve come up with $543,698— double check my math.” Me: “…I got $562,552” Client: “That’s wrong. Do it again.” Me: (adding all of the numbers again) “Okay, $562,552” Client: “What? Now we have three different numbers!” Me: “No we don’t. That’s the same—”...
September 2011
Client: “Don’t get me wrong, I like the website. It’s nice and all. But that last one you built me was so cool and minimalist— I still think about it.” Me: “That was the wireframe…” Client: “No, no. It was definitely happening INSIDE the computer.”
Client: “I can’t concentrate when you keep tapping like that!” Me: “I’m typing. This is the sound of typing.” Client: “No, THIS is the sound of typing (he starts gingerly finger-pecking the keys). Notice the difference?” Me: “Alright then, THIS is the sound of work actually getting done.” Client: “It’s the sound of a jerk...
“Sorry for the delay on your invoice. My grandma got really sick… Oh, can...”
Client: “The sandwich on the front cover—can we retouch some cheese in there, where the white stuff is?”
Me: “That’s mozzarella. That IS cheese.”
Client: “Oh, can we make it yellow? I want to have some cheese in there.”
On the phone with a client, I asked them to e-mail me a screengrab from their computer. They replied: “Okay. Hang on, I need to dust it first.”
Client: “Make it good. I have a lot of my funds riding on this website.” Me: “Really, you seem to be doing alright for yourself…” Client: “Oh definitely, I’m pretty rich. That’s just something I tell all the lower downs, to raise the stakes a bit.”
“Marcia called—she says she doesn’t like the eyes on the crab. She...”
“One more thing that needs to be programmed is maybe a java script, upon clicking...”
“We’re set to go—I’ve checked my computer over for viruses and the...”
I spent around half an hour on the phone trying to talk someone through adding contacts on Skype. Around the forty minute mark they asked me: ‘Should I download Skype?’
I finally agreed to put all the content for this client’s website within one copydeck and send it to her in a Word document, asking her to revise and correct before we integrated it. Client: “I just sent you the corrected copydeck.” Me: (checking my emails) “I don’t see it. When did you send it?” Client: “A few moments ago. Check your fax.” Me:...
“No! Don’t use pixels! Pixels make everything bigger. Just use inches like a...”
Client: “I want the website to be, like, 50% ads. And the rest will be content.” Me: “The website is for your restaurant. It already IS an ad, in and of itself!” Client: “You just don’t know much about business, do you.”
“I want to do something kinda fun with the “buy now” button, where if the mouse...”
I was looking up instructions for this client on how to use Powerpoint. When I typed in ‘How to’ into his search bar, the drop box came up with ‘How to forge a university degree’ and ‘How to make a university degree from template’. He was a financial advisor! Yikes.
Client: “I see our facebook and Twitter icons on the site are not yet live, why not?” Me: “Live? Oh, well you see, you actually need a facebook group or fan page and a Twitter account so we can link the icons to them. Remember I asked you to create those pages?” Client: “We don’t want Facebook or Twitter pages, we just want the icons to click through to Facebook.com...
Client: “I know you’re going to object to this, but just hear me out in advance…What if, instead of a website, we put all that money into renting a blimp and dropping dollar bills over the Little League World Series?!” Me: “What would that accomplish?” Client: “For one, we would probably get some pretty sweet tang.”
Honest-to-god conversation with a new client
Client: “I hate the color yellow. Don’t ever use it. Nothing good has ever been yellow: urine, dead skin, um, hippy’s shirts, the desert… you get the point.” Me: “What about lions?” Client: “Lions are just fruity tigers.”
Can't teach an old dog-groomer new tricks
Client: “I want this marketing campaign we ran in the 80’s as our homepage. One of our old groomers drew it up. It’s kooky and retro.” Me: “Oh!… Uh….Oh, I can’t put this up.” Client: “Why not? Is it because it has a Chinaman on it?” Me: “A Chinese man. A caricature of a Chinese man chasing a dog with a knife and fork, yelling...
“Hold off on the changes for right now—I want to be able to see them....”
Client: “I would like jacklinks to all of the different things within the story.” Me: “Jacklinks?” Client: “Yeah, when I go to other people’s stories, there are always jacklinks that take you to different sites when you click on them.” Me: “You mean hyperlinks… Jacklinks are jerky.” Client: “You should fix that then. I don’t want...
This is more of a “Boss from Hell” scenario: I was working for a video production company, and I attended a meeting with the owner of the company (my boss) and a possible client. These are some of the things my boss said: “You haven’t heard of me? I’m surprised.” “We have to ni**er rig a lot of things, we’re really good at it.” “I really don’t know what I’m doing when it...
Client: “I don’t want it to look like the conventional websites in this sector, I want something completely different and crazy.” Me: “Okay, sounds great. Have you got any specific ideas in mind?” Client: “Well, I want the home page to be an illustration of a half robot/ half skeleton woman wearing a metal bra, and it has to be sexy.” Me: “Um, that sounds...
“The dog in the photo looks too bored. He looks like he doesn’t care about...”
“Could you please send me a different file— one that is not a…...”
“I like your design, but could you make it with a white background?…...”
Client: “This particular picture on the website is very blurry. Can you give me an idea why?”
Me: “Well, because the image you gave me was already very blurred” Client: “Ok. just expand it then…” Me: “…” Client: “…so it becomes clearer.”
Client: “Can you make the headline semi-bold?” Me: “Semi-bold?” Client: “Yes. Bold is too bold and unbold isn’t bold enough. I think it needs to be semi-bold.” Me: “… I can bold every other letter.” Client: “I don’t need to know the technical details, as long as it’s semi-bold.”
I asked a client to sign up for a sharing website and send me the link so I could upload files to it. Here is what they sent me: “Here’s the link to the Share account I created: C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\ShareBox”
After he publicly chastised me for not communicating effectively via email, my client sent this gem: “which of the features you launched since may have the best statistics in GA that they had a good effect.” I still have no idea what he’s asking for.
“Can we make the cat in the animation look less sexy when it licks the window? It...”
Me: “Hi Linda. Here is the revised design. Sorry it took so long. There was quite a bit of custom drawing required, but I think it looks great. Worth the effort.” Client: “That looks awesome. Now if we can change the font to Papyrus, we can wrap this one up.”
Client: “Can you take the Facebook logo off? I think it violates the integrity of the product. It should only show my logo. I also want to change the page colour to red, like my site, and take that dumb top row off.” Me: “But—” Client: “Let me finish before you start, so you can ask all of your questions at once.” Me: “But—” Client:...
“I’ve printed out the pages of the website, and both my wife and I agree...”
“The pamphlet that my friend had done for him was great—that’s what I...”
Client: “My friend says that he has a website that runs regardless of whether or not the internet is working.” Me: “No he doesn’t.” Client: “Are you calling my friend Kenneth a liar?” Me: “No, just that maybe Kenneth has been… misguided.” Client: “Maybe. He DID send a lot of money to that Nigerian prince a while ago.”
Client: “I really liked your proposal, but I thought about it overnight and I feel that getting a website is really a last resort.”
Me: “What do you mean?”
Client: “Like if someone’s business is failing, they would want to advertise and maybe get a website. But since my business is fine, I don’t want to send that sort of message to my customers.”
Client: It says my username and password don’t match. Me: Ok. Is the caps lock on? Client: No. Me: Are you sure? Because the password has to be in all lower case letters in order for it to work. Client: I’m not stupid. The caps lock is not on. Just tell me how to fix my computer. Me: Ok. Look right above the number pad on your keyboard. Are any of those lights lit? Client: Yes, all of them, but...
“I just want the website to be small and functional, with some character…...”
Client: “I dont know, the designs just aren’t sexy enough.” Me: “It’s for a children’s puppet show!”
“My daughter says we need to get a Nexopia account. How much time would it take...”
Client: “I need your agency to develop a robust morale-boosting program for the top 100 ‘leaders’ in our region during our annual team building retreat. We want them to feel they are an integral part of the company.” Me: “Certainly. Perhaps you can share with us in greater detail why the company wants to do this.” Client: “Oh…because we’re...
Client: “The site looks awesome, but the links aren’t all the same color.” Me: “They should be…” Client: “Nope. Three of the 4 links are a light blue, and the last one is a dark blue… You need to fix this right away.” Me: “OK. Can you click on the fourth one for me?” Client: “Wow, how’d you do that so quickly! They’re all the...
Cool Hunting: How did the Clients from Hell communities develop?
Clients From Hell: The way most communities develop. We settled around a body of water, or some other lush, food-bearing area and proceeded to erect houses and practice agriculture, until the crop-yield became sufficient enough that we could support guilds and artists, forms of governments, kleptocracies at first and then...
Client: “Can you put a link in the top corner that says ‘follow us on Tweeter’” Me: “You mean Twitter?” Client: “Let me just check. I’m pretty sure it’s Tweeter though.”
“I love this font. I just don’t like how this particular word appears. Can you...”
Client: “I just want you to know that we here at the company really frown on office romances.” Me: “That won’t be an issue. I’m already in a steady relationship.” Client: “Well, then that’s just disgusting what you did!” Me: “What?” Client: “I wasn’t going to mention it, but now I feel obliged. I read your emails, and I...
“We definitely shouldn’t launch the site on labor day. We don’t know...”
