May 2012
Me: According to the contract you signed, I am still owed 2% of the merchandise you sold.
Client: It didn’t add up to much.
Me: How much?
Client: Not much.
Me: I still want it.
Client: We don’t think it’s worth writing the check.
Me: Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?
The following took place outside a rural dentist’s office. The client requested an electric sign that that was a full-color copy of their business card. Four weeks and thousands later…
Client: Wow, that turned out just perfect! My husband is going to be so pleased to see that up when he gets back.
Me: I’m glad you like it, we’re very happy how it all came together.
A crane truck and two...
Client: I have inserted a photo in the powerpoint presentation that you need to resize for a billboard.
Me: That image is not big enough.
Client: I’m not following?
Me: The image needs to be in a high enough resolution to be printed on such formats.
Client: Well, make the resolution high enough.
Me: I can’t do that, it’s impossible. I’ll need you to send the...
“We need someone who sounds Hispanic, but doesn’t have an accent.”
– Client’s description of their ideal voice actor
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
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...”
– Someone with a normal brain.
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?
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...
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...
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...
Client: Can you print this for me?
Me: No, it has Elmo on it.
Client: I bought it off Etsy, and she said I could get it printed here.
Me: Elmo is trademarked. I can’t print copyrighted material.
Client: I have permission to print this from the artist on Etsy.
Me: Do they own Elmo’s trademark?
Client: I’m confident they do.
Client: All our sites are down!
Me: Seems fine here.
Client: We pay you to maintain this stuff, not cause more problems!
Me: I didn’t take your sites down. How do you know it’s my fault?
Client: It can’t be our fault! Our internet doesn’t even seem to be working!
“Can you take this black and white page and make a photocopy of it back to color?”
Me: So your username is your employee number, without the “e” and with an extra zero on the end.
Client: Is that a capital zero? Or just the little one?
Me: Just the number, zero.
Client: So upper case?
Client: I’ve tried logging in with the username and password you sent me yesterday. It’s not working and frankly I don’t have time to mess around with passwords.
Me: Send me your username and password and I’ll try it from our end.
Client: Sure my username is Susan1456 and my password is Donkey
Me: OK, I logged in straight away. This is really weird, I can’t think...
“That looks… gay. But it is Austin. Can you put monster trucks on it or...”
