I was working with a client who, it turns out, had been fired by three other designers before me.
Client: Now that you're almost done I'll start going through with a fine-toothed comb [i.e. asking for nit-picky revisions]. I hope you don't quite like the rest.
Me: No problem.
Me: (quietly begins lien process).
I work for a digital advertising company as a designer. I recently worked on a campaign for a large client that wanted to run a flyer-style ad with 3-5 products that would be cycled out every week depending on the deal, running for about 10 weeks.
We started work on the ads for week one… but the client wouldn’t give us a finalized list of the products in time to go live. We wound up scrapping this week and moved to the next.
The ads for week two were promoting a limited-time deal… except I realized that by the time the client approved it, that deal would only be valid for one day. I pointed that out to the client and we agreed to scrap it.
Week three became “feedback hell,” because they realized the product names and pricing THEY PROVIDED were all wrong. I rushed to make the changes in time but every time I finished them they’d add more revisions. Strapped for time, we negotiated to reduce the number of ads so we could go live faster.
Right before going live with that week’s ads, I got ANOTHER round of revisions… for the ads we agreed we weren't going to run at all.
This week's deal is all you need to design an ugly sweater!
> At $9, this is the ultimate gag gift for the designers in your life.
Want to send out a last-minute hilarious Christmas card? Or get a headstart on actually making an awesome ugly sweater for next year? This bundle gives you some great tools, including easily customizable ugly sweater templates, ornament elements and a Photoshop action that transforms images into stitches and even actual knitting patterns! How cool is that?
The normal asking price for all these tools is $30, which is already pretty good, but for the next week it's 70% off or just $9. Buy it for all your colleagues and they'll laugh before realizing this is actually pretty danged useful.
I have worked with some ridiculous clients over the years but a recent one takes the prize.
Client: I want all of the home page to be shown at the same time without the visitor having to scroll.
That would be fine, except the client insisted on jamming a crazy amount of content into the home page.
Me: If you look at most sites online, you’ll find some scrolling is normal unless there is very little content on the page. I think scrolling is preferable to making the content and layout so small that it’s entirely unreadable/unusable.
Client: Yes, make it all small.
Me: …No.
Client: Do it.
After trying to contact a client for two months about a 20-hour retainer that was purchased but not used I received this email:
Client: I am tired of paying every time I want work done. How much will it be to have a tutorial so I can have my employee do it?
Me: I’m sorry, it’s actually the other way around. You already paid your 20-hour retainer two months ago. I’m asking you to send me work.
Client: Then how come you keep sending me emails about more invoices?
Me: The last invoice I sent you was for the two months ago. The rest have been asking if you have something for me to do, not invoices.
Client: My employee will be in at 11 AM to do the tutorial.
Me: ….
Me: Before I finish your template I need the fonts you’re going to use. Please make sure they’re PC.
Client: I’m confused. What are PC fonts?
Me: They are fonts that are PC-compatible.
After some back and forth:
Client: (flustered) I just don’t understand why the fonts have to be politically correct! What is this country coming to?
I’m a freelance writer. One day I was contacted on Skype by a client. I was too busy to accept the work and told them so politely, but they insisted. Eventually, I agreed because it was a short article.
This is our conversation after I delivered the article:
Me: Sent.
Client: Checking
Client: What is your experence in content writting service 100% you write unique all is fake and use spin article i know you have a no idea for this topic to writen very poor content you write
Me: Excuse me?
Client: all is spin contnet what is this
Client: you write
Client: i told You alredy i need unque good gramer and new points
Facepalm.
We develop and maintain websites for our customers.
We have one client who owns a hotel. She proofs our copy in Word, then prints out that document and sends it us via fax.
We receive all faxes as emails, adding another note of redundancy.
We’re used to this, but just now instead of forwarding us an email, she printed it out and faxed it to us.
How to get fired as a client before we even start:
Me: And what is your spending expectation?
Client: Yeah, I’m gonna leave that up to you. You know, I’m a photographer too and I’ve done this a hundred times. I know what it costs so I’m going to let you come up with your number and I’ll tell you if we’re a good fit. I’ve put out numbers before and people are like “I can’t do it for that. Ahhhhh. Noooo.” You know, I just don’t want to hear any of that.
Me: So, you are asking for my time and energy to create a proposal but won’t give me a budget?
Client: You know what? I don’t think this is going to work out, bro.
Me: I think you’re right, “bro.”
I was hired by a new “Business and Life Coach” to make some very light layout adjustments to three short books in Word. Each book was 95% identical content and had the same title but with different endings, for [X], for [Y], for [Z] each targetting a different group for her business.
It was a pretty easy job. She wanted a logo added to the title pages, some titles to be changed, formatting to be unified, etc. It was a small job I could do in a few hours. I included one round of revisions in her fixed price.
(I’ve included her original spellings and grammar to give a sense of the correspondence).
Me: Here’s the three files and a checklist of what I did. Remember, you have one round of revisions included.
Client: I’ve had a terrible week!! I will aim to proof and send back this week .
Later:
Client: I found some time to go through the books. I am very impressed with your work indeed. Great work! Bless you! Here is a list of revisions I need.
Her list was long but included a lot of minor changes: adding a word here, removing one there, trying a different font for certain sections, etc. Nothing was an error on my part, just additional changes that occurred to here.
Me: Here are your completed books. I have included a full checklist of all the revisions you requested.
Client: Bless you!! Thank you! Your work is brililant I will defanitely work with you again!!
I sent an invoice, she paid me. Great, I thought, what a good client.
Cut to one week later, when I receive a string of emails after 10:54 PM:
Client: changes still need to be made see attached pls send back tomorrow as have a call with my marketeer tomorrow
Client: this has got really confusing !!
Client: have you renamed them ??
I’d renamed the files to fit the titles of the actual books, which I thought was pretty intuitive.
Client: They must be tittled correctly as they are similar but different and it gets confusing
Client: please!!! can you resend me the three files again please
Client: and call them the proper so I don’t have to wade through to figure out which one I am looking at!
My titles matched the title on the title page, as well as the title in the header. She could see at a glance which version of the book she was looking at.
Client: Please please name them as I did as I am sitting up late trying to figure out which one is which!
Client: Revisions to be made!
She attached is a long list of new revisions for each book. Add this word here, add this sentence there, etc. Unbold this sentence. Make this sentence bold. Basically, things that took longer for her type into a new document for me than they would have to do as she saw them. Not one of these were errors on my part, just whims she had.
I wasn’t sure how to respond, as she was flooding my inbox with new emails every few minutes. After midnight the onslaught seemed to subside so I responded.
Me: Hi! I’m happy to make additional rounds of revisions to your books at my hourly rate of $XX, but it won’t be done overnight. I’m fully booked on other projects for the next three days but would be happy to fit you in later this week. I have renamed your files as requested though – see attached.
I renamed them as the original—now completely incorrect—titles.
Client: actually! you have created more work for me!
Client: and I don’t like your tone!
Client: You mixed up the names of the files that I sent to you meaning I sat up for HOURS trying to figuring these out before I realised they were wrong.
Client: I need these tomorrow am for a meeting
Me: It’s not reasonable to expect pages of completely new, last-minute, overnight revisions when the project is complete. Your revisions were completed in a timely manner and the work was reviewed and signed-off. I’m happy to make additional rounds, but these have to be requested within a reasonable timeframe to complete. I’m obviously not available to work on these overnight.
Client: This is highly unprofessional.
Client: I will be filing a complaint about you.
Me: With who?
Client: Enough! please. This is so upsetting! This is so unprofessional. Please do not contact me again, this is a fruitless exercise.
I couldn't agree more.