Applying for UX Design jobs.

Client: The ideal candidate will have At least 10 years of experience in Adobe XD.

Adobe XD came out March 14th, 2016.

Client: I’m not getting my emails anymore.

Me: Talk to your web master.

Client: I wanted to get round them.

Me: Why?

Client: It’s my ex wife.

A good client told me a friend of theirs was looking for a new logo, and that I should reach out. 

Me: Hi there! Your friend told me you want a new logo. I can help with that. Can you tell me what the business is, and any ideas you already have?

Client: I can’t tell you and no. I need someone who can create something without any prompts.

Me: What do you mean?

Client: I need someone who can design a logo from nothing

Me: I don’t think anyone can create a logo from absolutely nothing...

Client: I have found people.

I have never been more confused in my life... he’s expecting someone to create him a logo without even knowing what business it’s for? I didn’t even bother messaging him back after that. 

A friend referred me to a client who needed animators for a film he was producing. The client was a recent film grad with no experience in animation. He recruited recent/current animation students and expected us to produce a 7-8 minute long short in the style of "Paperman", an animated short whose style was considered revolutionary for its time.

No preproduction. No set deadline. No pay. He wanted us to get started on animation immediately and expected us to run the whole production process on our own. There were only four people on the whole production team.

Me: We received the manuscript you asked us to edit and rather than the 200 pages we quoted, this is nearly 500. Would you like us to revise the quote for the expanded scope of work?

Client: What? No, just edit 200 pages like we agreed.

Me: Which 200? Just the first 200?

Client: No, read all of them and pick the best 200, and then just edit those ones.

Me: Reading through all of this vastly increases the number of man-hours required to complete the project, and picking out "the good ones" requires editorial input, all of which requires compensation.

Client: But if you're not editing every little thing, it doesn't count, right? Right. So I shouldn't be charged anything extra.

Me: So let me see if I've got this - you'd like to double the workload but pay the halved rate.

Client: Now you've got it. Glad you're being so understanding about this. Oh, and you're still making the deadline, right?

We picked 200 pages at random and didn't bother wasting time reading the rest. The client seemed pleased enough and didn't notice, so at least everybody goes home happy. We'll have to include stipulations in further contracts about automatic scaling based on hours worked.

Job posting on Upwork.

Client: Hello, I’m looking for an experienced Copyeditor and Line editor. If you also do a Developmental editing it will be a plus. My book is around 11 K words. Topic- Self-help. Time limit-2-3 days.

About five years ago, I managed a small chain of language schools. In September, a lot of new students joined, so everyone in the office made calls to make sure we could process applications as quickly as possible. 

Client: I want to study in a mini-group, and I can only make it Mondays and Thursdays, 1 p.m.

Me: Wonderful. We don't currently have any other future students who are interested in that kind of schedule, especially since that's the middle of the day and most people work office jobs. However, we can start a group with you. It means you'll be attending individual classes but pay the lower price for a mini group, and if anyone else with the same level of English can study on that schedule, they will join you.

Client. No, I am not interested in individual classes. I only want a mini group. 

Me: There are currently two mini groups of this level, one at 6 p.m. Monday and Wednesday and one at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday. Perhaps, you could find an opportunity to join one of them.

Client: No, I want one at 1 p.m.

Me: Unfortunately, there really are no other students so far interested in this schedule. However, there will be people signing up in the following weeks too, so perhaps somebody will want to join you. 

Client: I don't want to wait, I just want a mini group at 1 p.m. 

Me: (increasingly frustrated) Unfortunately, I cannot simply go ahead and find two to four other people who have the same level on English and happen to have free time at 1 p.m.

Client: Well this doesn't work. 

I am a seamstress who makes bespoke dresses, hats, and accessories. 

I spent several weeks working out the details of a particular purse with my client, which doesn’t bother me because it’s much easier to change the design before the item is made.

With every single email between us, I attached a diagram of the design with the measurements marked. As elements were added and removed, this ended up being quite a few diagrams. I requested confirmation for each change. At no point did they ask for the size to be changed, and confirmed the measurements several times during this process.

Today, they have received the finished product and reviewed it: 

Client: It's smaller than I expected. 

Me: You approved this size many, many times over the design process.

Client: Yeah, but I couldn't SEE it then. Now it's too small. 

Client: This block of text is secondary information. Please put it in a pop-up window.

I had just started out as a freelance programmer. I answered a job posting to help a PhD student with their computing dissertation.

Client: Hello, I need your help with my dissertation on Cloud Computing. I need some help with implementation – the details have been highlighted in yellow. Have a look and see if you can help.

I had a look, assuming it would be some finer points that I could clarify for them. Instead, the ENTIRE IMPLEMENATION SECTION was highlighted in yellow.

Me: This… looks like the whole project.

Client: Yes.

Me: So you’re asking me to do your entire coding work for you?

Client: And the flowchart, and the documentation.

Me: Sorry, I will not be able to do that.

Client: Why not?

Me: This is your dissertation, I can provide some code showing how to write a graph which you can look at and learn from, sure; but I cannot do anything specifically in that implementation for you.

Client: Why can you not do my implementation?

Me: Because what you’re asking for is not just the code writing, it’s the documentation and charts to go with it. This is literally half of your dissertation.

Client: What difference does it make?

I didn’t take the job. I also didn’t pay someone to earn me a PhD, so I guess I’m still ahead.