A client asked me to come over so I could work in the same office as her. I told her that, because she lived extremely far away, it could get really expensive really fast. 

Still, she wanted me to come over, so I did. It went as well as working a foot away from your client could.

Once she received my invoice, she rang me up.

Client: “How come I have to pay so much?”

Me: “Because I had to travel such an obscene distance to get to you.”

Client: “But this is a lot more expensive than I thought it would be.”

Me: “I warned you beforehand that it was going to get this expensive.”

Client: “But I thought, because you’re just starting out, you would ask a severely reduced price…”

Me: “I explicitly told you how much I would ask for prior to doing so.”

Client: “How was I supposed to know you would stick to that?”

Client: “My website is broken! Users can’t connect, and a lot of pages are missing! HELP!”

Me: “Have you changed something?”

Client: “No, of course not. I noticed the problem when I was deleting some lines in the database to improve the SEO.”

Client: “I need your advice on something. I’m putting an event program together, and I want to include a speech from one of the speakers, but when I print it, the speech is small, blurry, and unreadable.”

Me: “Let me get some details. First, how long is this speech?”

Client: “It’s a two-page PDF.”

Me: “And I’m assuming the program is a regular eight-and-a-half-by-eleven folded in two?”

Client: “Yes.”

Me: “Is there other content on this program?”

Client: “Yes.”

Me: “You realize that fitting two pages of text into a space that is at most a quarter of a page will be next to impossible, right?”

Client: “Are you sure?”

Me: “Yes, trust me.”

Client: “Oh. Well, what about this? What if I print the speech out and photocopy it with — wait for it — with the size reduction, onto the printed program? Would that work?”

Me: “No.”

I have my grandfather and his much younger business partner as a client.

Partner: “Your grandfather’s Yahoo is broken.”

Me: “His Yahoo? Do you mean the email account has a problem, or is the website down?”

Partner: “Yes, his email. You have to fix it. Do you have a few minutes?”

Me: “I live in Toronto, remember? He lives over two hours from here.”

Partner: “No, I mean over the phone. You tell me, and I’ll call him and tell him what to do. I think Yahoo has a virus.”

Me: “You mean you think his email was hacked?”

Partner: “No, a virus. He can’t log into his email. You reset his password, and he can’t log in. I can log in using his email and password, but the Yahoo on his computer must have a virus. He took it to one of those shops, and now his Yahoo doesn’t work.”

Me: “Are you sure he isn’t typing his new password in wrong?”

Partner: “No, that’s ridiculous. It must be a virus. Can you, like, Google a virus?”

Me: “Uh, yeah. I’ll call you back.”

I have a coffee and check my schedule to see if I can fit a trip out of Toronto to see my grandfather over the weekend. When I call to see when would work…

Partner: “It works! Everything is fine. Problem solved, and your grandfather is relieved.”

Me: “Good! I’m glad the virus is gone.”

Partner: “Don’t be silly. It was the password. He wasn’t typing it in right. Your grandfather’s very old, you know.”

Client: “I know how easy it is to set this up; I used WordPress a couple of years ago. You just need to add a couple of plugins and copy my content. It takes no effort or skill. Frankly, I think you should do it for free.”

Me: “Sorry, I can’t go lower than my already-reduced rate of £20 per hour.”

Client: “Can you at least come down to £10 per hour?”

Me: “Sorry, £20 is as low as I can go.”

Client: “Fine. I’ll do it myself.”

A couple of days later…

Client: “Look, whatever, I’ll pay your ridiculous rates. Here’s what I need.”

Me: “Okay, great. I’ll get started first thing on Monday.”

Client: “I need it by Monday.”

It was Saturday.

After I read the content, the client claimed that they specialized in e-commerce and web development. Judging by the difficulty they had tweaking a WordPress site, something doesn’t add up here.