I work in customer service for one of the big logistics companies. The phone lines usually heat up every Friday afternoon, when people realize they haven’t received their online purchases before the weekend. We do our best to help in exceptional cases, but of course, people have different definitions of what's important.

Client: I absolutely need this package today, please, it’s urgent!

Me: I’m sorry, but we can’t sent a driver out today, the only option is to come get it at the depot.

Client: What, you mean drive two hours for two phone cases? Don't be ridiculous.

Me: …

I'm a freelance event manager, working for a tradeshow. Even though it's been scheduled for the last year and I've been prodding them this whole time, SOMEHOW my clients only managed to get me names for badges THREE DAYS before the event.

They also gave me their list of sponsors three days before the event, and the finalized agenda on the day of the event.

I've been working non-stop to get this all done. Even worse, they're in a different state; we are literally flying documents over in a plane to make it in time.

Somehow, I just know something else is going to pop up and it'll be "my fault" because I couldn't "edit fast enough." 

SMH.

An old client got in touch with me about illustrating her children’s book. She contacted me first in July:

Client: The publisher’s deadline is October.

Me: I’m afraid that won’t work for me. I’m starting my master’s degree in the fall and I won’t be able to tackle any large projects after that time.

Client: Well what if I get you everything you need before then? Can you do it then?

Me: Sure.

Of course, she waited until October 14 to send me anything. Not wanting the paycheck to go to waste, I decided to let it slide and got straight to work. She paid half of the cost up-front, and I (somehow) had her book fully illustrated by late afternoon on October 30th. I sent her low-resolution, watermarked copies of all the illustrations, featuring my email and username printed in solid black across every page. She paid the latter half of the cost, and I delivered the high-resolution, non-watermarked final copies.

She disappeared for two weeks, and then returned to me with revisions and a revised deadline of… the following day. I was about to decline, but then I saw her three-figure offer. I didn’t have any IMMEDIATE deadlines, but I did have some impending ones.

Me: Okay. I’ll turn it around for tomorrow, but please know I can’t work on this schedule in the future.

I drew up a few new designs for her and edited her work as much as possible to fit her requests.

She disappeared for another week, and then:

Client: Can you make these changes for tomorrow? I have an AMAZING idea for the front cover.

Me: I’m sorry, I really can’t. I have a number of important deadlines coming up and I don’t think I can continue to work on this project.

Client: I am just really excited with how this will come out. Please confirm that you can complete these new requirements by tomorrow.

Me: No, really. I can’t continue this working relationship, and will have to stop doing illustrations for the foreseeable future.

Client: My idea for the cover is adorable, I can’t wait to see how you interpret it.

I ignored her emails at this point, and buried myself in my work.

She got in touch with me a few weeks ago.

Client: I thought you’d want to see the book. I’m so happy with it.

I opened the PDF.

It was the 16 page, finished book... with my low-resolution, fully watermarked images, featuring my username and email in solid-black 72-px size font.

Client: We need to put this poster in our Social Media Accounts before Monday.

Me: Yes, I know. I cleared my schedule and I'm working on it.

Client: Like, we need it before the end of the day.

Me: Finished! Just sent it. 

Tuesday night:

Me: I thought you need to post it before Monday to promote the event? Why can 't I see it in your account?

Client: Oh, we just really need it by Friday. No rush!

 

One day I wake up with serious pain in my shoulder. It was bad enough for me to call into work and tell them I will be late since I was heading to the doctor. Work stated that it was fine and asked it I would still be able to make a meeting later that day. I agreed thinking that my shoulder wasn't anything serious.

Client: We want you to create a "Disney level" 3D short feature animation with several characters by the end of December. 

It was September and I was the only person working on this.

Me: That's impossible for just one person. I don't think I can do this project within the timeline nor without a team.

Client: Let's take a short break to give you some time to think it over.

I don't see the point but I take the break anyway since the pain relentless. It is during this break that I listen to the voice call left by my doctor stating that there were lumps in my chest and I needed to get to the hospital immediately.

The next day, I called my manager:

Me: Can I talk to you> Something happened and it will have a serious effect on my projects.

Manager: Okay, I'm just about to meet with the client and we can roll both meetings into one.

Me: This is a private matter - can I speak to you alone?

Manager: No. You've been rude enough to this client. If it is really so important you can tell us both.

Me: Fine.

I walk to the meeting room having given up and still in pain and as soon as we sit down I start.

Me: I'm sorry to tell you this but I have Hodgkins Lymphoma Cancer and I need to start my treatment immediately. I will be going on sick leave immediately and from then on I would like to discuss if it is possible for me to work from home during my treatment period.

Client: This is great news! This is the perfect time for you to throw yourself into a project! It even allows you to spend more time on the project while you're at home.

I left.

A "friend"/former work colleague who's since launched a startup asks me to write a keynote speech for him to give a major industry conference.

I somehow managed to write a pretty decent speech on an extremely technical topic based on short notice. I sent the client the piece, who never responded. 

Knowing that this colleague was a disorganized stressful nightmare to work with (and that another previous freelance project I foolishly agreed to do for him turned out to be a disaster) and that the rate he was paying for the speech was already a massive, massive discount on what another speechwriter would charge, I let things slide while I worked on other, more profitable accounts.

Naturally, I heard back two days before the conference began... which just so happened to be Thanksgiving weekend, as I was about to host a 40 person party.

Client: I just got around to reviewing your speech and made a number of comments. Could you please turn this around by tomorrow morning? I've also included a friend's 40-page keynote speech - could you edit that as well? 

I had no choice but to explain to the client that, as he fully knows, the workweek is over and between now and tomorrow morning I will be hosting a Thanksgiving party and then sleeping. And even if that were not the case, there is simply no way that I could review two 40 minute keynotes and send a V2 in the space of 8 hours.

Client finished his project himself, and withheld payment for not "finishing the job."

I saw a video of the speech, which was 95% exactly what I wrote for him.

I am a freelance designer and have a great client who unfortunately likes everything done on his premises.

Client: I'd like you to redesign my flagship publication. Can I come to the office to discuss my ideas?

When I got to his offices after a 45-minute drive, he logged into Pinterest and showed me 5 images.

Client: Draw inspiration from these. 

That's right. I drove 45 minutes each way, just so he could spend 5 minutes showing me images he could simply have emailed to me... 

I was a freelance video editor and worked from my home. A friend of mine was a cameraman, and his daughter was getting married. He asked how much it would be to edit her wedding video which he would shoot. I had known the guy casually for over 20 years so I said I would edit for free as the wedding present.

This was my first mistake.

After the wedding, it took months for the bride to come to my home to start the process.  The first meeting went well and I had a cut to her within a week.

Another month and she came back with changes. This happened two more times each with months in between the edits. By the third, I handed her a hand drive with all the footage and said 'mazeltov'.  She was pleased and I assumed the job was complete.

Second mistake.

I moved from freelance to a regular day job which I fully enjoy. I put my editing system into storage and had no more home clients. 

A year and a half later I received an email from the bride:

Client: I'm ready to get to work on this! I'm available now!

I emailed her back:

Me: I'm retired. 

I was working on delivering a number of comms pieces for a program driven by a launch date deadline. One piece was a brochure to be handed out at the launch event. I managed to get a first draft of the brochure with content laid out two weeks before the print deadline. 

Me: Please see the first proof attached and supporting content doc. We are quite ahead of the deadline but as there are so many pieces in play and they all feed of this, it is worth signing off now.

Client: ...

Me: (a few days later) I sent you a proof a few days ago, do you know when you will be able to review this please?

Client: ...

Me: (about a week later) Hello. Getting a bit concerned about the brochure as I haven't heard anything back and other materials rely on the information in here. Can I please have your feedback?

Two days before the print deadline, I received a marked up Word doc of the content with tracked changes. Practically everything was commented on, but the majority of the comments were just questions like 'Why is this here?'  or 'change the image' or my all time favorite 'please revise' with no indication of what to revise it to or why.

The icing on the cake was a note in the email saying how we really needed to think about how to speed the process up as she was worried about the impending deadline.

I work for a marketing agency and, and we do free work for the church my boss attends. He gets a lot of leads from there, so we have to play nice whenever they ask for something.

A week ago on a Friday, the church contacts us:

Client: We changed our payment gateway for our donations, and we need the new system linked to our website with a redesign for the "Give" page.

I worked on the project all day and even stayed late so I wouldn't have to deal with the issue on Monday. They approved it, I went home.

The weekend went by but I wasn't feeling too well and felt like a truck had hit me when I woke up on Monday so I called in sick. I figured everything was good since they signed off on everything and that should have been the last I would hear from them for a while. Boy was I wrong....

Client: Our members are having trouble finding the “give” button on our website.  Can you make the following changes?

Since it wasn't flagged as urgent and I wasn't on the clock, I decided they could wait until tomorrow. It was a simple change but I needed the PSD file I had on my computer at work. Also, I'd taken some medicine that had made me groggy, so I just went back to sleep.

I woke up with a missed call from an unknown number and a text from the client saying they needed the change done ASAP because they are wanting to make a demo on how to get to the give page...

At this point, I'm a little frustrated because I never gave them permission to use my cell and it wasn't flagged to be important. So I just texted back:

Me: I'm sorry, I'm home sick today and unavailable to the work immediately. I'll forward the details to my coworker, but he may be busy as well. If he can't do it, I promise I'll take care of it first thing tomorrow.

I thought that would take care of it. Nope. The client phoned me two on my cell two hours later, because my coworker DID make the changes and they still weren't happy with them. Turns out he misinterpreted one of the things they asked for and they demanded it be fixed right now. I phoned my coworker, apologized for taking him away from his own work, and got him to make this change. 

The floodgates were open, though. The client continued to email me about a totally different style changes. I did my best to ignore them and rest up.

The next morning, I went into work still feeling terrible, but got to work right away. Then, a few hours later, I got another email: 

Client: We actually don't like this new style for the Give page. Can we just go back to the old one?

To recap, they wasted our time again, misused my cell number, made my coworker drop his workload and decided "Meh, we don't like it." All for a job they weren't paying for, and had finalized days before. 

My boss is no longer making us give them free work.