Client: Last night I was sleeping and Jesus came to me in my dream and had this image in his hand. He said that he has blessed this image and this image only for the book. If I use any other image I am going against the will of our Lord.
That moment you realize your client might be Jesus, from the Clients From Hell archives.
After working for a couple of years in the sales and marketing department for one of the biggest news publishers in my region, I have gotten used to a certain way of handling proposals and later on negotiations with clients. Simply said, I followed the exact same steps (inherited from my ex-colleagues):
CLIENT INQUIRY/
OUR ACQUISITION ---> PROPOSAL ---> NEGOTIATION ---> CLOSING A DEAL
However, while delivering proposals, we used the old way of describing which Google banner positions and advertising, in general, we can offer to a client (long emails, full of text and plain numbers about statistics, etc.). This way turned out to be efficient enough for all our previous clients that would just prolong their long-term contracts from year to year, but it didn't go hand in hand well with the acquisition of new clients (especially those bigger ones from which we could earn higher revenues).
After years of unsuccessful fishing and trying to make a contact with a pretty large company (the type of client that you are never good enough for, but they constantly ask for your proposals: We are meant for Wimbledon, and you are offering us Sarajevo Open) seated in one of our neighbouring countries, I decided to make a different proposal for them and put additional effort (which, later on, was not charged from them or rewarded by my employer).
Since I had pretty untied hands when it came to direct communication with clients, in terms of not needing my owners' approvals every time, etc., I created a brand new product we didn't even have in our pricelist at that time: 50% category sponsorship.
This would mean that 50% of the news in a certain (e.g. Lifestyle) category would be covered with multiple client's banners/brand (meaning, millions of pageviews for client every month). In that category, we had huge unsold inventory/impressions, so I realised this decision would not hurt our future sales or my publisher's brand in any way (safe brand rule).
I delivered my proposal in a PDF document with graphics and visuals, having already tested the campaign on our website, and included screenshots of all banner positions. I made a client visualise their brand appearance on our website and "feel" their brand from the position of an average user. Since I wasn't able to use our in-house designer's services of creating banners and visuals for a potential new client (without charging it), in a couple of nights and YouTube tutorials I learned how to use PhotoShop for the first time.
Turned out, the client absolutely loved the idea and signed up for a five-digit profit, I learned how to use Photoshop and made some skills for a lifetime, and we have continued using this approach ever since!
I give away a small piece of software for free online. A potential user begins an email thread with me:
Client: CAN'T SEEM TO DOWNLOAD EVEN DONATING 5.00. ANY SUGGESTIONS.
Me: Sorry to hear about this problem. Can you describe where the trouble is?
Client: YEAH, I CLICK ON THE DOWNLOAD BUTTON AND NOTHING HAPPENS.
Me: First thing, make sure you turn off your caps lock button. Second, make sure you disable any popup blockers. good luck!
Client: I DID ALL THAT. IT STILL WON'T WORK. TRIED WITH MULTIPLE BROWSERS TOO. STILL NOTHING. JUST SEND THROUGH EMAIL PLEASE.
Me: No, seriously, turn off your caps lock button. When you type in all caps it means that you're yelling rudely on the internet.
Client: I JUST DID ALL THAT. CAP LOCKS OFF, AD BLOCKER OFF, DIFFERENT BROWSERS. WILL NOT DO ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I never replied.
After sending a quotation to a potential client, he answered offering me half the amount I had proposed. I replied politely stating that I don't make discounts, that my price is fixed, and if one day I would consider doing it, it would never be at that percentage. I said "thank you" and wished a very good luck for his project. Not taking "no" for an answer...
Client: "At this time, when we are facing a pandemic situation, you should raise your hands to the heavens and be grateful that I want to hire you. With this kind of thing of not wanting to make any discounts, you will only lose clients. Nothing else. I hope that no one will hire you in the future and that you starve to death."
I'm coauthoring a science article with another scientist. We're passing a Word document back and forth, making edits and revisions. My coauthor is a good scientist, but an awful writer. I recently made major revisions to clean up grammar, logical flow, and tone, almost completely rewriting the article, but got it to a state where I was happy to submit for publication. I send it back to him, just expecting a sign-off. Instead, he gived it back to me with a bunch of additional revisions. I want to emphasize, he is a native English speaker.
Here is an example of what happened:
What I wrote: While the Poisson-Boltzmann model can accurately predict the electrostatic behavior of our system (Fig. 3), it fails to capture the full free energy (Fig. 3B, dashed lines). In order to do that, we turn to entropic effects, discussed in the next section.
My coauthor's "revision": As you see in fig 3 and especially the dashed lines, Poison boltzmann can get right the electrostatic energetical part, so to speak, but not with the total free ebergy. A bias we think because there is not entropy considleration. We can talk about it in the next section below, too.
My coauthor: I think it's looking great! Are we ready to submit?
Me: ...we were.
Client: Just make the model; I will do the textures.
Me: Okay, here is the model.
Client: Where the f*** are the textures?
The client requests a flyer design. When it's finished, they decide they want the ability to edit future versions to change dates.
Me: Do you have InDesign?
Client: No
Me: That’s okay. I have a couple of ideas on how you can make those changes… Would any of these work for you?
The client doesn’t reply so I follow up a few days later. No reply. Eventually, I close out the contract and receive payment for my work. All of this happens without the client communicating or further updating me regarding their latest request.
A few months later, the client realizes they need me to redesign a small section of the flyer so they can edit future versions without compromising the design. This was one of the options I had originally suggested which they could have done under the original contract. Since there were multiple options and I wasn’t sure how they planned to edit the flyer, I couldn’t have just ‘done it and turned it over’ without getting the ‘go ahead’.
Client: Please make these changes so we can edit the design.
Me: Thank you for reaching out. I’ll be happy to help you with this. Since this project was closed out a while ago, I’ll need to send you a new contract.
Client: …
I'm a freelancer, approached by a potential client who offers really solid pay.
Client: I need you to design a flyer for me. We need to spread the truth about what happened.
Me: Sure! Just send me the details about the dimensions of what you need and the content. I can usually whip up something in a day or two.
Client: Excellent because this is urgent.
Me: I understand. I'll send you a document that lists all the requirements I need to get started.
The client then proceeds to send me "the truth". It was a story of how former President Trump had made several assassination attempts on Pres Joe Biden. Despite the pay being solid I call the client back.
Me: Hi! Thanks for sending over all the details but I don't think I can do this.
Client: What, why? I love your work, I'll pay you more if that's the problem.
Me: It's not the pay it's the content.
Client: Oh! C'mon kid if CNN can spread this type of s*** all day long I can too. It's going to really help bring in the business. The more woke you are the more they love you.
Me: Thank you for the compliment but, I'm sorry, I can't do this.
I just hung up, blocked his email, and turned off my phone for the rest of the day.
Being specialized in the frontend, I ask my client to hire someone who can do the backend part so that he can fix some of the problems with multiple sites of his.
The backend developer, whom the client also treats as the dev head, plays around with the sites and leaves after two months without any communication. Now, another developer comes in to take his place.
I have some invoices ($5000+) pending based on my tasks alone. The client, along with the new developer, refuses to pay me because the old backend developer did not fix the issues. They tell me that I coded the site poorly by showing the backend developer's code. I even have the screenshots and the meeting video. When they find out that I am recording the meeting, the new developer says people would be "laughing" if I told this in public.
He also tells me that some features are not implemented on the site. I repeatedly asked him whether we needed to do these features during the project. There was never a yes for the "missing" features, as we had so many other tasks to work on which already took time. If the client wanted more features, he should have hired more developers. I am told time and again that it is my responsibility to add "missing" features.
The new developer asks me to come for a PHP battle so that we can have a game whether the invoices can be completed or not, when my skill is the frontend and general stuff with plugins, which also requires some technical skills. The new developer also tells me that I am responsible for fixing the backend developer's code.
It baffles me that he says that I am responsible for it. I just wanted to confirm with you guys whether I am fine to have such a reaction or not.
We were contracted for part of a study, and the protocol laid out the procedure for the photography portion with more specificity than I've ever seen. They laid out step-by-step the calibrations and settings that had to be done. I was pleased to have clear-cut guidance rather than nebulous hand-waving, so I got right on it... until the email.
Client: We have special instructions for you. Here is my phone number. Call me.
Me: I would very much prefer to keep it in email format, both to have a paper trail for your instructions and because I am hard of hearing and phone calls are difficult for me, but I can attempt a phone call.
Client: Call me.
I ended up calling him, dreading the inevitable loss of half the information from mumbling and low volume.
Client: Okay, so- [lays out the exact stream of instructions that were in the protocol already]
Me: Yes, sir. I already was doing that. We're required by our own SOPs to review the protocol, and I've been following those instructions to the letter. I should have this completed by Thursday.
Client: Great, thanks.
The next day, the client phones my office again.
Client: Remember the calibrations.
At this point, all the photographs have already been taken and are in the edit stage.
Later in the same day, he phones yet again.
Client: Don't forget about the calibrations.
The next day, another phone call.
The Client's Exhausted-Sounding Secretary: Hello. He's asking me to remind you... something about calibrations? He said you'd know what that means.
Me: The work is already completed. We're sending you all the photos on a flash drive. All the calibrations were done as instructed in the protocol. I already emailed him a link to the Dropbox folder containing the images. He's told me about the calibrations quite a few times now, and I can assure you, I got it the first time.
Secretary, Who Has Clearly Been Through It Herself: Tell me about it, sister.
Imagine my shock and horror when both his parent company and my parent company joined up in a merger. He's a coworker now. I need to find that secretary and take her out for drinks because we both need them.