Not a Client from Hell, but a glimpse into the employment hellscape we're all living in. 

An older friend of mine, an older woman in her 70s was looking to re-join the workforce because she didn’t have enough savings (which was sad enough).

Friend: You know, 15 to 20 years ago, I was earning more money per hour than what's offered now in the same field. I could find a full-time job with benefits easily, and the work was stable. In fact, even when I wasn’t working full-time I could still keep my benefits.

Me: That sounds like it was nice.

Friend: It was. I could afford to go on nice vacations around the world. And I didn’t even have to get a college degree.

Me: Wow, that’s cool.

Friend: Now, when I look for work, benefits aren’t as easy to come by, the pay doesn’t keep up with basic standards of living, and the interviewers aren’t as professional. I’m also not being offered the option to work full-time. And, the traffic to get to work is horrible.

Welcome to the world I’ve lived in since I graduated from college ten years ago…

I recently worked on a team with a memorable co-worker, who had been in our industry for over 20 years.

He was one of the most respected employees on our team, for his in-depth knowledge and ability to build solid working relationships. He consistently met or exceeded goals in terms of sales and follow-up with prospects.

He told me and our team a story that was heart-wrenching. (I knew others he worked with from years ago, and they confirmed this is what happened.)

About 5 years ago, when he was a long-time employee for a different company, he was diagnosed with cancer and made every effort to overcome it.

The owner of that business was a known jerk. According to stories I heard, he put a ton of pressure on his employees and lacked compassion. The proof? When he found out that my coworker had cancer, he FIRED HIM. 

My co-worker survived, in part because his spouse was still working, and then moved on to our company, where he's been a highly valued contributor to this day. But hearing this story changed how I think of bosses and clients to this day.

A friend who was getting a Ph.D. in Physics wanted my advice on creating a website. I admired his tenacious personality and his intelligence, so I was happy to discuss my ideas and knowledge with him. He asked me to visit him at his place, that he was sharing with some other people.

When I visited him, it was the middle of an icy winter and he lived in an interesting situation. Let's just say that he was not so much a client FROM hell as a client IN hell. 

Me: It’s great to see you.

I was shivering due to the cold temperature in the house.

Me: Um, it’s really cold here - would you mind turning up the heat?

Client: We don’t have heat throughout the whole house. Can’t afford it. I can bring over a portable heater, though.

Me: OK. Thanks.

Later in our meeting….

Me: Hey, I’m going to get some water. Do you want some?

Client: Don’t use the tap. It’s not suitable for drinking. The well water is filthy and could be poisonous. That’s why we drink water from the water cooler.

Me: Oh - thanks for letting me know.

After our meeting…

Client: I’m glad we could meet at my place. I had to have the tire replaced on my car the other day, and I could barely afford it. Us grad students barely get paid anything.

I was stunned that this client was living in such a dire manner, as he was one of the most brilliant minds I had met. Needless to say, I wasn’t going to get paid much for consulting with him for his website.

I was doing some contract work for a company, building their new website. It was a WordPress site and required a lot of specially programmed PHP customization.

I was placed under the head of IT. He was running the project and had written most of the code for the project.

Or so I was told.

Client: I wrote this plugin that integrates with a third party service and this cron script. They've suddenly stopped working. Can you fix them?

I took a look at his plugin. It did much of the required task but just stopped before the full task was done. It had no error checking whatsoever, just assuming that the third party service would always send a good result back. It was also spotted with comments like "I've added this here in case you need it later - Nish", and "Not sure why you want this, but it's done now - Raj."

I didn't say anything. I just fixed it and moved on to the cron script. Same thing. Half done, no error checking, and odd comments.

While the Head of IT was collecting a nice wage and claiming authorship of all this work, it was clear he was subbing it out on the sly to much cheaper, not very competent coders from overseas.

A potential client asked me to make some edits to his blog. I requested he added me to the users, and because I would need to make some changes to the site I asked him to make me an administrator

Client: I set you up as an editor. Hopefully, you have all the access you need.

Me: Not quite, actually. To make a few changes I'll need to be an administrator, at least for a day.

He not only removed my user access, but he also blocked me from his website.

A client gave us a last-minute request to get a file ready for a client so he could impress them. We worked all night to get it done, sent it off, and I got ready to go to the meeting. The client called at 8:30, an hour before our meeting:

Client: Where are you?

Me: Just had breakfast, leaving in 10 minutes.

Client: WHAT?

He started swearing, and calling me stupid and irresponsible.

Client: You won’t make it in time! You haven’t even sent the e-mail with the file! You should’ve sent it hours ago!

Me: We sent the e-mail at 7am to you and the external client.

Client: You did NOT. I didn’t receive it. I can’t believe this. You failed to do your job, this is not why I hired you!

Me: We’ll resend again.

Client: (continues screaming profanities)

I arrived at 9:21, and checked my email. The external client confirmed that they’d received the email at 7 AM. I showed up to the meeting and the client was there.

Client: They’ve received the e-mail.

He said this in a soft voice, almost – ALMOST – like he was admitting he was wrong to scream at me earlier.

Me: Cool. Did you receive it?

Client: I haven’t checked my email yet.

I fired the client as soon as the job was done.

I applied for a contract sales job at a company, and there were several steps to the interview process. I practiced, studied, and passed the first step. The Hiring Manager was enthusiastic about my skills.

Soon after, I read in the news that the business was going bankrupt.

That was alarming, as I was scheduled for a follow-up interview soon.

I was intrigued to see what the hiring manager would say. I reached out to her for clarification, and let her know I would like to cancel the interview if the company was going out of business.

Client: So sorry, I didn’t even know our business was going bankrupt. Yes, let’s postpone this interview for a later time, until I hear more about what Management will do. Thanks for contacting us!

One day I'm dreaming about my potential new role, the next day the business might not exist. That’s how things go these days, I guess.

Years ago, when I sought to build my design skill set, I decided to volunteer with a non-profit.

The non-profit Manager didn’t have a Creative Brief, or much in the way of useful instructions for the e-mail campaign project she asked me to work on. She had some ambiguous notion of what she wanted, but she had no idea about the content, graphics, colors, fonts, or overall direction.

I sent her a few drafts based on the basic goal she had in mind, with elements that complimented the non-profit's current design theme. I didn’t hear back for a week and a half. I finally received some disjointed, random comments in an e-mail thread that included five other people I hadn’t met before.

Me: Thanks for your feedback so far. I was wondering, what’s your review process for this e-mail campaign? Who is seeing this, and why are these comments coming to me in this e-mail thread?

Client: I brought up the e-mail campaign project at our last Board Meeting, and I decided the best thing to do would be to send it around to all the Board Members for their comments and feedback.

Me: (internally) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

….Needless to say, this approach was pretty painful. I felt like I was being kicked around blindfolded by a group whose knowledge didn’t relate to the project and hadn’t received much information about it themselves.

I recently did promotions for an event. The client was a bodybuilder who also did cross-fit. He gave me a USB stick with photos I could choose from for the posters.

I got home and plugged the USB stick in. There were a few sets of nice headshots, cross-fit photos- and then several... well, let’s call them “dudeoir” photos. Shots of him posing undressed on a bed and so forth.

There were 150 photos on the stick, and roughly 50 of them were these nude shots.

I finished the project and he paid me, and in literally every email as we were approaching the end, I asked for his mailing address so that I could send his photos back.

He never gave me an address. I still have the drive.

As a designer, my coworkers sometimes come to me needing designs for their side-hustles. It usually works out pretty well and I can make some extra scratch on the side. Usually.

Client: Since you do logos and stuff, could you make a logo for my son's fishing business?

Me: Sure, I just need to know a few things.

I give him the usual pitch and tell him to email me. He doesn't. One week later:

Client: Hey, do you have anything for me yet?

Me: I hadn't heard from you, so I'm still waiting on a brief with the information I asked for.

Client: Oh, okay, I'll send it.

He still doesn't. He never does send me anything and I never end up doing it.

A year or two later another coworker comes to me and asks about some branding. He revealed "Oh yeah, [other coworker] told me not to go to you. He said he thought you were too lazy to do his logo."

What a surprise.