As a freelance web developer, I often find it hard to have time off, and it's even harder to devote time to one client when others feel I'm always at their disposal. Some clients still can't quite grasp that I'm not able to drop everything else I'm doing in my life to immediately attend to their needs. On this occasion, I had something that was going to require my total attention for two full days - with no mobile phone or email connection and not even access to a computer.

Me (one Thursday): Just to let you know that I will not be available at all next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Client: No problem.

Me (the following Monday): Just a reminder that I'm not available at all tomorrow or Wednesday.

Client: No problem.

Then, predictably, early on Tuesday morning ...

Client: I know you're not available today, but can you please do this quick job?

I had a client who wanted a social media strategy so we have a few conversations & worked on one accordingly. She responded with a huge essay lecturing me telling me she has a strategy & just wants a list of action points which I will execute... I should have seen the red flags then, but I persevered putting it down to a miscommunication. We agreed action points & I cracked on.

Action points included posting on social, & doing paid ads.

I go to post on her social accounts, which she gave me access to when we agreed the action points, & I discovered she'd removed my access. I reach out to her to rectify & she tells me she has trust issues & because I hadn't posted in 12 hours (overnight since we spoke) she revoked access. This continued to happen intermittently & I then received another lengthy email this time lecturing me about how I am not posting on social as agreed... 

I also created paid ads with which performed incredibly well, achieving the 2 goals we agreed. She toldme they're targeting the wrong locations (they weren't) & no-one had seen them (reach had surpassed the target & then some). 

As well as all of this she sent me up to 47 emails a day, demanding a response to each, & then texted me to say she didn't think I was doing anything.

Me: Why did you falsely say in the project meeting minutes that my work is late, when I always deliver early for your project?

Client: Sorry. I was late with my deliverables, so I had to throw someone else under the bus.

Business Owner in interview:

Client: You sound to me like a dreamer! No dreaming time for you, or my team. I need someone who makes my team work hard. They got too much work to do. We haven't got any time for dreamers!!!

I had a client who refused to offer any feedback whatsoever. Every time I would submit anything, they would come back and say:

Client: How do you feel about this?

Me: Uh... I like it?

Client: Mmmhmmm. 

This would be with a side eye like they were silently judging me. 

They kept hiring me, so I guess they liked me, but it was like they wanted to make me feel uncertain the whole time. 

Client: I need it to arouse the customer’s attention.

Me: To be clear, when you say arouse the customer’s attention –

Client: I mean, if they got an erection, the ad is doing its job.

Me: Got it. 

Client: Take down the exterior photo of our store on our Twitter immediately. It looks like slum trash. Please put up a picture of the interior instead. we are high end and I put $100000+ into this business and your picture doesn’t do us justice. What were you thinking?

The client pays $300 a month for rent for their store. I’m not sure they’re as “high end” as they think they are. 

A blast from the past from the CFH archives! 

Me: I've tried to incorporate the revision feedback you sent me this weekend, but I don't really know how to interpret some of these requests.

Client: Oh, yeah, sorry, I was drinking. Maybe ignore whatever I told you to do.

Me: ...

I'll tell you this: I was stone cold sober when I sent him an invoice for the time I put into making drunk revisions.

Client: Wait, you're taking next week off? And you didn't think it was important to maybe tell me about that?

I didn't respond directly - just forwarded four separate time stamped emails where I told him I'd be taking time off, including one where he replied "sounds good! Have fun."

I'd been working on a business plan for a client to be printed and distributed at an upcoming conference. The timeline was a tight turnaround with a hard deadline for getting the finished InDesign file to the printer. I'd been bugging the client for feedback for a week, and of course they only looked at it day of.

An hour before final submission time:

Client: All these bullet points end without punctuation. They should end with semicolons and a period on the final line.

It was a long document, so I scrambled to go through and "fix" the formatting. No, there wasn't a style guide dictating this is how bullet points should work, and yes, the previous way was consistent throughout the document. The client just decided it should be this way at the last second.

After I submitted to the printer in time (barely):

Client: I want to take about these semicolons. This was a major oversight - what can you do on the future to avoid these mistakes? 

My immediate reaction was "not work with you" but I held my tongue.