Working as a remote phone tech support for a real estate company. 

Client: Sorry for being a bother. My last IT guy used to call me an id10T error. I guess that spells idiot backward.

Me: (Oh no it does not...)

Me: We only have a 640 x 427 pixel image, we don't have enough resolution to print at 10 x 7.5 in.

Client: Images can be scaled, which does not mean enlarging them, it means a multifold process of layering to increase the pixel information such that they can eventually become information dense enough to expand in size.

Me: That is quite dense.

I work as an in-house designer at a fairly large FMCG company.

A while ago, I was asked to clean up our chairman's PowerPoint presentation he regularly uses when speaking on conferences, industry summits, and the like.

He really loves illustrating his slides with all kinds of pictures, from photos to clip-arts, illustrations and, yes, sometimes even memes.

At the bottom of every single one of them, in 12 pt Arial: "Source: Internet"

This conversation took place during the design phase of a typical website project.

Client: We should use the gallery widget from [well known video service provider] on our new site! No sense in us creating something new, when they have one we can use already.

Great! Client demonstrates good understanding of embeddable widgets and the value in using them.

Me: Excellent idea, we’ve done our research and can see it’s as simple as logging into your account, and getting an embed code from your provider. We will include a sample in the design and set this up for you during development.

At this point, I supply a link to a page showing how this feature works, and what the output looks like.

Client: No no no, you’ve misunderstood completely. The provider won’t code for us and we don’t know how to code either. As discussed you have to log in and set up the gallery for us.

Me: No problem, it sounds like we’re talking about the same point. Our plan is to do exactly as you’ve suggested. We will log in and handle the setup for you. It’s all in the project plan we provided.

Client: You’re still not getting it! We won’t be doing this ourselves. You have to do this on our behalf.

Me: …

This exchange continued for quite some time. The client was adamant that we didn’t understand and got more irate. Eventually, they begrudgingly accepted we were talking about the same thing all along.

Client: I bought a new computer! I’m going to take a course to learn about internet addresses.

Me: You can just use a search engine.

Client: The computer was expensive! I can’t afford a search engine too!

This was a few years back, but I think still worth sharing.

What's the dumbest thing you have heard a client say? 

I was tasked with adding links to a clients’ eBlast newsletter.

Client: My assistant Linda sent the email back to me, the link isn’t working and we really need to get this message out!

Me: What happened? As long as she didn’t edit that part of the letter it should be fine. Send it back to me and I’ll check it.

Client: The only thing I see that’s different is the president’s signature was added. But, the link definitely doesn’t work.

I get the email and immediately see the problem. The entire letter is now an image! Linda had to have copied the message body into a Word document so she could print it out and get the president’s signature. She then scanned the signed letter and inserted it into an email as a picture. The text that was supposed to be linked still appeared in underlined blue but was no longer clickable.

A client requested a screen share meeting to review a custom WordPress theme I had created.

Instead of sharing the website on their screen, they shared a PDF that consisted of angled photographs of a computer screen, printed out, marked up in Sharpie, and then scanned… with every page rotated in a different direction.

Client: I need to send an annual report to the Board, but I need the Chairman's statement removed from the PDF, can you help? I have the software to do it, but I need a copy of the PDF.

Me: I designed all the reports, so I can definitely help. Which one is it?

Client: This one.

They sent a direct link to the already-published, publically accessible PDF on the company website.

Me: Did you try just downloading this one?

Client: Oh! Can I do that? 

A friend of a friend came to me with a “business opportunity.”

Client: I’m starting a new project. Something big, we’re talking YouTube but for a more specific market.

Me: Honestly, I’ve been through this song and dance before with plenty of “businessmen” who say they want the next Google or Facebook or whatever. This kind of project would cost minimum six figures, probably more.

Client: Money is not a problem.

Me: …I’ll be frank. I know you owe a few of my friends money, which is fine, I get it, but unless you’ve won the lottery my understanding is you don’t have that kind of money.

Client: I’m in the middle of something, but I’m going to have the money soon.

Me: Let me guess: you just received a letter from some a lawyer, and a rich relative you didn’t know you had left you all his money, and all you have to do is send the lawyer a “legal” fee to get millions.

Client: …How did you know?

Me: Because I get the same letter from scammers roughly 10 times a week.

He was legitimately about to send a few thousand to these scammers.

So, no, I did not land a 6-figure contract – but he did buy me dinner and a few drinks for saving him a couple thousand from scammers.

Me: I’ve written the full report and saved it to this location but here is the quick summary of today’s workshop.

Client: Please write this up as a full report.

Me: …You didn’t even read my email, did you?