A friend of my girlfriend met with us and asked me to design a site for her ‘new political party.’ As a favor, I agreed to be paid after the work was completed, since she was 'such a good friend.' 

I moonlighted for several weeks attending to her every whim on the site, and I ending up logging 136 hours creating a comprehensive website for her campaign.

As the project neared completion, she began asking me to transfer the site and all the graphic assets over to her domain, 'just in case I get hit by a bus or something and she can’t access the site.' 

After finishing the site, which she herself expressed gratitude at how 'beautiful’ and 'amazing’ it was, she then refused to pay a cent because I am not a US citizen and she isn’t worried about 'being put in jail for paying someone who is not a citizen.' 

I can’t afford the legal representation to sue this person, and she owes me over $5,000.

Client: Why are you charging this much? Don't you know there's a recession going on? I can't afford this!

Me: I'm also living in this recession, and if I don't charge this then I can't afford anything. 

A client told me she’d pay me $25 for an event invitation. It was a family friend and I’m no pro but I knew I could make her something in Canva and she would think I was genius.

THEN she proceeded to tell me the church for the event was run-down and she’d have to pay for it to be cleaned up... so she could only pay me $20. 

In what world did that $5 make the difference? 

Client: What are your rates?

Me: They're clearly stated on my website.

Client: Yeah, but what are your REAL rates?

Me: The ones on my website.

Client: Really? I thought everyone marked up prices online to make it seem like a deal when you give a discount.

Me: Maybe that's a sales tactic, but I'm not really in sales.

Client: Oh. Would you consider giving me a discount anyway? 

Client: Your generation is so entitled and doesn't know the value of hard work.

This after I'd sent them a reminder to pay my invoice - literally what I was entitled to for my hard work. 

And how his "deciding you don't have to pay on time" not entitled? 

I do HR consulting, with a focus on helping businesses establish training and development programs for their employees. I also do a bit of generalist HR consulting such as remuneration, performance management, etc. but my main business is training and development. Because of the pandemic, work has been slow so I started working night doing some lecturing at a local university.

I had one large business that is in the community services industry who I had been consulting with in performance management for the better part of two years. The Chief Operating Officer was very happy with my work (or so I thought), and we had a chat just before Christmas about what the next twelve months will look like for them. 

COO: Next year, we are looking into developing our training programs for staff. We really want to make sure our staff are getting the best training possible.

Me: That's actually my area of expertise. I'd love to work with you on that!

COO: Oh, well we'll keep that in mind. We've actually hired another company to manage it, though. We know it's out of area for them so they're charging us well over $100k for it. We are expecting big things from it though - we know they can handle it!

I found out the name of the other company that was hired. They are a hospitality business that offers catering for events and does minor hospitality industry training on the side.

Fast forward to this year, and I meet with the COO to ask how things are progressing with what areas they need me for the coming six months. We begin discussing the business generally, and I ask how the training and development side of things are going.

COO: Not as great as we had hoped. We have needed to pay them another $75k because they keep complaining that the work we're asking them to do is out of their scope. Apparently they all need some special training.

Tonight I had my first lesson teaching intro in training and development. There were at least four people from this hospitality business present - two of them in chefs uniforms looking dead on their feet, falling asleep. Given I would have charged the large business about half of the $175k they have shelled out for their training programs, something tells me that they will be struggling to see value for money anytime soon.

Client: I want premium branding for my business so I can target high-end customers and charge more.

I sent a proposal with the price for the standard branding package. Not "premium" - STANDARD.

Client: No, that's too high. 

I posted an ambitious art project on my Instagram art account.

Client: Hey, I really like this art! Could you make an album cover just like it?

Me: Oh, uh, sure! I've never really done a commission before, but if you give me some specifications I'd be happy to discuss a price and try it out!

Radio silence. I guess the whole "price" thing turned him off.