Friday Fun
Whew, just got done with the 9rules Round 4 list and I need a bit of Friday fun since it is Friday. So I figured it would be cool to hear some client horror stories since I am indirectly experiencing one right now (remember I don’t do client work anymore). If you got a horror story let us have it so we can sit back and have a jolly laugh together. Hell, if you have a shitty boss tell us that as well.
Related reading:
My last boss was hilarious if you like stabbing your brain out with pencils as that is what he reduced you to. His idea of a great website involved animated gifs and he always requested only to work in IE. As for clients, the last one I had that was a real pain in arse involved viewing websites on a 800 x 600 on a tft 19 inch and wandering why everything was always fuzzy…. Another great one was the 18 month client who came back more than a dodgy fish meal and refused to realise what a sign off was. I have also ended up writing a series of client FAQ sheets after about the 50th time of explaining the concept of branding. Oh well, it’s all a learning experience.
By karmatosed on June 2, 2006 2:45 pm
I had a client who was a perfectionist but had no idea what he wanted. Consequently everything I did was wrong somehow. That relationship didn’t last long.
By Dale Cruse on June 2, 2006 3:18 pm
Some time ago, when I worked for my country (not doing it anymore) a guy wanted a site. he was the head of a pretty big company dealing with luxury travels and they wanted a small website to promote their services.
He called me to his office, made me wait for about an hour and then he said “ok, come in”. I was stepping into his office when he got another call, which, he took right in front of me, and made me wait like 15 more minutes. At this time, I was a guy who dressed up just for wait at someone’s office.
Finally, we talk about his project and I explain him how the site could benefit his business, blah blah, how this, how that; etc. Then, he asked me how much, so I gave him a fair price, not too high, but not too cheap either. He start laughing at me and say “look, I was thinking this will cost like $40 or something, for that price, I will the job to my cousin who knows something about computers.”
I didn’t even tried to explain him that from where I comes, that insults it’s payed with blood, so I just stop talking and leave the room. Again, my price was fair for the job, and I think I should had said the double at the moment. After six months I get a call from that same guy, saying “hey, are you free to do this job? I will pay the price you said and a little more if you are up to.”
Of course. I said “no, sorry. Ask your cousin.”
I lost the money? no, I didn’t made that sale so, I never had the money.
I learn something? well, just a story ;)
Cheers, have a great weekend.
Javier Cabrera
By Javier Cabrera (15tags) on June 2, 2006 3:40 pm
I think everyone has those horrific can you give me this for the price of a bag of crisps clients - I call them “moon on a stick clients” as that is what they invariably want.
By karmatosed on June 2, 2006 3:47 pm
I only have a quote and one quote only that I recieved from a client:
“I downloaded a copy of dreamweaver and I went and poked around with the website and I may have changed a few things that shouldn’t have been, could you fix it?”
This is why I raise my rates (occassionaly) with every client that takes it upon themselves to do the job they are paying me for.
By Arik on June 3, 2006 5:32 am
I had an interesting experience recently where I completed a small template and was then reprimanded — at least that’s what they client tried to do by laying blame — for not being a mind reader regarding the very vague changes that were subsequently requested.
By Mike Stickel on June 4, 2006 1:05 pm
I’ve just experienced the horror of having an external (print) designer, do the web template.
Seriously, she had it done pixel perfect, and would call me, if I had made something that had shifted 1-2px. I hate pixel perfectionism.
By Jonathan Holst on June 4, 2006 1:17 pm
Pretty much the same story as Arik only the client used MS Frontpage on a gigantic XHTML table (on which I had used a few classes and a few lines of CSS to color it) and had gone through every cell in the table to “change the colors”. He was proud to announce that it had taken him several hours. LOL
By ERrwin Heiser on June 4, 2006 4:11 pm
“I’ve just experienced the horror of having an external (print) designer, do the web template.”
I was once supplied a concept from a print design which came with bleed and trim marks.
The project was also based on a CMS so she wondered why we couldnt have all the features she had in her concept.
Frustration insued…
By Stephen O'Connor on June 4, 2006 7:55 pm
I agreed to do a website for family member at a steep discount. Problem is, I had clients paying me the regular rate and expecting me to meet their deadlines.
Obviously I pushed the famiy member’s site back because people paying signficantly more money deserve to get significantly better service. Family member got mad, accused me to “screwing them” and decided to build the site themselves.
Later, when the site wasn’t working, they called me to ask for free help - which, to them, meant dictating HTML code over the phone. No thanks.
By Ben on June 5, 2006 2:59 am
We were working on a e-commerce site for a line of beauty products. The client demanded it be done in flash and wouldnt budge. This was the worst case of “a moving target” i have ever seen or heard of. A 3 week project ended up dragging on for well over 6 months. All was not lost however, because we ended up charging him roughly 10x the original estimate which he begrudgingly paid. I think the worst part was when he changed his entire product line about 75% through the project.
By Travis on June 5, 2006 2:19 pm
I think the clients are themselves confused about what they want and so in turn they make us confuse. The result is utter chaos and nothing more…..
By Maysa on June 6, 2006 1:38 am
Handling clients is itself a horror story.
If one is in the business of dealing with clients then one can’t get away easily.
By Emmy on June 7, 2006 7:17 am
[...] By Scrivs,Syndicated by usmediaweb Jump to comment form Published: 6.2.06 @ 10am Personal [...]
By usmediaweb» Blog Archive » Friday Fun on June 17, 2006 11:10 pm