More Nauseating Than The Food Poisoning

About five years ago, I was working on a design for a client who had previously told me it needed to be finished by the end of March. The week before the end of February, I got food poisoning, so I called my client to tell him that I’d be taking a few days off to recover.

Client: “Well, that won’t do! You need to have this done by next week at the very latest!”

Me: “Pardon? You said this needed to be done by the end of March.”

Client: “You must have misheard me. I said this needed to be done by the end of February.”

He sent me the details about the deadline in an email, so at this point, I was scrambling to open it up.

Me: “No, it clearly says here that the deadline is March 27th, and the contract you signed stipulated you would be paying me for two months of work.”

Client: “I never agreed to that! Whatever. You lied in the contract, so I’m not paying you.”

At that point, I hung up and contacted a lawyer. After I completed the design and received no pay whatsoever, I threatened to sue, and only then did my client pay.

As it turns out, the client had gotten his deadlines mixed up and only bothered to check a week before the work was due. Why you wouldn’t confirm a deadline when SIGNING A LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT is beyond me.