A client wanted me to illustrate their children’s book. I had a vague idea of what they wanted but wanted clarification.

Me: “What kind of style do you want for the illustrations?”

Client: “LOL! What do you mean, ‘what style’? Just illustrate it!”

My guess was that they wanted something like American cartoons, but in terms of narrowing things down, that got us from “ocean” to “huge pond”.

I never got the direction I needed and eventually dropped the project.

My advice to clients looking for illustrations: we can’t read your minds. You need to be specific when conveying your vision to us.

I work as a trainer and consultant for a smaller training business that is steadily growing. I came in at the beginning of the company and have essentially helped with the start-up and reaching out to clients. I am approaching my third year here.

Recently, my company told us that they were looking to promote a team lead. I approached my team lead (who was promoted ahead of me last year) and talked about the idea of going ahead and applying. She basically turned me down.

Team Lead: “You haven’t had enough experience.”

Okay, fair enough. Maybe she saw something I didn’t?

Then, the promotion was given to a guy I had trained who had only been there for six months.

Okay.

Right after that was my year review. We had a scoring system, and in order to get a raise, we had to score at least a seven.

Team Lead: “Tell me about what you’ve done well over the last year?”

I came prepared and showed dates and times of projects that were not only done well but done well within the time frame. During the year, I also implemented three different time-saving ideas that are now used company-wide.

Team Lead: “Now tell me about your one-year and five-year goals.”

Me: “My one-year goal is to lead a team, and for my five-year goal, I’d like to lead a pod, like [Teammate] at [Other Location].”

Team Lead: “For you, I see your one-year goal being to lead a training session. Your five-year goal should be to be a mentor.”

Being a mentor is more work but no pay increase like the team lead.

Team Lead: “Your score for this review is a six. You won’t be getting a raise this year because it doesn’t seem like you’re a team player.”

And then, she had the audacity to tell me that “raises aren’t the end goal”, as though she didn’t know that my rent had been raised $150 in the past three months. She told me that I was on a sixty-day probation and that in sixty days, we would reevaluate if I could continue with the company.

I nodded and smiled because I didn’t have anything lined up.

After I left that meeting, I immediately began sending out resumes. I have three interviews lined up within the next three days. I don’t have a conclusion yet, but I can say with all certainty that I will be leaving here.

A client uses two different domains. Both go to the same site, and they have had them both for years. They decide they are no longer going to market the second one, and they decide to let it expire against my advice.

Two days after it expires, the client calls. 

Client: “Several customers are unable to access the site; they are getting an error. We need this fixed right away!”

Me: “Are they using the expired domain?”

Client: “Yes. How soon will it be fixed?”

Me: “Do you want me to renew the domain, then?”

Client: “No, but we have to fix this.”

I’m an e-commerce specialist working to analyse and optimise business accounts for marketplace sellers. It still surprises me how often clients assume their opinions are more valuable than my twenty years of hands-on experience.

Recently, I quoted to increase sales on an account. 

Me: “The two most important elements are firstly optimising the listings by improving the titles and removing the unnecessary and confusing subtitles, and then secondly, using marketing options to advertise the account.”

Client: “No, I think the titles are fine, and I want to keep the subtitles. And I can’t afford to spend any money on marketing.”

Me: “Well, as I showed you, your fees just for the subtitles were $2,200 last month for $16,000 sales, and they had no impact. That money could be used instead for marketing, which would have a major impact.”

Client: “No, I don’t want to do that. I’m happy to pay for the subtitles. Just let me know what else you can do to increase sales.”

Me: “…”

I go to an art school. A big part of our majors is giving and receiving critique, regardless of which major you’re in.

All professors tend to emphasize that if you plan to work professionally in your field, you will likely be given criticism of your work and advice on how to improve it. While you don’t have to take ALL of the advice or listen to all the criticisms, being able to do so graciously and not being overly harsh — i.e., not being a raging a**hole about it — is a good skill to have. They teach methods of critique and the general language of going about it, and a good chunk of your grade falls into whether or not you give critique at all during class.

My very first taste of critique came from one of my very first classes: a color theory class. Enter [Classmate]. During one of our first-ever critiques in class, [Classmate] got very excited and said, and I quote:

Classmate: “Ooh, I love criticizing people!”

And then she proceeded to rip another poor classmate apart. She criticized the composition, the color choice, and how ugly his art style was. Yes, she straight-up said that to his face!

It literally got to the point where the professor had to step in and tell her — well, the entire class, but everyone could tell that it was directed specifically at her — that that wasn’t constructive or actually useful.

[Classmate] continued to have an “I’m-better-than-everyone” attitude with everyone. She always rolled her eyes whenever someone critiqued her project, and she would laze around during class work periods, insisting that she’d ace the “very easy first project”. Also, she never updated her work based on the critique she’d received.

This was a few years ago, so I don’t remember exactly what [Classmate]’s final piece looked like when the final critique rolled around, but I do remember a very long, awkward pause when it was displayed at the front of the class for everyone to go over.

As more and more people critiqued it, it looked like she was about to pop. She just looked madder and madder.

That lasted right up until the professor gave her own opinion on the piece. Then, [Classmate] just looked comically shocked, as if she hadn’t expected the professor to agree with the rest of us.

There was a fun note in the syllabus that [Classmate] had overlooked. Around twenty percent of our grade was our professionalism, which did include coming to class and participating… but it also involved how we reacted to critique, how we gave it, and if we were implementing any critique.

[Classmate] looked very deflated in the class after grades had been posted. Then, she didn’t attend class for the rest of the quarter. After the first week she didn’t attend class, the professor stopped calling her name while doing the roll call. 

The remaining six weeks of class were practically blissful.