I’m in a job interview with a potential employer.

Employer: “What sign are you?”

Me: “…Virgo, why?”

Employer: “I think we will work well together!”

This is from the time when every software suite came in a box with lots of discs to install it on the client’s machine. You’d put in disc #1, the drive would whirr and hum, finally popping the disc out again, and the computer would prompt you to “Insert disc #2”. And so on.

A client purchased a huge, expensive desktop publishing suite for his Apple Mac FX (also expensive), and as I knew the installation was a bit of a hassle, I offered to come in and install the software — for free, as he had just paid a lot for it.

Client: *Crankily* “Do you think I’m too dense to do a simple install?”

Fine with me; it saved me a longish drive. He took the box and left.

Some hours later, he called me on the helpline.

Client: “Listen, what crap have you sold me there? I can’t install it on the Mac. It’s not working.”

Me: “Let me walk you through it. Normally, it is quite a long procedure with a lot of swaps, but it works just fine. Sooo… what did you do?”

Client: “Well, I did exactly as I was told. What do you think I am, stupid? I put in disc #1 as it said on the screen.”

Me: “Good. And then?”

Client: “For God’s sake, what do you think? It said, ‘Insert disc #2’, so I put it in the drive.”

Me: “And?”

Client: “And now both of them are stuck!”

Oops. The drive was toast, the discs were broken, and he had no warranty. And yes, I did think that he was… well…

I have a client for whom we host and manage a business website, and she can pull various data reports from the website to analyse its performance, etc.

One day, she reported a bug in one of the reports: the columns weren’t showing the correct information. I looked into it and, indeed, there was a bug, resulting in the titles and contents of the columns not matching.

I fixed the bug and explained to the client in a long email exactly what the issue was and how I fixed it. She didn’t respond so I assumed all was good.

One month later, the following conversation on the phone occurs.

Client: “This report is broken. Can you have a look?”

Me: “I checked and it looks good to me. What seems to be the issue?”

Client: “It looks different from what we are used to! I’m not happy that you just changed it without telling us!”

Me: “Well, I did fix the bug you reported, and I told you in an email, so that’s why it looks different now. Did you read my email?”

Client: “You should have asked me before changing the report! It’s very confusing!”

Me: “I mean… you asked me to fix a bug… which I did.”

Client: “We can’t work with this new report because the columns look different from previous reports!”

Me: “Yes… because the column titles were wrong before, and now they are correct.”

Client: “Please revert the changes so it looks like it did before.”

Me: “Okay, can you write me an email so I have it in writing that you want me to put a bug into your system?”

Client: “Yes.”

She did. And I charged her for both removing the bug and adding it back in, so I guess it’s a win-win?

Me: “Your invoice is nearly ninety days past due.”

Agency: “We’ll pay you when the client pays us. Stop asking for loans! We’re not a bank!”

This was a redesign to add a product directory to a magazine website.

Client: “I want you to bury all the links for the magazine at the bottom of the page.”

Me: “Wait, you don’t want them in the nav bar? At all?”

Client: “No, I want the product guide to be the only thing that matters.”

Me: “What happens if someone comes to the site to subscribe to the magazine?”

Client: “F*** ’em.”

A year later, the magazine folded.