I’m a gardener. A client took me to his lawn, pointed to a dead patch and a small hole that had been dug beside it.

Client: “What causes this? Is there a bug spray to fix it?”

I look at him, and look over at his dog, who is at that moment p***ing on the lawn, who then started digging immediately after, and look back at my client.

Me: “I think you need to consider that it might be your dog.”

Client: “Don’t be so stupid. It’s not my dog! It’s bugs!”

Me: “Then you have a twenty-kilogram bug digging holes in your garden, and I am not equipped for that. Good luck!”

I’m a software developer.

Client: “I want you to add [new feature].”

Me: “We’re about to release the latest build, and that feature will require some extensive recoding, so I’ll put it on the backlog until after the latest release.”

Client: “No, I need it fast, so put it on the ‘frontlog’.”

After this, he thought these were both physical logs, and he insisted on always being put on “the front one”.

I’m an electrician. We’re getting close to the end of the full rewire. I did a walk-through with the homeowner before I quoted the job and explained how we will have to make holes to run wires and where.

On my quote, I leave a note explaining the same thing, except clarifying that we are not responsible for patching said holes. 

My guy on the job site did his own walk-through with the owner and marked where the holes were going to be and again explained why we had to make holes. They made their holes with a 4″-hole saw (five of them, which I don’t know if this is common knowledge, but that was a miracle that my guy was able to rewire an entire house with only five holes!) kept the disks and put them back.

Today I got an angry call from her:

Homeowner: “I want to know why you had to make so many holes!?”

The question in itself is not dumb.

The fact it had been explained twice in person and once in writing, and she still got angry and had to ask, is what is dumb.

It’s been a number of years, so let me introduce you to the client from COVID Hell, and how I had it early.

Early March 2020, I took on a new tutoring client. Advanced physics, so I was one of the few who COULD even tutor it. The world had yet to go wonky, and we met at the local library. For many reasons, I will never meet a client at their home, or in any non-public space.

A few days later, the axis of the Earth began to shift. The library was now closed, News of the Biogen conference in Boston (the first identified superspreader event) started to come to light, and I was laid up with the worst chest cold of my life.

The client’s father wanted me to continue tutoring. The library was closed, as were most other public spaces at this point, and I was not in any condition to do so, either. The father insisted that I come to the house. It’ll be fine. When I asked if there would be an adult present, he said not to worry about it, so I begged off for a little. I asked about remote sessions, but the father was not having it. If he was going to pay me, I was going to be there in person.

It wasn’t a chest cold. The client was also sick, and his father said that the mother had been in Boston. At the conference. Where COVID found a travel plan.

The father kept pushing and came up with, “We already have it, so if you do, it doesn’t matter.” Turns out he knew the mother was sick before the first meeting.

At that point, I fired that client so hard that the impact could have turned coal into diamonds.

I have just sent a very thorough proposal to a client for services, offering them a budget option, a recommended option, and a “red carpet” option where I tag on a bunch of fun extras they could also have in addition to the services they came for.

Then the client emails.

Client: “I got a quote from another company, and their quote is $1500 less. Can you explain the difference?”

Me: *To myself.* “Probably because my company is friendly, personable, has time to answer your texts or hop on a video call anytime you want, gives you advice based on long-term strategy for no additional charge, and delivers higher-quality results than our competitors, whereas they will follow a template process with no flexibility or strategy?”

Me: *To client.* “Can I see the quote?”

I receive the quote.

Me: “Ah, it’s because the services they’re offering are equivalent to the first package I offered you, which doesn’t include half of the things you want, and is still $300 less than what you’d pay them.”

I should raise my prices.