While trying to get full details of a communication spec from a new client, I asked several questions. Questions like:

Me: “Why were some of the arbitrary parts of the spec in French, forcing me to use Google Translate?”

I was given partial source code as an answer, so I asked more questions about the missing bits. Finally, the client responded:

Client: “Could you ask your questions in the form of answers?”

Me: “Uh… Okay. ‘The format of the message header is _____.’”

Client: “You didn’t fill in the blank.”

Me: “Right. That’s the part I don’t know. I was hoping you could fill it in.”

Client: “We need you to provide full answers to your questions.”

I’m a video editor, and agency sit-in edits are the worst. Half the time, they are on their laptops doing other stuff and not paying attention.

This happened the other day. I was working on a video and making some slight alterations.

Client: “Can you move that text right a bit?”

Me: “Sure.”

I finished what I was doing and played it back just to make sure it had been fixed.

Client: “Perfect!”

I hadn’t moved the text at all. They just need to make changes to validate their presence.

When I was starting out as a freelancer, I was hired to do a brief round of assistant editing on a low-budget documentary about Spanish culture in Los Angeles. It had been in production for at least two or three years before I came along and was in its “final stages.”

When the client hired me, he talked a mile a minute at me about how this would be a quick and fun project with a promising future. I should have noted that he didn’t give me ANY technical details about what I would be doing.

At the end of his carny pitch:

Client: “So, what’s your price? Give me a quote.”

I naively presumed I could do whatever he wanted me to do within a week or two. I knew he was running a low-budget operation, so I meekly asked for $1,000. He accepted.

He then asked me to write out an elaborate two-week daily schedule of how I would clean up about thirty to forty hours of documentary footage that sprawled across dozens of Premiere bins (with hundreds of duplicate clips to be sifted through). I started, and he proceeded to badger me via text message every single day about how closely I was following my schedule, micromanaging every little detail. 

When I was almost finished, he came up with a whole new list of things to do. Finally, I submitted my invoice and he balked.

Client: “Why should I even pay half of $1,000 for work that was late and incomplete?”

Not sure what to do, I went to my business manager — and by “my business manager” I mean “my mom”. I’m not sure what she told this guy, but in the end, he paid me $1,200.

I was selling an item online, and I got this message.

Client: “Hey, I just saw that you lowered your price, but what’s the absolute lowest you’ll go?”

Me: “Right now, what it’s listed at.”

Client: “Figures. You’re just trying to flip it to make a profit.”

I was selling the item at $30 LESS than the normal market price.

Me: “If you can find it cheaper somewhere else, I’ll match that.”

Client: “It was listed for [lower amount] over on eBay.”

Me: “Can you send me a link? I can’t find it on eBay.”

Client: “Well, it’s not there anymore, but that’s how much it was.”

I stopped replying after that.

As a bit of a hobby in retirement, I do some work for various local stores, hand-painting small souvenirs such as wooden keychains and small figurines. It brings in a decent amount to supplement my husband’s pension and mine, but I do it mainly to keep busy rather than to earn money.

A while ago, one of my clients came to me to ask if I would be willing to hire her niece to work for me doing the painting. I was hesitant, given that this was mainly a hobby rather than a proper job as far as I was concerned, but she assured me that her niece loved to paint, and she really just wanted to learn from me and figure out how to go about turning it into a career.

So, I agreed to meet with them to discuss it. We met up at a local diner, and one thing that stood out to me right away was how much [Niece]’s arms were shaking. I asked if she was okay, and immediately, both [Client] and [Niece] got nearly identical smirks. Then, they launched into what felt like a rehearsed tirade about how I “can’t ask things like that” and how “discriminating like that will get me in trouble”.

I was shocked.

I eventually ended up leaving when their comments made it clear that A) [Niece] had some sort of medical condition that made her hands and arms tremble uncontrollably, and B) they had deliberately planned to try and “catch me” saying that [Niece] couldn’t hand-paint like me with her condition, so they could accuse me of discrimination.

The letter I got later that week informing me that I was being sued for “hiring discrimination” bore out that conclusion.

I was able to work with the son of a friend, a lawyer, to get the lawsuit dismissed, but it was a ton of stress on my husband and me.

There was one funny thing that came out of it, however: the look on [Ex-Client]’s face when I informed her that I was not going to be working with her any longer. She seemed utterly baffled that I was going to fire her as a customer over this whole thing, and it just got funnier for me when word got around to my other customers about what she had pulled, and suddenly, a lot of local talent wasn’t all that willing to work with her.