The client here is an office ward of a big city in Japan.

Client: “Could you do this pamphlet translation? How much will it cost?”

Me: “Yes. It will cost [amount] per character.”

Client: “Our budget is very small. Can you do it for [smaller amount] per character?”

Yeah, yeah, I know. You have the money, but you don’t want to give it to freelance translators who are working on their sofas while watching TV.

Me: “Okay. As it is the first time I’m working with you, I’ll accept this time — and this time only.”

Client: “By the way, after the translation, you also have to check the pamphlet for layout problems.”

Me: “Fine, but that will cost additional fees. It’s not included in the translation work.”

Client: “If your translation has to be revised, will that cost fees, as well?”

In Japan, there is always someone in the office who likes to “revise” translations — or, in other words, “mess it up”.

Me: “If there is a problem with my translation, no. But if someone in your office revises correct parts of my translation, I will charge you to retranslate, yes.”

Client: “Okay, thank you.”

Me: “Does that mean I’m hired, or…?”

Radio silence. Good riddance.

Client: “I’m running this great offer that I want you to promote for me.”

Me: “Great. Just send me the details, and I can send out an email campaign and push it on social.”

Client: “The offer is [details], but I’d rather you not send out any emails or put it on social. We don’t want our competitors to know we are running an offer. Can you promote it under the radar?”

Me: “You want me to promote an offer but not advertise the fact that there is an offer…”

Client: “Exactly!”

I was hired by proxy as a character designer for a game developer who’d had some success. This was the original briefing:

Client: “We want a strong, solid female character. Young archeologist, don’t fall into Lara Croft or feminine Indiana Jones. Heroic, the adventurous type.”

Just that. Nothing else.

I sent the first draft.

Client: “This looks amazing. I have some suggestions, nevertheless.”

The suggestions, in about ten to fifteen revisions, included things like redrawing the right boot heel with a 10° inclination, adding half an inch (proportional, of course) to the satchel length, switching the angle of the light (?), and restructuring her nose bridge a few pixels width with three different MS Paint images.

This went on. What broke the camel’s back was this:

Me: “I can’t be doing more revisions. You keep returning the demos with lots of little insignificant changes, based on nothing sent in the original brief.”

Client: “This has to be perfect, and it gets more and more difficult to work with you. You keep missing the major key of the character. She’s not heroic or adventurous yet. It’s you who is wasting our time.”

Me: “What? I designed a young female archaeologist, clearly strong and self-confident. Adventurous and heroic.”

Client: “SHE’S NOT A REDHEAD! HOW COULD YOU MISS THAT?”

Me: “You didn’t tell me to draw a redhead!”

Client: “It’s pretty obvious that if she’s heroic, she has to be a redhead. I can’t believe I’ve gotta explain this to you.”

I asked the proxy if I could be harsh firing the client. She said yes.

I’m happy now.

We are doing post-production for a documentary film.

Client: “We didn’t get releases to show any of the people in these scenes. You need to obscure their faces.”

Me: “Okay, we can apply a blur and track the—”

Client: “No, that will look like COPS. We don’t like that.”

Me: “We can try darkening the faces, but it won’t look natural in the lighting—”

Client: “Just obscure the faces of everyone in these shots, but make it look natural.”

Later…

Client: “When do you make it look like a real movie?”

The film was mostly shot on cheap video cameras. We try to explain things like frame rate and depth of field to them.

Client: “What about the gamma?”

Me: “Sure. When we color correct your film, gamma is one of the things that the colorist controls—”

Client: “Yes! That. Put the gamma on it.”

Later still…

Me: “These graphical text elements you provided are outside of the title-safe area. That means they will be cut off on some TVs, and it will also fail quality control.”

Client: “That’s how we designed it. It needs to stay that way.”

Me: “Okay, but it will 100% fail QC.”

Client: “We know what we’re doing.”

Soon after delivering, we start getting panicked calls followed by a string of threatening emails.

Client: “Our text is outside of title-safe! You failed to properly explain this to us! Fix it immediately.”

Me: “We’re fully booked up today, but we’ll help you as soon as possible, of course.”

The clients showed up at our office, staged a “sit-in protest” in our lobby, and refused to leave until we dealt with them. We stayed up all night making changes to their film.

The next morning, we fired them.

That same week, they were fired by other vendors for similar reasons.

I was working on a tri-fold brochure to showcase the benefits of partnering with the client. They asked for it to be exactly like a previous one I had made, but with different text and bullet points. Following that template, one of the folds included a large quote from an actual business partner of theirs. The quote was a glowing review, talking about how the company was a joy to work with and truly cared for its customers — a worry-free experience.

The CEO had this to say about it.

Client: “This quote sucks. This isn’t what people say. They wouldn’t really say this. They don’t care about this. You need a quote that shows that they’re going to be making a lot of money with us. That’s all they care about!”

Me: “Well… This is a real quote from [Partner]. And it does paint you in a very positive light.”

Client: “No, it sucks. Why would you even put this? Make one up that’s better. Write me something better.”

Me: “…I am extremely uncomfortable with fabricating quotes on official promotional material. That is false advertising, and I won’t do it.”

Client: “Yeah, whatever. I’ll make him give us a better quote.”

He said the last line while glaring daggers and sounding vaguely threatening. The rest of that meeting was an absolute mess, as well, wherein I realized he’d had a bad day and decided to take it out on whoever would get into a room with him, but that’s another story.

That was also the day I decided to find other work.