I work at a local newspaper, running the classified ads for our town. A woman calls wanting to place an ad to rent an apartment. She seems unable to understand that our paper, “The [Town] News”, does not distribute to the neighboring city.

Client: “Does this go to [City]?”

Me: “No, ma’am. [City] has their own paper: The [City] Times.”

Client: “Oh. But will these be on the Internet, too?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am, all of our ads are placed online, as well.”

Client: “And how far does the Internet reach?”

Me: “…”

I am working on a design for an interactive online documentary.

Client: “I want to make sure that this project is incredibly interactive so users feel like they’re contributing their experience.”

Me: “That’s very exciting! What sort of thing were you thinking?”

Client: “Well, for instance, let’s do this page with text so that it looks like an article.”

Me: “What’s interactive about that?”

Client: “You can scroll down!”

This client kept trying to negotiate a “deal” on how much he would pay me.

Client: “$300… plus the $250 deposit… equals $550. Pretty good deal, I’d say.”

Me: “That’s not how the invoice breaks down. I’ll send it to you again when I get back into the office.”

Client: “I know what the invoice says. I’m just reminding you of the total I’m willing to pay you.”

Me: “Attached is an image of the invoice for the amount we agreed on. I value my work and the time I spent providing you with these services. Honestly, I hope for your sake that nobody ever makes you fight this hard to be paid for your own work.”

Client: “Oh, I get paid very well.”

Me: “Must be nice.”

I work as a fashion photographer. I was contacted by a small local store selling men’s fashion about shooting their new campaign and photos for their online catalog. The client was polite and friendly, but he had absolutely no idea how ridiculous his expectations were.

Client: “We need a few outdoor shots for the campaign — simple elegant shots with three models on a nice outdoor location.”

Me: “Got it. I can schedule that as soon as we’re done here.”

Client: “Now, regarding the online catalog, we will need all items photographed from every angle so you can create a 3D animation for us in Photoshop. We want this shot in front of a green screen so you can then add different special effects, like in the movies. We’re talking about a few hundred items from all angles in the studio and a few dozen images for the campaign. We booked the studio for two and a half hours. That should be more than enough.”

Me: *Completely overwhelmed* “Wha… what? I’m sorry, that’s—”

Client: “We can pay $100 for all the photos, and I guess you can throw in the editing, the 3D animation, and the special effects for free?”

Me: “…”

Client: “Oh, and we don’t want any logos or brand names to be visible on any of the items. We import cheap stuff from abroad, so we don’t want our competition to see which brands we’re selling and copy our ideas. We need you to delete all brand names and logos in Photoshop.”

Before I even had a chance to politely decline the job offer, they asked me for the number of another photographer because I was too expensive and they wanted to get it done for less than a hundred bucks.

I answered an ad looking for event photographers advertising $200 per gig. That’s pretty low for me, but I could use the extra cash here and there, so I emailed them my portfolio.

Client: “We took a look at your work and really liked what we saw here is what we are looking for…” [Sic]

The lack of sentence and paragraph structure in the email was a red flag, but I decided to entertain it anyway.

Me: “Okay, that’s great. So, what is the next step in getting started with you?”

Client: “We have many connections to promoters throughout the city. I will send you to their events to shoot. The only problem is that they don’t pay the photographers, but together, we can change that!”

Me: “So, are you telling me that there is no payment for these events? You advertised $200 per gig. Why would you not just say this was an internship if there wasn’t going to be any payment? I don’t understand. Is this a paying position or isn’t it?”

There was no response to this email initially, so I followed up with them again, a bit annoyed this time.

Client: “Some events will; some won’t. Most of them won’t, but we’re working on changing that.”

Me: “Thank you for wasting my time.”

I got no time for your revolution, man.