I work for a company that designs but also maintains websites for clients. I am on a call with one such client.

Client: “I don’t like that I’m not coming up on Google!”

Me: “Well, you are, sir. We’re still tweaking your SEO, but you definitely come up on the listings.”

Client: “But we’re paying you! I demand that you contact Google to change the order of their site listings.”

Me: “That’s… not how it works, sir.”

Client: “Can’t you just call them and place an ad?”

Me: “We did tell you that they have sponsored results, but you also didn’t want to pay for that service.”

Client: “Well, we pay you so that you can pay them!”

Me: “Then how would we be paid?”

Client: “Well… look, just get me higher up the listings!” *Click*

I was asked to create a CMS (content management system) for a client after having worked on the backend platform of their site. They weren’t quite sure what they wanted, so I decided to use WordPress to give them some flexibility down the road.

Instead of USING the CMS, though, people with zero experience designing web pages started editing pages and adding new ones by just copying and pasting my work.

Client: “Why does this page look like this? Why aren’t those images the same size?”

Me: “I don’t know who put those there, and I didn’t create that other page, but I could fix it and make it look nice.”

Client: “It shouldn’t have to be fixed; I pay you to make my website.”

Me: “Yes, but you don’t pay me to moderate your employees’ page edits.”

Client: “Help! My phones aren’t working!”

Me: “Is the Internet working?”

Client: “No.”

Me: “Are there any lights on the modem?”

Client: “There’s no light under the Internet slot, no.”

Me: “Have you tried restarting the router by unplugging it and plugging it back in?”

Client: “Yes, it didn’t do anything.”

Me: “Let me check the access point.” *Does so* “It appears that our access point is offline, so there’s definitely a problem.”

Client: “Would that have anything with us turning the power off on the tower?”

Me: “You mean the tower with all the ISP equipment?”

Client: “Yeah. Is that a problem?”

Me: “Well, yes. If you turned off the power to the tower, that would explain why you don’t have Internet or phone access.”

Client: “How soon can you fix everything?”

Me: “How soon can you turn the tower back on?”

Client: “Well, that might be a problem. We didn’t turn it ‘off’. We stopped paying the electrical bill for that because we didn’t think it was doing anything.”

Me: “You cut off the power to all of your ISP equipment, and now you want me to fix it from my end?”

Client: “Yes! Please hurry.”

I hope he found a full minute of awkward silence helpful because that’s all he was going to get from me.

I had a client who insisted on taking photos I needed themselves, using their phone.

Me: “Great photos! Were you able to get any in landscape?”

Client: “The new iPhone doesn’t have a landscape setting. Are you talking about panorama?”

Me: “It’s not a setting. You turn the phone sideways.”

I do IT networking for a dealership. I had been having trouble with users watching TV streams and using up a lot of bandwidth on an older network — so much trouble that some policies were implemented by me to slow down this practice.

A few months later, the owner, the manager, several sales guys, and I were chatting it up when the conversation took a turn.

Sales Guy: “Hey, when you have a chance, could you look at my connection? I can’t watch The View anymore.”

Me: “You do know you just asked me that out loud, right? In front of your manager?”

The manager walked away shaking his head. Everyone else laughed their a**es off.

Me: “Sure, I’ll have a look.”

I didn’t.

It was never spoken of again.