I don’t normally take requests from friends because they almost always end up messy in one way or another, but after some bugging and badgering from a friend I’ve known for almost ten years, I cave and start to write what they request at a reduced price. The time comes for me to send it to them, but I realize they haven’t paid yet.

Me: “Hey, I know you’re busy, but I really need to get paid before I can send you the document.”

Client: “Paid? You know I don’t have the kind of money for that.”

Me: “The only reason I agreed to do this for you was that you said you would pay. I even gave you a reduced rate. If you can’t pay for it, then I’m not sending the document.”

Client: “We’re friends, though! I thought you were just joking around when we were talking prices. Can’t you just do me a favor?”

I didn’t send it until they paid me in full.

After being asked to design a simple invoice layout, I was sent a list of sections to include: time, quantity, price, tax, total, etc. Three proofs and a lot of conflict later, the client decided she didn’t want to pay the design fee. She then sent us her own file (with the exact same layout) to be printed.

Client: “Will this file work?”

Me: “This is the layout I just designed.”

Client: “No, it isn’t. I designed this one in Excel.”

A couple contacts me to request a logo for their new business. I deliver it in four days, with instructions on how to register it, local resources, etc. Pleased with this, they say they’d now like a website and more graphic design work done.

I’m offered 10% ownership for this! I study the market. It looks like a unicorn, so let’s go. Lucky me.

We have to start working on the website, but they realize during the meeting that they have nothing to sell yet, so they put me on packaging design duty.

I keep having to readjust and resend designs because “they can’t lock down a printing facility; it’s hard.” From the moment I start until the moment they send out the last files to PRINT, it takes eight months.

Time to do the website. I have no pictures of products because they haven’t even arrived. I make a suggestion.

Me: “Let’s push the launch back. What else are we trying to do here?”

Client: “No, we can’t because that would look really bad to our investor.”

ONE product arrives. For the rest, they tell me to go to the manufacturer’s website and Photoshop the logo onto their pics.

I finish the website, and then I get a text from the clients.

Client: “OMG, the name is taken! Can you believe that?! We’ll pay for the website next week. Send us invoices for everything else you’ve finished.”

I pity them for being broke, incompetent souls that are yet wards of a good idea, so I convince my partners to charge these people the least we can.

Even though they refuse all requests to have this all agreed upon on paper, they never register the d*** company and choose to leave that out of the negotiation; they basically promised me 10% of nothing.

I send said invoices. This is the response I get.

Client: “It, like, took forever for the website to be finished, and like, we never discussed paying you for packaging or the forty-five pictures you took three whole days to Photoshop. My final offer is [one-fifth of the invoice total].”

I just wanted to reply, “Sir… this is not a bazaar and we’re not haggling.” Instead, I attached price quotes from other designers and encouraged the client to do the same so they’d get a clue.

A week of silence followed, so I sold the whole Brand Identity to a European company and signed a release to them because they paid for it.

I never heard from those clients ever again. Oh, and my landlord didn’t accept my final offer of $10 for next month’s rent. I guess… business is business!

Client: *Holding an old brochure* “If you have this on your computer, we can just update the information.”

Me: “Great, that’s easy.”

Client: “But can you change the font?”

Me: “Sure.”

Client: “This picture doesn’t really work. And the background is a little too…. frilly. And the title should—”

Me: “Why don’t you tell me what to keep first?”

Client: “I like the trifold.”

Client: “I think the printer’s broken; it has only been spitting out blank pages all day.”

Me: “It says it’s out of toner.”

Client: “Hold on, let me show you…” *Tries to print something* “See? Blank page.”

Me: “Have you refilled the toner recently?”

Client: “I just don’t think the page is making it from the computer to the printer.”

Me: “No, it’s out of toner. It says so right on the display here…”

Client: “Could it be a problem with our network?”