Client: “The site looks terrible. The columns don’t line up, and the text is all over the place. I’m seriously concerned. We had an agreement, and I will not pay your invoice until you resolve these issues.”

Me: “The site looks fine to me in Chrome, IE, Firefox, and Safari. Which browser are you using?”

Client: “I use Internet Explorer on a Mac.”

Me: “That’s a dead browser that can’t support contemporary websites. You should really use Firefox, Safari, or Chrome.”

Client: “Look, it doesn’t work and you need to fix it. Are you going to tell that to everyone else in the world using IE on a Mac?”

Me: “I honestly believe that you may be the last one.”

Me: “Unfortunately, some of the images you sent over can’t be used as they are the wrong file type.”

Client: “Oh, okay. Which files?”

Me: “The animated GIFs.”

Client: “So, why can’t they be used for the brochure?”

Client: “I don’t want it to look like the conventional websites in this sector. I want something completely different and crazy.”

Me: “Okay, sounds great. Have you got any specific ideas in mind?”

Client: “I want the home page to be an illustration of a half-robot, half-skeleton woman wearing a metal bra, and it has to be sexy.”

Me: “Um, that sounds pretty cool, but I don’t see how that conveys to people that you sell hair care supplies.”

Client: “Give her scissors for hands or something. I don’t know. That’s your job.”

Client: “I would like jacklinks to all of the different things within the story.”

Me: “Jacklinks?”

Client: “Yeah, when I go to other people’s stories, there are always jacklinks that take you to different sites when you click on them.”

Me: “You mean hyperlink. Jacklinks are jerky.”

Client: “You should fix that, then. I don’t want the site to be jerky.”

Client: “I see our Facebook and Twitter icons on the site are not yet live. Why not?”

Me: “Live? Oh, well, you see, you actually need a Facebook group or fan page and a Twitter account so we can link the icons to them. Remember I asked you to create those pages?”

Client: “We don’t want Facebook or Twitter pages. We just want the icons to click through to Facebook dot com and to Twitter dot com.”

Me: “Why would you do that?”

Client: “We want to open up communication.”

Me: “That doesn’t make sense. Why would you randomly send someone to Facebook and Twitter? You will essentially say, ‘Hey, in case our site is boring you, here are links to Facebook and Twitter. Go chat to your friends.’ It completely defeats the purpose.”

Client: “No, it doesn’t! We want to open up communication without forcing people to talk about our brand. Then when they get on their accounts, they’ll probably want to talk about us. See?!”

Me: “Um…”

Client: “Now make the icons click through to the login pages so we can get this site live.”

Me: *Sigh* “Okay.”