Me: “I appreciate your business, but I’d rather you didn’t text me at midnight with your website revisions.”

Client: “My last designer didn’t care when I texted him.”

Me: “Wasn’t your last designer your husband?”

Client: “Yeah, so?”

The client phoned five minutes after sending me an email.

Client: “I’ve just sent you an email.”

Me: “Yes, I got it, thanks. I’ve already read it and replied to it.”

Client: “Wow, that was quick! Anyhow, the email contains the new text for the brochure.”

Me: “Yes, thanks. I read that.”

Client: “Excellent. If it all looks okay, just send me an email to let me know.”

Me: “Yes, I already have.”

Client: “Great. Don’t let me keep you. I really need you to respond ASAP.”

I was asked to design a logo for a local cafe, and I gave them some concepts.

Owner: “Your design is too sexy and provocative for our target audience. We’ve hired another designer.”

Three weeks later, I entered the cafe and my concept was two metres wide across the main wall. 

But they offered me a free coffee and snack.

Client: “Can you have it done by this Monday?”

Me: “But today’s Monday.”

Client: “Yeah, I need it in a few hours.”

Me: “There are literally two hours left in the day.”

Client: “Well, I won’t need it for Tuesday, so you’d better hurry if you want to get paid.”

Client: “We got twenty-two sales from the first email blast you did, eight from the second, two from the third, and none from the fourth and fifth.”

Me: “Yeah, we’ve reached everybody we’re going to reach. We either need to start deep discounting or give this promotion up.”

Client: “What if you ran the promotion again?”

Me: “There would be no sales, and people would start unsubscribing from the mailing list. It’s time to move on.”

Client: “What if you removed the unsubscribe option?”

Me: “Well, then you would have no sales and also a lot of potential customers very angry with you. And you’d be breaking consumer protection law. This idea is a total bin fire.”

Client: “I see your point. Any other suggestions?”

Me: “Well, you’ve got a couple of new launches planned next year. We could start teasing them to keep people interested — unless you have any other special offers you’d like to run?”

There was radio silence for three weeks. Then, I received an email blast with the original offer, but not written by me, to an address I had never signed up with. And, twenty-four hours later, another identical one with the unsubscribe option missing. And then twelve hours later another. And six hours after that.

And then the client went into receivership.

I was never paid.