Client: “It was my mum’s sixtieth at the weekend, and I filmed two hours of party footage and vox pops of my family sending her best wishes. I want you to turn that into a ten- to fifteen-minute video. I’ll give you £30.”

Me: “That’s nowhere near enough for my time.”

I usually do two or three nightclub promos for £100.

Client: “Yeah, but it’s a present for my mum, so I can’t afford to pay as much.”

Me: “I’ve never met your mum, and I’m not willing to give her £70 worth of my time, especially if you’re only putting up £30 of your own money for it.”

Client: “I’m not asking you to give my mum £70; just do her video. I’m paying £30 of my own money. And I’m thinking of starting a business filming birthdays, so this’ll definitely lead to more work, I promise.”

Client: “The draft looks great. However, since we are marketing this website to college-age students, it is important that the background changes all the time — at least once a week so that they don’t get bored. College students love the Internet, y’know? They expect something new every time they visit a website. It should switch to things like a blackboard, a laptop, a desk… things like that. I should also mention that we have no budget for this. Please find a way to do this for no money.”

I do graphic design for friends and family as a side hustle while I am in art school. Flyers for birthday parties and events and such. I get a call out of the blue. My parents have quite affluent friends who go out for their children’s birthdays so I can get quite a bit of business from them.

Me: “Hello?”

Caller: “That is not how you answer a call from a customer. You introduce yourself and confirm the name of the business. Now, this is [Caller’s Name]. I was at [Friend’s Child]’s birthday party last week and [Friend] said you designed all the flyers?”

Me: “Yes, that was me!”

Caller: “Good. Now I need a hundred flyers for my son to give out at school for his birthday party. It needs to be Pokémon themed and I need it by Monday.”

Me: “Monday, as in this Monday?”

Caller: “If it wasn’t I would have stated otherwise.”

Me: “It’s Saturday night.”

Caller: “Which means you have Sunday to get it done.”

Me: “I guess I could put together something basic and quick, but—”

Caller: “Excellent, I’ll now pass you over to your client.”

Me: “My… what?”

I hear the phone being handed to someone else, and I am suddenly speaking to a little boy who sounds no older than five. Words are coming out of his mouth at such a rate I am worried for his oxygen levels.

Client: “Hi!IneedAPokemonBirthdayFlyerAndINeedToHaveBulbasuarAndPikachuAndMewTwoAnd—”

Me: “Whoa, whoa, slow down there little buddy! First, what’s your name and how old are you gonna be?”

Client: “I’mGeorgeAndI’llBeFiveAndIWantEeveeAndPiplupAndCharmanderAndBulbasaurAndIThinkIAlreadySaidBulbasaurAnd—”

Me: “Okay, George! Sorry to interrupt buddy, but I need you to speak slower, okay? Now this is a flyer for you to give to kids in your school to invite them to your birthday party, yeah?”

Client: “Yeah!AndIWantSnorlaxAnd—”

Me: “George! I think it would be best if you passed the phone over to mommy for a second so I can get the information I need. Why don’t you go and write down a list of all the Pokémon you want on the flyer and give it to mommy when you’re done?”

Client: “Okay!” *Click.*

In his excitement to write a list of his favorite Pokémon, he hung up. The number wasn’t listed so I couldn’t call back. Ten minutes later, however, they call back.

Caller: “How dare you hang up on my son!”

Me: “I didn’t, ma’am, he hung up on me. I suggested he go get you to confirm the details I need for the flyer.’

Caller: “You should have gotten all that information from George!”

Me: “Ma’am, with all respect you shouldn’t be passing on your four-year-old for this part of the conversation. I need some information before I can—”

Caller: “You are very unprofessional! I don’t know why [Friend] recommended you but if you’re willing to work at half your usual rate this transaction can still be salvaged.”

Me: “You know what, I don’t think I am the right person for your request, ma’am. I’m going to politely decline this order and I wish you good luck in finding someone else.”

Caller: “You can’t do that! I’m the client! You’re the worker!”

Me: “That doesn’t mean I am forced to do any job that comes my way. You’re expecting someone to design and print a hundred birthday flyers in a day, and it sounds like according to George it’s going to have every Pokémon ever made on it. This is a difficult order already, but your attitude isn’t helping. I am refusing your order.”

Caller: “Just wait until I tell [Friend] how unprofessional you are!”

I hang up and immediately text my friend and tell her what happened.

Friend: “Oh, I told her specifically not to contact you as I know George’s birthday is next weekend, there won’t be time.”

Me: “I feel sorry for little George in all this. He’s probably writing a list of Pokémon right now thinking it’s going to be on a cute flyer for his birthday.”

Friend: “George is four and has the attention span of a golden retriever puppy. He’s probably already moved on to two other things in the time since you spoke to him. His dad is a CEO and my son has told me from personal experience that George has every Pokémon plushie known to man. He’ll be fine.”

My friend was originally not going to attend George’s birthday party but decided to become a chaperone last minute to make sure mommy wouldn’t be bad-mouthing me to all the other yummy mommies.

She tried. She was shot down. Business actually improved!

Also, according to reviews George had an amazing birthday. I hope he’s taken a breath!

Related:
Please Pokémon Go Away, Part 2
Please Pokémon Go Away

A while ago, I was working on a freelance job, and I was in the design stage. I mocked up a few designs and sent them off to the client.

She called me the next day, a bit disturbed and seemingly offended.

Client: “Yeah, hi. I wanted to talk about the designs. I wanted to ask you about what these naked girls are doing on my website.”

Me: “Naked girls? Sorry, what?”

Client: “Well, I’ve opened the files that you sent me, and I scrolled down, and suddenly, I see three naked girls kissing. This is incredibly unprofessional; I’m disgusted that you would send me something like this.”

I had already figured out what was happening, but you can’t just say these things straight away.

Me: “Well, uhh… I’ve just sent you these three screenshots of the design I’ve made so—”

Client: “And now I see a picture of a camel and pictures of a desert. What is all this you’ve sent me?”

Me: “Ma’am, I don’t know how to say this, but I think that what you are seeing are files from your cache. So these are temporary images your computer saves when you go onto a website.”

Client: “What? Oh, no. That can’t be. I’ve never visited sites like that.”

At this point, her husband started to get involved in the telephone conversation. I heard him yelling in the background that what I was saying was “…bulls***! She’s f****** lying!”

I continued explaining about temporary files and how this had nothing to do with the files that I sent. She listened and then suddenly said:

Client: “Well, okay. But another thing, I wanted to say that I don’t speak Latin.”

Me: “Sorry, what do you mean?”

Client: “Well, all the text in the designs that you’ve made are in Latin. I can’t read them.”

And then I explained what Lorem Ipsum was.

I work in an office that develops software solutions for our clients. My boss comes over to my desk and drops a folder on my desk. The actual techy speak during this conversation is complicated and boring so I’ve simplified and condensed. This is also a long time ago when custom and large software requests cost time and money.

Boss: “New ticket from a client. They’re a major client so this takes priority.”

I take a quick look and then walk back over to my boss.

Me: “This ticket…”

Boss: “Yes?”

Me: “It’s from [Law Firm]. They want us to create a tool to securely migrate their client files from [old system] to a newer secure system.”

Boss: “It’s a simple migration protocol. You’ve done way harder.”

Me: “They also want us to create the newer secure system.”

Boss: “What!”

Me: “Yeah, they snuck that in there near the end. A single page saying we are to create the new secure system that the files will be moved to with a list of requirements. Probably think they can charge less by making it look like a simple migration.”

Boss: “I… I didn’t read it all.”

Me: “You didn’t read a document sent to you from a bunch of lawyers?”

Boss: “Yes, that was probably a bit silly of me, wasn’t it?”

The ticket was pre-processed through the correct channels, and a system was finally created for the law firm… about a year later and for a lot more money than the original ticket!

Related:

Just Lawyered Yourself, Part 5
Just Lawyered Yourself, Part 4
Just Lawyered Yourself, Part 3
Just Lawyered Yourself, Part 2
Just Lawyered Yourself