Client: “There has been a mistake in the wording on the banner.”

Me: “I used the wording that you faxed to me.”

Client: “I did not send you a fax.”

Me: “Yes, you did. I have a fax that came from your office.”

Client: “I did not send you a fax. That did not happen. You must have sent that to yourself.”

Me: “I what?”

Client: “You must have sent that fax to yourself.”

Me: “From your office?”

Client: “Yeah.”

Our client wanted an image for their homepage that showed off the atmosphere of their live music venue. We were presented with a poster of a live artist on stage rocking out with other musicians.

Me: “This is fantastic. If this is what you want, can we use this picture?”

Client: “Yes, of course. That’s what I just said.”

Me: “Okay, awesome. Is this inside your venue?”

Client: “No, it’s somewhere else.”

Me: “Oh. Did you take the picture? Is this one of your bands?”

Client: “No, no, no. It’s the perfect look and feel, and that’s what matters, okay? Just take the guy’s face out and use a face from somebody else who nobody will recognise. Maybe Photoshop our venue in place of the stage, too.”

I was working for a printing company as a graphic designer, and we had this one client that made up a good percentage of our business — like 35% of our business.

They had a major project come up that was in a time crunch and worth millions of dollars to them.

They came to us and asked us if we could take care of the printing of these materials for their proposal; 250 sets of the final proposal had to be printed and bound using super-nice luxury materials, special foil on the front, etc., and the proposal was 150 pages, double-sided, with tabbed sections.

Everything had to be custom-made, even the tabs and cover.

It was a disaster from the start. The client gave us the wrong version of the proposal, so we had to stop printing mid-print.

Then, they changed the cover, which meant changing the size of the cover (oversize) and redoing the metal plates for the foil.

Then, they had more changes to the proposal inside — two days before it was due.

What they submitted was filled with spelling errors and grammar errors.

I went through and fixed all the errors, fixed their margins, and made it look stunning, adding in graphs that didn’t look right or match their stats and making it look like a showstopper.

For forty-eight hours, another employee and I worked our a**es off getting this project printed, assembled, bound, and boxed, ready to go.

My boss and I personally delivered it to our client’s office.

The project manager saw the final version and started screaming at me for fixing her mistakes, etc., telling me that they were going to lose this proposal, that it was all my fault, and that we had printed the wrong version.

My boss interrupted her and told her to f*** off. He said that I had spent two full days at the office, not even sleeping, to make her half-a**ed project done on time and that I had spent precious time fixing her mistakes after she had sent us incomplete materials and non-standard files.

Little did I know that he’d kept a copy of the mistake-ridden proposal and bound one as a before and after case study.

He took me, a finished proposal, and the mistake proposal up to the president of the company — someone who he knew really, really, well and had worked with for years. My boss handed him the two versions and told him that we weren’t going to work with them anymore based on the reactions of this project manager.

The president was shocked that his employee had acted like that. He then looked over the finished project, saw how beautiful it was, and thanked me personally.

They went on to win the proposal, in part because it made them look super-professional.

After they won the proposal, the president called me, the other a**-busting employee, and our boss into his office, treated us to lunch, and then gave us a check for $15,000 for helping them win the proposal as a bonus.

My boss gave me half and the other employee half for our efforts in getting the project done; he didn’t keep a dime for himself.

We did keep them as clients, but we never had to work with that a**hole project manager lady again.

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!