I worked for a weekly newspaper, running a small design department of five people, and we had just lost an investor and canceled a major product, so layoffs were inevitable. The new boss called me into her office, holding a document that she tried to hide from me, but I could catch a glimpse and saw that the new suggested head count for my department was down to three.

Me: “No way we can do this job with three people, even with the reduced workload. We tried it in the past when we had the same mix of products that we have now, and three people just weren’t enough. If one person goes on vacation, it’s barely possible; if someone else gets sick, we’re dead. The bare minimum we must have for this department to run properly is four. I will not sign off on anything fewer than four people. You can try it with someone else running the department, but soon, you will be scrambling to hire a fourth person, someone who would need to be trained, and it would be a huge risk to day-to-day operations.”

Manager: “Okay… Four people it is. But you’ll still have to let one person go. Who will it be?”

Me: “It will be me. This is my one-month notice.”

She was quite shocked, but unbeknownst to her, I had just gotten the phone call two hours prior that I’d been waiting for for months: the job offer for literally three times what I was making, for an organization known to be an excellent employer, with great benefits, decent hours, and excellent job security. The timing couldn’t have been better, and I shudder to think what would have happened if I’d gotten that phone call a day later.

It all worked out fine in the end, one of my people was promoted to my post, and things have been running quite smoothly from what I gather. And my new job was truly life-changing in more ways than one; I’m still there.

I design book covers. I was just starting out when a client contacted me to do a bundle of five covers. Needless to say, I jumped on it.

Well, I shouldn’t have. The first red flag came when they negotiated my fare down to only 10% of what I would have originally charged. I should have declined them then and there, but I was new at this and needed the money.

Red flag number two?

Me: “So, what are the titles of the books?”

Client: “I haven’t picked yet. But start putting something together in the meantime.”

Red flag number three:

Me: “What are the plots?”

The client listed five generic plots that sounded like recaps of recent rom-coms.

These covers were for romance novels. The client had a few ideas for the layout they wanted — bulky, messy ideas — and I couldn’t talk them out of them. The big idea was that even though these were romance novels, they shouldn’t feature people. Just… “schemes.”

No, I don’t know what that means, either.

After seven revisions:

Me: “How does this cover look to you?”

Client: “The plot of my book is about schemes. You need to put more schemes on the cover.”

Me: “But no people?”

Client: “No people. Absolutely not.”

Me: “What kind of schemes are in the book?”

Client: “Perfume.”

Me: “…Perfume is a scheme?”

Client: “Of course!”

I put a perfume bottle on the cover.

Client: “What are you doing? I said more schemes! How dim are you?”

Finally, I broke off the relationship. I told them that, clearly, I wasn’t doing the job they wanted, and I wasn’t interested in continuing to do the work.

Two months later:

Client: “So, what — you’re not going to do this design for me anymore?”

If that’s their idea of “trying to get someone back,” I doubt their romance novels are going to be any good.

I recently started working for a media company specializing in science, health, and medicine. Part of the job entails going to numerous trade shows throughout the year.

I am talking with the editor-in-chief and one of the sales guys about the expectations and decorum for the trip.

Editor-In-Chief: “Since this is your first trip. Just so you know, you’re required to take any samples that are offered to you. That’s just what [Publisher] told us. However, you’re not obligated to use or eat any of them.”

Sales Guy: “Actually, [My Name], I have a story about why that policy is in place. Do you want to hear it?”

Me: “Sure.”

[Sales Guy] proceeds to tell me a story about a man who held my current position many, many years ago. He was attending the same show and was told not to say no to any of the samples.

The show proceeded as normal with the publisher manning the booth and [Sales Guy] wandering the show floor speaking to his clients and potential advertisers. The employee was also wandering the show floor. At some point, [Sales Guy] went back to the booth.

Both he and the publisher soon realized the employee was due back at the booth but was nowhere to be found.

Publisher: “[Sales Guy], do you know where [Employee] is? He’s supposed to man the booth for a few hours now.”

Sales Guy: “I don’t know. Let me call him.”

[Sales Guy] picked up his phone and called [Employee].

Sales Guy: “[Employee], where the h*** are you? You’re supposed to be back at the booth now.” *Pauses* “What do you mean?” *Pauses* “Why are you back at the hotel?” *Pauses* “Are you…” *Sighs* “Never mind… Don’t worry about it.” *Hangs up*

Publisher: “What happened, [Sales Guy]?”

Sales Guy: “So… you know how you said the editorial team isn’t allowed to say no to samples?”

Publisher: “Yeah?”

Sales Guy: “Well… I think you should’ve added an extra bit of specificity. Apparently, [Employee] thought that ‘can’t say no’ meant he had to eat and drink everything.”

Publisher: “So… where is he now?”

Sales Guy: “In his hotel room, s***ing his guts out…”

Publisher: *Sighing* “Well… so long as he’s not dead… I honestly didn’t think he’d try and eat everything.”

Sales Guy: “To be fair, he didn’t break the rules…”

The publisher then had to emphasize to all new employees that eating and drinking the samples was completely voluntary. That employee was never reprimanded and remained at the company for quite some time. I made sure to listen to the revised policy.

My first real graphic design job was at this tiny, tiny family-owned magazine: a couple and their son.

One day, the wife gave me a printed-out Excel sheet with a handwritten list of names and phone numbers that I was supposed to add. Because it was handwritten, some of the names were hard to make out. At this point, I knew asking her questions was kind of pointless because she never had an answer for anything, so I tried to make out the names as well as I could and sent her the new copy.

She then came out to my desk to tell me I had spelled one of the names wrong.

Client: “That name needs a U.”

Me: “Oh, sure. Where does the U go in the name?”

Client: “I don’t know.”

Me: “Could you rewrite it for me so I can make it out a little better? I was having a hard time reading this handwriting.”

Client: “I don’t have time to write it down. That’s ridiculous.”

Me: “Well, I’m not familiar with the name and you are. If I’ve misspelled it, then wouldn’t it be easiest if you gave me the correct spelling?”

Client: “That’s ridiculous.”

She stormed off to her office and left me wondering where the h*** I was supposed to put the U. I tried reading the chicken scratch that was apparently so time-intensive that it would be absurd to do it again.

Five minutes later, she called me into her office with her husband. They started to yell at me about how ridiculous it was that I had asked her to rewrite something.

Client: “I don’t have time to help you do something you should already know! No one, ever, in my whole career has asked me to rewrite something for them. If you’re not professional enough to do it by yourself, then why did we hire you?”

I’m a super emotional person and cry when I’m very angry, and her attacking me personally was making it really hard to talk. That made them chastise me for getting upset. However, as upset as it made me, I couldn’t help that it was the most bonkers thing for someone to get mad about. 

Oh, and this all happened on my birthday. Yay! 

Many years ago, I worked at a bookstore. In the USA, most items sold have a UPC (Universal Product Code) barcode. Books, however, generally use the international EAN (European Article Number) barcode. Nowadays, most books use the same thirteen-digit number for ISBN (used to assign a unique identifier to books even before computerized POS and barcodes were a thing) and EAN, but back when ISBNs were only ten digits, the main benefit of using an EAN instead of a UPC on books was that EAN standards allow an additional five-digit number to encode the price. You can flip over most books and see two barcodes, with the one on the right being shorter. The first digit is the currency, and the next four are the price, assuming two decimal places; for example, 50599 is USD$5.99, 11200 is GBP£12.00.

I don’t know if this is still the case, but when this happened at the bookstore where I worked, when you scanned a book with an EAN-5 price code, the encoded price overrode whatever the price in the system was. This was useful because, assuming the barcode was done correctly, the price printed on the book would always ring up even if the inventory system had an older price.

One day, a gentleman came to my register with two books: one large art book and one paperback novel. I scanned both and told him his total was $47.99.

Customer: “Are you sure?”

I double-checked that the two titles listed on my screen matched what was in front of me.

Me: “Yes.”

Customer: “I don’t think that’s correct.”

Me: *Turning the screen to face him* “Here: [Art Book] is $40 and [Novel] is $7.99.”

Customer: “Check the books.”

I turned the books around and looked at the barcode area. Most books have the price printed near there, but some hardcovers only have it on the inside flap. When encountering books like that, I had become used to just looking at the string of numbers printed above the EAN-5 instead of opening the book. Sure enough, the novel said $7.99, and while the art book didn’t have a price, the numbers said 54000 which I knew to mean $40.00.

Me: “They look correct to me.”

Customer: “I insist you double-check the price inside of [Art Book].”

I sighed, flipped the book over the right way, and opened the cover. My eyes bulged out as I read the tiny print on the inside of the dust jacket: “United States $400.00 Canada $460.00”.

Of course, I apologized profusely and thanked him for pointing that out. I deleted the scanned item, and then covered the EAN-5 with my finger and scanned it again; with only the EAN-13 being scanned, the system rang it at the listed price of $400.00.

After we completed the transaction with various apologies and expressions of gratitude on my part, I got my manager, who went up to the Art section to sticker over the barcodes of the remaining copies and submit a misprint form to the publisher.