My client purchased a domain and asked that I set up emails for her and her staff.

Client: “You created the wrong email addresses.”

Me: “Oh? I am looking at the email you sent. I created the emails with the exact handles you requested.”

Client: “I need the emails to be [Client] at [Shortened Domain] dot com, not [Client] at [Really Long Domain Name That She Owns] dot com.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but that’s not the domain that you purchased.”

Client: “This has nothing to do with my domain. My domain is correct. The emails are wrong.”

Me: “You cannot make any email address you want. It doesn’t work like that. You need to own the domain you are using for the email addresses.”

Client: *Now enraged* “WHY WOULD YOU EVEN AGREE TO CREATE EMAILS WITH SUCH A LONG DOMAIN? This is unacceptable!”

Me: “…”

I’m an amateur web designer working to build up my portfolio. A local business owner in the heating and air conditioning industry decided he’d have me build him a basic website, but he would not provide any information at all other than that he wanted to use the colors orange and brown. I tried to coach him through the basics.

Me: “First things first. Do you have a logo created already that I can use for your site, or do you want some help with that, as well?”

Client: “No, I have one.”

What he emailed me was a pixelated, jagged-edged, tiny image that looked like it had been pasted together in MS Paint. It had the well-known silhouette of Michael Jordan doing a slam dunk and clip art — with a watermark — of an AC condenser pasted on the hand where a basketball should be. The customer’s company name? Air Jordan.

Me: “Uh, just so you know, it’s illegal to use someone else’s logo like that — even if you did slap some clip art over the top of it.”

Client: “What are you talking about? I had this made specifically for my business!”

Me: “Those two images aren’t yours to use. You do know you could be sued for copyright infringement, right? Fines can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus legal fees.”

After some grumbling and back-and-forth arguing in this same vein for a couple of days via email, voicemail, and text messaging where the customer insisted I use his “custom logo” and pictures he’d scanned out of magazines, I still refused to use his shady materials.

Client: “You’re really serious about this copyright stuff, aren’t you?”

Me: “Yes.”

Client: “Why can’t you just relax?”

Client fired.

Client: “We’re really pleased with how the social media campaign is going. People are really responding well to the images especially, and we know we have new customers as a direct result.”

Me: “Yes, it’s really gaining momentum, and it’s great that you can see the results. So, I take it you’d like to keep going?”

Client: “Oh, yes, we wouldn’t want to stop now. We’d like to do at least another six months. But we don’t want to pay you for it. After all, you’re only basically messing around on Facebook and Twitter; you can just slot our stuff in between your other clients.”

Related:
Why Didn’t You Do It Yourself, Then?

I worked as a graphic designer for this client for almost two weeks. I asked them what they needed, and they were able to provide me with a detailed brief. Despite the brief containing something about using a “web builder” in WordPress, I made my point that my job was to simply provide them with mockups and they would need to find someone else who would integrate the design that I did in WordPress. They agreed, so I did the job. They liked every layout I did, so I was able to complete the JPEGs quicker than expected.

Me: “Hi! I’m done with the designs and have sent them to you.”

Client: “That was fast. Thank you!”

Five minutes later…

Client: “Why are they not working? I need you to upload the files to this domain and make it work before I show it to my boss.”

Me: “What? My contract was to provide design and images, not to code the site.”

Client: “This is urgent! My boss needs to see it live as soon as possible! She needs to click on the pages and check if they’re all working before she presents it to her friend.”

Me: “The coding was not in our agreement.”

Client: “You can’t possibly let me show these to my boss!”

It took us almost an hour to settle this dispute. It came to a point where my client was begging me to code the project (which I don’t do) or find someone else. I soon realized that they were expecting me to do everything despite the agreement. I bailed after that.

I do in-house marketing for a small school and occasionally help the IT person since we’re so small. I was doing copywriting for a newsletter we’re publishing soon that I was also putting into [Email Marketing Program]. Our admissions director sent me an email with what she thought would be a good format: seven columns, each with a three-thousand-word article she’d written. 

Client: “I’d like all this content in the email and in this format.”

Me: “I understand, but you requested months ago that all emails be mobile-friendly. This much content in this format is not mobile-friendly. I suggest we break up the content over several newsletters.”

Client: “No. It has to all be in one email.”

Me: “Then how do you suggest we make it mobile-friendly? I hardly think our potential students will want to read seven 3,000-word articles on their phone in one email.”

Client: “You’re the expert. You figure it out.”