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Names have been changed to protect the senile.
This story originates at my very first graphic design job, at a (tiny) local print shop, about 4 years ago. I'd been there about 8 months by the time this guy showed up, so I was just getting into a good groove; I'd learned the ropes and was getting along pretty well.
Until this man brought everything to a screeching halt.
Our cast includes:
Deen: an elderly local man wishing to make his mark upon the world by publishing a book about the area/wars/landmarks/america/his vacation... (is this sounding too complicated to anyone else?? Good.)
Me: NaM - bewildered newbie worker
CoWorker: CW- The incredibly nice lady who'd been training me.
BossMan: BM - Our boss and owner of the company/shop.
Now, in the particular line of work we were in - customers could come in and check up on our progress on their jobs, give us hints/tips etc., however we charged an extra $50 per hour (on top of what the job already cost) to do this. This was meant to discourage people from coming in and wasting 2 hours of our time bitching/nitpicking about something that could have come across in an email or faxed proof. We had signs ALL OVER saying we charged extra for this "consultation".
Then came Deen - BM was elated that we'd gotten the job from him (at first) it was slated to be a 80 pg book, with full color photos and a full color cover (for those of you not in the know - generally black and white printing is super cheap, even on a large job like a booklet - any color is major $$). So we set to work. He'd brought in a packet of about 25 pictures for us to scan in, and gave us a hand written layout. No problems so far.
We set up the book as far as he'd given us instruction and then he came back in a week - aaaaaaand now the fun begins....
He came in and sat down with me (who was working on his particular job at the moment) and asked to see the layout. "Oh that looks great!" he exclaimed, he then proceeded to explain that he'd like to have done everything himself, but he wasn't too good with computers... blah...blah...blah. He then asked if we could add color to the background of the pages (!!) - keep in mind we had no actual type from him to put in it yet - this was just pictures and boxes laying out where the text would go. I told him yes, and went through and applied his desired colors to the background of ALL the pages. This has taken 30 minutes already - I explain about the extra charges - but he plows on like it's nothing. My heart sinks, sensing the suck to come. I continued with him for no less than FOUR HOURS. 4!!! That's $200 this guy just blew!
Deen was persistent (and probably lonely) as he came in and spent no less than 3 hours every other day, for several weeks, coming in and having one of us pull up his layout and move/change things. He could never keep focused and would always go off on tangents about what he'd been doing when he too a particular photo. This lead to one of us wasting our time and the other trying to make up for the work the other couldn't do.... But we put up with it because BM said to. (We were getting paid after all)
After about 4 weeks of this, he suddenly came in with a shoebox full of photos and said he was adding another 100 pages to the book.
BM said ok, but was beginning to have his doubts. (we'll see what comes of this later) We (CW and I) count up the photos, there are over 200. He wants us to scan, color correct, and format TWO HUNDRED PHOTOS. CW called bullsh!t on BM and we got it parred down to 100 that Deen REALLY wanted. That's still a ton of work for ONE job. We were beginning to be weary of Deen's constant presence, loathing every time we'd hear his beat-up old car chug into the drive... 
After all this we still haven't gotten any text from him - only photos. (was he making a picture book? I don't know.)
Finally, after three months of having to deal with this - BM finally called Deen in and they had a long discussion in his office. (his office was just down the hall from ours, and he left the door open
) Apparently BM had gotten a hold of Deen's son, who had power of attorney, and he'd asked BM to please cancel Deen's job - and to not continue with any other work for him. Deen had not only had this job ongoing with us - he'd had TWO other book deals fall through with other print shops in the area (for practically the exact same thing) that wouldn't put up with his crap. He'd racked up over $200,000 in charges at these other places and was well on his way with us. According to the SON Deen did not have the resourses to continue paying us - and continue to eat/pay rent/live. We got paid for the "consultation" time, but BM was feeling generous and waived the bill for his first job. *sigh*
Deen was gone and out of our hair forever. I have to admit that I feel sorry for him, he was obviously lonely, and the screws were starting to come loose, but he'd wasted SO MUCH of our time, and had actually put us far enough behind, that we'd been backed up with jobs from a month previous. (We tried to keep no more than 2 weeks behind, if that) Good riddance.
Thank you for your time and consideration
This story originates at my very first graphic design job, at a (tiny) local print shop, about 4 years ago. I'd been there about 8 months by the time this guy showed up, so I was just getting into a good groove; I'd learned the ropes and was getting along pretty well.
Until this man brought everything to a screeching halt.
Our cast includes:
Deen: an elderly local man wishing to make his mark upon the world by publishing a book about the area/wars/landmarks/america/his vacation... (is this sounding too complicated to anyone else?? Good.)
Me: NaM - bewildered newbie worker
CoWorker: CW- The incredibly nice lady who'd been training me.
BossMan: BM - Our boss and owner of the company/shop.
Now, in the particular line of work we were in - customers could come in and check up on our progress on their jobs, give us hints/tips etc., however we charged an extra $50 per hour (on top of what the job already cost) to do this. This was meant to discourage people from coming in and wasting 2 hours of our time bitching/nitpicking about something that could have come across in an email or faxed proof. We had signs ALL OVER saying we charged extra for this "consultation".
Then came Deen - BM was elated that we'd gotten the job from him (at first) it was slated to be a 80 pg book, with full color photos and a full color cover (for those of you not in the know - generally black and white printing is super cheap, even on a large job like a booklet - any color is major $$). So we set to work. He'd brought in a packet of about 25 pictures for us to scan in, and gave us a hand written layout. No problems so far.
We set up the book as far as he'd given us instruction and then he came back in a week - aaaaaaand now the fun begins....
He came in and sat down with me (who was working on his particular job at the moment) and asked to see the layout. "Oh that looks great!" he exclaimed, he then proceeded to explain that he'd like to have done everything himself, but he wasn't too good with computers... blah...blah...blah. He then asked if we could add color to the background of the pages (!!) - keep in mind we had no actual type from him to put in it yet - this was just pictures and boxes laying out where the text would go. I told him yes, and went through and applied his desired colors to the background of ALL the pages. This has taken 30 minutes already - I explain about the extra charges - but he plows on like it's nothing. My heart sinks, sensing the suck to come. I continued with him for no less than FOUR HOURS. 4!!! That's $200 this guy just blew!
Deen was persistent (and probably lonely) as he came in and spent no less than 3 hours every other day, for several weeks, coming in and having one of us pull up his layout and move/change things. He could never keep focused and would always go off on tangents about what he'd been doing when he too a particular photo. This lead to one of us wasting our time and the other trying to make up for the work the other couldn't do.... But we put up with it because BM said to. (We were getting paid after all)
After about 4 weeks of this, he suddenly came in with a shoebox full of photos and said he was adding another 100 pages to the book.
BM said ok, but was beginning to have his doubts. (we'll see what comes of this later) We (CW and I) count up the photos, there are over 200. He wants us to scan, color correct, and format TWO HUNDRED PHOTOS. CW called bullsh!t on BM and we got it parred down to 100 that Deen REALLY wanted. That's still a ton of work for ONE job. We were beginning to be weary of Deen's constant presence, loathing every time we'd hear his beat-up old car chug into the drive... After all this we still haven't gotten any text from him - only photos. (was he making a picture book? I don't know.) Finally, after three months of having to deal with this - BM finally called Deen in and they had a long discussion in his office. (his office was just down the hall from ours, and he left the door open
) Apparently BM had gotten a hold of Deen's son, who had power of attorney, and he'd asked BM to please cancel Deen's job - and to not continue with any other work for him. Deen had not only had this job ongoing with us - he'd had TWO other book deals fall through with other print shops in the area (for practically the exact same thing) that wouldn't put up with his crap. He'd racked up over $200,000 in charges at these other places and was well on his way with us. According to the SON Deen did not have the resourses to continue paying us - and continue to eat/pay rent/live. We got paid for the "consultation" time, but BM was feeling generous and waived the bill for his first job. *sigh*Deen was gone and out of our hair forever. I have to admit that I feel sorry for him, he was obviously lonely, and the screws were starting to come loose, but he'd wasted SO MUCH of our time, and had actually put us far enough behind, that we'd been backed up with jobs from a month previous. (We tried to keep no more than 2 weeks behind, if that) Good riddance.
Thank you for your time and consideration