"Have You Learned Your Lesson?"

[Mystic]

I like how he thinks he's a badass and big time with his $900 project being all demanding and such. If he blows up again, tell him you're done. He will probably come begging back. Then the ball is in your court.

[Seraph]

By the way, thanks for all the tales you post. I always enjoy reading your stories, if for no other reason then you can respond to your customers in a way I never could. Though every time I read about your latest trials and tribulations, I'm reminded of VCR and CustomersRuinMyLife: All three of you seem to have this uncanny ability to attract customers that make one's jaw drop and think "Train wreck."

Sorta why I started my own business, I have worked retail, and have run my mouth a few times, thankfully never *badly*, but I definitely appreciate the freedom I have now.

Aaaaand, yep. Enemies of Normalcy, unite!

[EricKei]

They will drag their feet on responding with feedback or answering questions until the day before it's due, and then they are upset that it's not finished on time.

I actually had this happen to me at my office job, but with Management (4-man office), not with a client.

They had me working on a newsletter/advert thingy to send out monthly to our own clients, offering classes, discounts, the usual crap. As part of it, BossMan mandated that I needed to get regular feedback from his second in command (girlfriend) and the office manager in order to improve it, look for errors, and make things were exactly the way he wanted it before launch of the first issue. In other words, I was to forward it to them after major revisions to get feedback.

I got feedback on the first revision and the first one only. Everything after that was met with either a "I'll look at it later" or changing of the subject. If I had a major critical question, I included BossMan on the "review" emails as well. Never heard so much of a peep out of him.

Fast forward a couple weeks into this, which was the expected timeline (it was a "secondary priority" project which, nevertheless, had DAMN WELL better get done) -- meeting with all four of us. I had done a pretty decent job, imho... Cue BossMan furious at me for not having it precisely the way he wanted it, despite the fact that he had NEVER given me specs or what he wanted aside from "prices on software, class calendar and pricing, specials, coupon, space for mini article he would write" -- effectively, rip it all from our site and format it nicely. Which I did, and the spruced it up so it wouldn't be fugly in print. Of course, my lack of psychic ability was MY fault.

In addition, cue Office Manager being confused why I had ever sent her updates at all, and 2IC yelling at me for wasting her time by sending her updates and asking for feedback....AND 2IC chiming in on the fact that it wasn't exactly what they wanted, after she just finished saying that she didn't have time to tell me what they wanted...

is all I can say...

[Gizmo]

Yeah, it would probably narrow down the clients you DO get, but on the other side of the sword it'll also eliminate a certain percentage of the headaches and wasted time.

I'd suggest that psychometric testing should be necessary in order to be able to ask Seraph for a quote...

[Kanalah]

I'd suggest that psychometric testing should be necessary in order to be able to ask Seraph for a quote...

But then she'd never do stuff for me.