'funny' client comments/requests

weekender

i've been working on one of my first freelance projects, and thought i'd share these 'hilarious' comments and requests

#1:

client: "Where will the site be hosted? On your computer?"
me: "No, in america - the hostings paid already"
client: "Oh! So its not geocities???"

client: "i've added a bit to the content"
Two mins later i get an email containing a 75 page long unformatted word doc, 25,000 words, with four days before completion

36 hours before completion, after i've coded a forum from scratch
client: i've found the details of my old forum [never previously mentioned] - can you copy across all the posts?"
old forum uses login - ours doesn't. Old is threaded - ours isn't. Old one has approx 35 topic groups and 50,000 posts.
me: "no, i can't"

right, feeling happier now that's off my chest. got to have it all finished by tomorrow... yikes!

adam

Weedpacket

How about integrating a site with a "user database" that turns out to be a pile of exercise books and post-it notes?

"Er, that wasn't in the scope..."

mogster

Haha! 😃

I had a similar experience recently.

A project started out as "just adding worksheets to a database", as requested over the phone.
OK, I said - that'll cost about 1500USD, including db, scripts, design, tha works.
This is a elevator maintenance company, and the sheets was supposed to cover their maintenance orders, work hours and other maintenance costs.

When I saw the actual worksheet, the db just sprouted 15 tables :p

I: You can't have customerdata, work-hours and the financial stuff in same table as the orders.
Cust: No?
I: Sorry, no good. It's not sound structure.
Cust: OK.

So I raised the price to 5000 and started out, receiving exports from an accounting system they use.

Reading the umpthabyte exported textfile, I called the customer again.

I: Erm.. you have the customers and their elevators in the same table?
Cust: Yes?
I: Well, the field customer_name is covering both the erm.. customer name AND the elevator address? Or rather: the customer name OR the elevator address, as there seem to be a little of each...?
Cust: Yes?
I: Well, how am I (and mr. PHP) supposed to know which is which?
Cust: The chain_id.
I: The chain id?
Cust: Yes, the chain id, yes. You see, the whole secret is in the way the chain id is matched against the customer id: when the chain id is zero and the customer id is below 20000, the item is a customer, else the item is an elevator.
I: Oh? So then the field customer name is (sometimes) actually the elevator address, the field zip_code is actually the serialnumber of the elevator and the field customer_city is the description of which service-contract the elevator belongs to?
And the customer address is the description of previous errors?
Cust: Yes?
I: There is a small chance your invoice will be sent to the wrong customer, you know. Like:
Customer: Lexington Road 44, 3rd floor.
Address: Elevator stopped between floors, fixed with chewing gum
Zip: Thyssen TH-5444677-33
City: Contract 4445339

Cust: Never has been, so far.
I: Good for you, sir.

This is app. at the point where I am now, trying to make this work out 😉
Seems like it's gonna work, once I have identified some locking values.

knutm :-)

leatherback

Hey,

At least you have a project to work on for yeeeeaaaaars to come!

😃

weekender

that's true.

and it'd be good to keep relations with that company - i've heard that elevator companies are on the way up.

leatherback

Originally posted by weekender
and it'd be good to keep relations with that company - i've heard that elevator companies are on the way up.

Although of course... If the bill goes to the elevator, and the maintenance is performed at the complaint-descriptoin address the elevatorcomp. might come crashing down again!

leatherback

Well, you also have the easy, simple but stupid mistakes of clients:

I really like the forms you made. Also all the automatic calculations&processing it does work well. Great!
I saved the file to my computer, opened it in frontpage to make some changes and saved it again. But when I press 'submitt the form', I see no changes on the website. How can that be?

/me: (silent sigh) Because what you do on your computer is not saved on the server. (-- And that is a good thing!--) Also (For the & 30th time.) do not change the files that way. Send me the changes, and I will change the (php) file!

Hm.. How clever some people are.

mogster

Originally posted by weekender
that's true.

and it'd be good to keep relations with that company - i've heard that elevator companies are on the way up.

😃 😃

knutm

BuzzLY

Here's a funny one...

Me: Hey, do you guys have a project for me this month, like you promised last month?

Me: Hmmm... I'll take that as a "no."