Client Woes

Elizabeth

Does anybody else have the "client from hell" out there? I want to hear your stories. I have one of those, and when I'm not cursing the day I went in to web development, it's actually kind of humorous to me.

Among other things this client:
Tells me right off he wants to update his own site. No problem, I say. He says he uses Dreamweaver. No problem, I say. He has a template system. Sucky, but no problem, I say.
Actually has no idea how to use DW and uses it for ftp only. He does all his pages in WORD (yes you read it right) and wonders why it looks like sht.
Doesn't understand why you can't cut & paste from Word to DW and keep the formatting.
Has literally yelled at me and called his site an embarassment to his company because one line of one of his pages (that he did) was 8.5pts instead of 9 pt.
Made me throw out the PHP/MySQL system I developed to allow him to easily upload his freakin' WORD files and maintain some sort of consistency across his site because he didn't understand how a page can be shown to the browser if it doesn't exist. This, despite my best efforts at explaining the concept in layman's terms. Told me he didn't appreciate me using that 'proprietary system' on his site, even though I tried to explain to him that PHP/MySQL is hardly proprietary and all the data belonged to him, not us.
After going BACK to the template system, he tries to make a new page on his site and uses the actual template file to make the change, then wonders why all the pages look the same.
Made me switch web hosts because he didn't like the answering maching they had there.
Was sending out all his emails from WORD (yes you read it right) not Outlook because he thought you could only do plain text from Outlook.
Changes the admin password to his site without telling me
Sends me on average 10-12 emails a day
Calls me in "panic mode" (I call it) at least once a day, usually more... and always about something trivial. Yesterday he wanted to know why I kept sending him 2 copies of all my emails. Of course it turned out to be a setting in his Outlook Mail rules that kept 2 copies of anything from me. But he was sure it was something I did.
Loves to personally call the web hosts whenever he can't get his email... but he calls the sales department, not tech support.
Advises me that I should contact management of the web host we are currently using because the sales person there said I was extremely incompetent and that he should get another web developer (I should be so lucky). Yeah, I know a LOT of web hosts that slam the developers. Whatever. He loves the "he said/she said" stuff.
*Thinks it is absolutely unacceptable that the web hosts's tech support policy is to respond to support tickets within 24 hours. "It needs to be immediately!" he says.

Now, I could understand if he was the CEO of a multi-million dollar company, but he's an independent consultant (a communications consultant which makes it all the funnier to me).

Anybody else have a client that drives them crazy?

drawmack

I had one once:
The specs: Make me a database drive test site where I can upload tests for people to take. All the questions will be multiple choice but the number of questions per test will vary.

After an hour long interview that's all the information I could get from him.

So I make a basic test site. I even give him complete control over the css colors since he wouldn't even give me a color scheme.

Then he comes back with, can we make it so that one question displays at a time.

I do it.

Then it's can you make it so the person can't press the back button and give a different answer.

I do it.

Then it's can we time the tests

I do it.

Then it's can we keep track of user's scores, mind there is no log in to the test, so that each person can only take the test three times.

I do it.

Then it's can we set up two levels of access where users can take tests and managers can take tests or view their employee's scores.

I do it.

Then it's I got a graphics artist to do up an interface for the tests, can you make it compliant with this.

I do it.

Finally 4.5 months later he's got "Just a basic test site."

vaska

Yep, been there...a tactic for you...

Hopefully, you are being paid hourly and submit invoices at least every two weeks.

Start itemising your invoices in greater and greater detail and call out EVERYTHING. Phone conversations, what they were about, time researching, time spent holding on the phone, phone discussions, face-to-face time, etc, etc, ad nauseam.

These are called "additional services" in a well written contract or if you are paid hourly straight up.

When the invoices start getting really large and you are working 12 hour days, he might get the message. At least you'll be getting paid what is known as "asshole" time where I come from and maybe he will realize that time is being wasted and maybe he should back off.

I've done more than a couple times. You should get paid for all the work you do...

Good luck...v

LordShryku

Fortunately, I work for a large company, and every single person here is my client, and I'm their little whipping boy. You should do I what I do. Kick them in the balls. :evilgrin:

dalecosp

I'm sorry with ya. I'd suggest sticking an ActiveX script in his startup folder ... y'know, the one that shuts the computer down ... 😃

Barring that, a shoe up his ... but that's illegal probably, at least immoral, and would give you a bad rep...

I don't know that I have a client from h*ll ... I have lots of clients who bring me a lil' piece of it every day... not to mention what I've made for myself. :glare:

Have you pointed out that real software developers go to great lengths to "clean up" after M$ Word's botched HTML construction? PM me his addy and I'll fake him a spam with the suggestion that his tool isn't big enough for the job he wants to do... (yeah, take that however you want....) :evilgrin: maybe hourly, via cron ...

Aah, well, life is bigger than work, as you already know... and that's a Good Thing(tm). Hug W.N. 4 me when you get home, and H.A.N.D.!!

dalecosp

Originally posted by LordShryku
Fortunately, I work for a large company, and every single person here is my client, and I'm their little whipping boy. You should do I what I do. Kick them in the balls. :evilgrin:

ROFL...

Oh, and E: here's another ...

fire_cracker

I dont' really have a client from hell, but I do have a pretty picky boss. Some of his brighter moments include:

Left a not under his mouse. He yelled at me for the mouse not being directly in the center of the mousepad.
He asked me to test some equipment and put it in the box of bad equipment. Later that day he pulled it all out and distributed it to employees, and yelled at me the next day because none of the reps could make phone calls.
Today he yelled at me about how "easy it is to install a printer over our network" Then he spent 45 minutes cursing at the computer in our Customer Service department.

When it comes to senior technicians I do think that senior refers to age at times, and not experience.

dalecosp

Originally posted by drawmack
I had one once:

$str="I do it.";
$feature=array_rand("something crazy", "something else crazier", "something worse", "absolutely nothing easier", "nothing agreed upon in the beginning");

foreach ($feature) {
   echo $str."<br>";
}

.
[/B]

That's funny, heartbreaking, and a perfect example of "feeping creaturism". My tale is similar but more mea {adj.} culpa:

Someone in retail clothing wants a cart on their site, and I say, "we'll give it a shot". After the cart script is written, we start getting email like:

"You know, we were wondering if there's some way we could have them give their inseam measurements."

Then: "we sell shoes in 3 different widths."

Then: "is there any way to specify R or L in dress coats?"

Then they ignore the prototypical examples when doing data entry, followed by "why doesn't X data appear correctly"? :glare:

Then back to the beginning: "we have 4 different hat shapes: oval, wide oval, long wide oval, long extra wide oval. Can there be a checkbox for that?" (/me breaks blood vessels in foot whilst stomping on the floor...)

So, I guess I need to fire whoever (doesn't) write the design docs for this firm. But then who'd run my company? :rolleyes:

Sxooter

Back in the day when I was an Amiga / Toaster / Flyter consultant (the only one in town with a clue) I had a customer who was a real pain the arse.

A friend of his was saving his screen caps in 8 seconds. My customer's computer was taking 30 seconds. The only difference between the two machines was that HIS was a stock 7.x MHz A2000, while the other guy had a 68040@25MHz/32 Meg ram accelerator on it.

He basically asked me "If I have that accelerator, will I be able to save my screen caps in 8 seconds?" I told him he'd be able to do everything the other guy was doing, but I wasn't making any promises about speed of saves. They'd be the same machines.

Now, I'd never actually seen the setup of, or used the other machine, I was going strictly by what he told me.

So, I order his accelerator, install it, get everything setup right, and guess what? His screen cap saves take 30 seconds.

Come to find out, the other guys were saving 1/4 res screen caps (the toaster saved two interlaced pages for a screen cap and averaged them together in the standard mode, saved 1/2 of one of the interlaced images if the fast mode.

Guy got all upset that I'd lied to him to make the sale, didn't know what I was talking about etc... Basically insisted I remove teh accelrator and refund his money.

I did.

Two weeks later he called to apologize for being such an ahole and asked me if I'd reinstall the accelerator (he'd gotten used to it in the two or three days it had been in the machine.) I charged him full labor costs for both the original install / deinstall and reinstall.