Clients from Hell

I’m a photographer and I offered to do a friend’s photoshoot for free because I needed to build my portfolio. Normally I would charge $100 an hour, and this was a three hour shoot. I thought it went pretty well!

Me: Okay here are the proofs and the price guide for purchasing prints.

Client: Wait I have to pay for prints? I thought you said it was free!

Me: The shoot itself was free, but you have to pay for prints because they cost me money to get done.

Client: Fine. Just give me unwatermarked versions!

Me: Well, I could, but you’re going to have to pay to get them printed somewhere else. Why not just pay me to print them for you?

Client:  Wow. You are such a scam artist. What a friend you are.

Me: …Enjoy your watermarks.

They didn’t buy anything and now post my watermarked stuff on their Instagram. The worst part? They’re totally rich, and could have paid my full fee easily.

I have this conversation about twice a week.

Client: I need some business cards printed.

Me: Sure, we just need to know the quantity and card stock you want, and it will be a twenty four hour turnaround. Do you have your file with you?

Client: I don’t have a file. I just want text.

Me: Sorry, unfortunately we don’t offer any design services. If you bring in a design we can print it for you.

Client: You don’t need to design anything, I’ll tell you what to write and how it should look. I just need you to set it up for me.

Me: ….

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This isn’t really a “clients from hell” story but more about what happens when a designer tries to interact with the world outside of creative marketing.

I am an in-house graphic designer for a property management company and the higher-ups thought it would be a good idea to put together a town resource guide for residents moving from out of state (phone numbers for local schools, utility companies, city info, etc.).

I was going to include some info about the local school districts, and wanted to put their logo in as well. The logos were going be about 1.5 in x .75 in so a decent .jpg wold have sufficed, I didn’t need anything crazy or overly complicated (because I knew I wasting to be asking elderly ladies at public elementary schools for their marketing assets.). I could not find anything from one of our districts other than a 75x75 copy from their website, so I decided to ring them up and try my luck.

They answer, I explain my intent and what I am looking for:

Front Desk: Um, I think I am going to have to transfer you to the Super Intendant’s office.

Bad sign.

Super Intendant’s Secretary: I am going to have to get clearance from the Super Intendant for that request, sir. This is very irregular and I don’t know why you would need it.

Me: I’m just putting together a Town Guide of sorts and wanted to include your information and logo.

Secretary: But why do you need our logo?

Me: For an added touch and branding for you? If someone were using my company name, I would want to make sure that they were using our correct logo and image.

Secretary: He’ll be back on Tuesday. I will let you know if he allows this.

The kicker? I, myself, am a kindergarten through high school graduate of the district. My little brother just graduated high school under the same circumstances. My Father worked for the District Office for 5 years. My mother has been a teacher and is now the Principal of one of only three Elementary schools in the district. And the Super Intendant that needs to ‘give me clearance,’ has been a family friend for over 30 years. He was at my parents’ wedding.

I didn’t get clearance.

When I was in high school, my uncle sent me a video job from one of his friends that he didn’t have time to do. The client was a woman whose kid had lost a bunch of weight by doing Zumba at the local gym, and his mother was trying to use his story to get famous. The kid had already been on local news and his mom considered him a celebrity. She wanted me to film her son teaching a group of other kids a Zumba routine to a top-40 hit song, and then interview him about his weight loss. 

Client: We want it to go viral. Then we’ll get him on Ellen!

My uncle had told me that they’d pay me $50, and I was too young to understand that I should have discussed payment directly with the client. I did, however, caution the client that the song they wanted to dance to was copyrighted and they likely couldn’t post it on YouTube. They told me to proceed anyway.

I gave them the video, which they were happy with… but they never paid me. Months went by and I kept asking them for money, and I eventually had to get my uncle involved, since he was friends with the client. The client finally showed up at my door with the agreed-upon $50. She looked very disgruntled as she handed me the money.

Client: We didn’t think you would want the money because it was such a good cause. Plus, the song was copyrighted and YouTube made us take it down. We won’t get to be on Ellen.

Is getting on Ellen really “such a good cause”? 

Anyway, I just took the money, thanked her and shut the door.

I’m a student and freelance photographer. I currently live three hours away from my hometown. A girl I went to high school with contacted me to take her senior photos during our fair/rodeo time. She wanted a specific day and time, which was a Wednesday. I had class the next morning but didn’t want to pass up a job. I agreed to shoot the photos for a total of $300, much cheaper than my normal costs because we had been friends. 

Client: Hey, I talked with my parents and we agreed that $300 is too much for the type of photographer you are.

Me: For a professional freelance photographer that drove three hours to do your shoot for three hours?

Client: It’s just that you’re in college. We don’t think your work is worth $300… you can keep the $150 that we paid up front though!

Me: Sure thing! I’ll go ahead and keep that and your photos until you send the remaining balance. Let me know when you want to pay up.

That was over two years ago. I haven’t seen or heard from her. Too bad for her, because the photos we took came out amazing.

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I’m a UX designer, but I have a side gig as a wedding videographer. A friend came to me one day, quite distressed, saying the videographer for her daughter’s wedding just quit on them. He’d agreed to do it for free and was now backing out.

Me: I’m sorry, I won’t do it for free, but tell you what. Since you’re a friend, I’ll skip my normal rate and do it for whatever you can pay me

Client: Well, I’ll at least give you gas money.

I thought “you’d better.” The wedding was a state away.

Now, I broke my foot shortly after I agreed to film the wedding. That changed the scope drastically; I knew I would have to bring my second shooter in, and would probably go into the hole paying them. Still, this was someone who’d been a good friend, so I thought what the heck – I’ll help them out.

Client: Are you going to be okay for the wedding?

Me: It’s fine. I’m bringing a second shooter so we’ll get coverage.

Client: Okay great. Well to give you an overview of the day, they’ll do prep at my house, photos at a different location, the wedding at the church, and the reception at a different place. We’d love to get film of each location.

Me: I was told it would be one location. I can’t do that much without compensation.

Client: Oh don’t worry! We’re not asking you to do this for free!

Now, as it turned out, at the last moment, my second shooter couldn’t be there. When I told her, she said it was alright, as long as I could film the ceremony. I agreed, and she seemed rather understanding. (I did have a broken foot, after all).

When I showed up at the wedding, there was another videographer. Turns out, It was the original guy who “couldn’t do it.” I didn’t talk to him, and we both filmed the ceremony. No one spoke to me at all. I was confused, but I did my job. I left.

Client: Well how did it go?

Me: It went well. The footage turned out well.

Client: Great! Well we just wanted to let you know how much we appreciate you and everything you’ve done for us.

At this point, she gave me my “payment”: a FIFTEEN DOLLAR GIFT CARD TO KRISPY KREME.

Client: So can you like upload it to YouTube for us?

Me: …I’ll send you the download link.

Client: Are you sure? I can just give you my login for Youtube.

Me: (silently raging) I. Will send. You the download link.

Client: Okay! I guess that will do.

Get paid. Now.

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I work as an in-house designer. Our workflow is set up so that we designers don’t work directly with clients; we have dedicated representatives who serve as go-betweens so that we can focus on getting work done.

It might seem like a dream setup, but it can very easily turn into a game of telephone, especially when the reps aren’t designers and don’t understand what we do any more than the clients themselves.

Rep: The client says this is good to go except he wants that last line on the front to be larger to match the headers.

Me: The way I have it is the only way I could make that line fit. But I can redesign the front if he still wants it larger; just let me know.

Rep: He says he understands. Can you capitalize these two phrases? Also, can you make that last line on the front larger?

Me: …