clientsfromhell:

This conversation was taking place over Skype with the project manager for a small company who had contracted me to build their website.

Client: We are very unhappy with your progress so far. Practically nothing has been done since the first week of development.

Me: Yes, that’s the week where you missed your first payment.

Client: Well this is totally unacceptable. This project is two months in and our deadline is this Monday!

Me: The project is one week in, because you haven’t paid for the remainder of the work as stipulated in the contract you signed.

Client: We can’t understand why no progress has been made.

Me: Because you haven’t paid.

Client: I hope you know our CEO is extremely angry about this!

Me: Then he should probably pay for the rest of the work.

Client: This situation needs to be rectified immediately.

Me: You can rectify this situation by paying me.

Client: So what can we do to rectify this situation?

Me: Are you serious?

They did not catch me at my best, most patient moment. In my follow-up e-mail which was addressed to both this project manager and her CEO, I suggested a bodily orifice where they could place this project to “rectify it” and provided a drop-box link to the source code and database backup to assist them in that endeavor.

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