Passing the Buck Only Works if You Can Prove It’s All My Fault

Oh, how Frumpie was getting used to the carefree life! Having been blessed recently with a string of wonderful clients who behave like grownups, this dear soul was taken aback recently when one of the grownups took to a tantrum. Having what must be oodles of stress on his back, he sent Frump an angry note asking where his expected project was. Since we pass projects between us quite often, Frump held back minor panic and searched for said project. There it was tucked safely away in the Sent folder with a time stamp to show its sent status. Frump here forwarded it verbatim to said client and pondered the lack of delivery. It ended there.

Only it didn’t end there. Client, still in a kafluffle, replied that it was due two days prior and he never received it. Yes, that may be true. Still, I sent it two days prior and I didn’t know it wasn’t received. But he never received it! Yes, and it was sent. But….

Seeing the futility of the conversation, yours truly refrained from making any suggestions, including the uber-sensible one that the client acknowledge receipt of the completed project to avoid such Internet anomalies as mail that was sent but not received. No, such suggestions to angry people looking to pass the blame to blameless people will not be accepted kindly. We shall wait until the fire dies down and then make a suggestion.

Dear soul, I understand your dilemma and the deadlines you face. You understand, or at least I thought you did after three years, that I complete all my work on time. In this case where my records back up my statement, it’s clear that something bigger than both of us intervened. It happens. I suggest instead of trying to pin blame where it doesn’t make sense, please accept that forces in the universe larger than we are can sometimes muck things up royally. The force may be strong with you, but it can’t rewrite this little tale to make me the guy wearing the dark mask.

If Life Offered a GPS, You’d Be The One I’d Buy It For

Frumpie has a lovely client for which she has completed a few projects. The dear soul has a brilliant mind, a wonderful background in her field, but she has no concept of time. It is a dilemma reaching epic proportions, for this dear soul takes great pains to schedule meetings and then never shows up.

This week and last, this Frump sat on empty conference calls, music lulling in the background, while I waited for the expected no-show client. Because this client has made only one of nearly a dozen phone calls that she’s arranged, I had another assignment in front of me to salvage the time otherwise wasted by this dear woman’s inability to be anywhere outside her own head. After ten minutes, I hung up and went about my business, ignoring the expected frantic calls that came in an hour later, for she is nothing if not repentent. I shall not waste another client’s time because this scattered soul cannot make her own meetings.

Dear, clueless client. You need to know that each time I am forced to wait with no result I shall add that time waiting to your next invoice. Also, each time I’m stranded in the same manner, I will knock a few minutes off my wait time. I shall not sit idly by when it’s obvious you are not anywhere near remembering where you need to be. A hint – your shoes are probably on your feet and your glasses are probably on your head.

Oh, and please refrain from leaving three-minute messages on my voice mail. I have already spent enough time dawdling with you, dear.  Either hire a manager and an assistant who can make sure you get to your meetings  on time or learn how to organize your life better.

Oh No You Din’t!

Dearest Fired Client:

Sweetheart, I adore you. You have a wonderful personality, a nice demeanor, but dear, you have no head for business. For what would possess a sane business person that he would turn to his writer and devalue her work? And honeybuns, you did the moment you said “But your work from project to project is similar, so I can’t really see paying you more for this job than that one.” As you put it, writing is writing and there shouldn’t be a difference in price.

That the first job was a small piece for your web log and the second a targeted press release didn’t seem to matter to you. You actually said “We have to fix the difference in pay.” Seriously? I’m tickled beyond hope, for now you may actually pay me what I’m worth on the blog job!

But who am I kidding? You want me to get paid 1/8th the value of the press release work. And hey, let’s ignore the multiple edits you require because you won’t ask your colleagues until AFTER the fact for their input. By the way, doll, when you change the subject of the release, it really IS a new project and I do get to charge you for a new project.  You agreed in writing to the price and no amount of debate after I deliver the  invoice will change that. Plus, it is a real waste of my time. And it’s the reason I cannot work for you any longer, dear.  For anyone who ignores the contractual facts in order to get something for nothing… well, that, darling, is inexcusable.

Hugs and fond farewells,

Frumpie

Let’s Cut Out the Expert, Shall We?

Dear New and now Former Client:

Thank you for contacting me recently to complete your project. I was honored to have you for the short time I did. For now, your friends have taken over.

Per our agreement, you are no longer my client. I suspect this pleases you almost as much as it pleases me, for I shall no longer work with a bevy of the uninformed, the wanna-be crowd, or the arrogant few who believe they know everything better than the experts. Our contract states quite plainly that it is you and I who work together, not you, I, and everyone you deem smart enough from which to take free advice.

Perhaps, sweet, clueless soul, you can explain this to me. Why did you agree to pay me, the person with the extensive background in your very project area, then take advice from someone who has no experience? There is this odd little vortex you have entered, much like a few other clients in this Frump’s past, wherein my training becomes second, and oftentimes fifth or sixth, to the advice of your gang of friends, colleagues, acquaintances and the like. Am I saying they are all wrong? No. I’m saying it’s insulting to me, the professional, to be second-guessed thanks to the well-intentioned-but-entirely-inappropriate advice of unpaid, unskilled friends. It’s also damaging to your project. While one or two comments could be valid, my experience has proven that most comments are self-serving and do no more than lead you astray from your project goal, a goal you and I set together and worked quite diligently toward. For now, dear soul, you are not listening to well-honed advice. You’re trying to please everyone in the process.

Alas, that, my dear soul, shall never work. Au contraire, the fact is your inclusion of all these extras will end up in a project that pleases no one, most importantly not you. For how can any one project with a dozen voices sound anything like the person who’s footing the bill?

And yes, my dear, you still owe me despite our now-defunct relationship. For this Frump, having been down this road so many times she knows all the signposts, has a contract that guarantees her payment should you bring in anyone not listed on that original contract.

I shan’t be bitter, for it’s not my end product. I shall mourn the loss of a good amount of collaboration and work, but the money you pay me will help ease my grief. I hope that this experience has been a learning one for you. The moral of this story is clear; if you are paying a professional, place your trust where you money is. Otherwise, you’ll be Frumped.

Hugs,

The Frump

Can You Just Pull My Hair Out For Me This Time?

Exasperating clients are uncommon, but dears, here comes the same old same old from a client who doesn’t see it in his horoscope to pay Frumpie a decent amount. We’ve finished with him, but that doesn’t stop him from returning like a boomerang on steroids, this time to let me know what his entire management staff wants to inject into the one-page project. The entire management staff, not the CEO or the VP. Everyone from the CEO to the Assistant to the VP. Now this sad little client wants Frumpie to wade through hyperlinks –yes, he sent hyperlinks–and translate what seven different managers think needs to go into a news release. Oh yes, dearies, this is no more than a release.

One comment gave Frumpie instant wrinkles and grayer hair than usual: “It’s good, but we need to knock it out of the park.” No, dearie, it’s a news release. You need to stop overthinking and get it circulating before it’s old news, for it’s been two weeks since we last put fingers to keyboard on it.

It’s the final straw in an already heaping pile of dung. Thank you, former client, for giving me a rather large, unnecessary headache at the end of an otherwise lovely week.

Frump you!

Three to Five Years of ESP Required

Dear hearts, once again Frumpie is taken aback by bad client behavior. This particular thorn has punctured my side for the last time.  He lovedour first draft – love, love, LOVE! Then suddenly, he’s unhappy. Pour quoi? Because Frump does not possess the ESP skills necessary to know about information he’d never supplied. Why isn’t X on there? Where is Y? This Frump suspects those letters are hanging out with Z, for they never made an appearance in this project until now. And now Frumpie is wasting valuable work time showing said client all documentation, which does not include his lettered items. Yet he’s still making noise about Frump’s inability to “get” what he does.

I sense the presence of a friend or relative, dear ones. Someone somewhere has reviewed this chap’s project and has found it in themselves to become instant editors, for why else would a perfectly good project with a satisfactory outcome suddenly go awry? Why would Frumpie’s work to date, which is perfectly within the boundaries of said project’s supplied information, be questioned and called inadequate?

We can smell the stench of a client about to bolt and attempt nonpayment. Too many times than I care to remember I have faced the client whose friends say something like “Just get rid of her and we’ll write it for you for free.” Alas, we have contracts and common sense on our side, so his attempts will fall short, I’m afraid. While he may indeed end our working relationship with no problem, he may not end it without proper compensation per the terms of the agreement.

Or he could simply stop asking his friends for advice.

Now isn’t that a novel idea?

Do You Kiss Your Mother With That Mouth?

Here’s a very strange happening, dearies. In working with a one-time client, Frumpie had occasion to chat with the dear soul via telephone. The client presented herself quite well, impressing the socks off this Frump with her integrity, honesty, and downright good nature. But when the phone was placed on the receiver, a metamorphasis took form.

In the span of 12 short hours, this congenial, sweet soul turned sour, demanding, and downright rude. In fact, snippy is a good word for the attitude that reeked from this client’s pores. Worse, she insulted not just Frump with her fussy behavior, but also Frump’s direct client, for Frump is part of a team run by another client. Tasked with pleasing this bi-polar behavior, Frump heard mention of those dreaded words “admin assistant” in relation to both the client and Frumpie and how she would be treating us in the future. Thems fighting words, honey.

One-time client, who had no idea the limits of her own power, was quickly dropped on her posterior by Frumpie’s client. Amen, dear souls, for anyone who devalues the service given when there is no provocation beyond her not liking the chosen team system is not a person whose money matters. Being kicked around by bossy, beligerent fools is not worth any kind of money.

Frump you, mouthy woman. Perhaps your secretary will complete your project for you before she packs up her own desk, for working with you and that attitude is a condition under which no one can operate.

If I Hold You Hostage, Will You Finally Go Away?

Oh, my lovelies, does this Frump ever get the oddities of the client world. One said oddity is a client who was told numerous times that this Frump was no longer interested in continuing the working relationship. Yet the emails and jobs kept coming in. Dears, I have tried my utmost to impart direct instructions on how far away from me this client needs to be, yet to no avail. Directness seems to be lost. So seems to be the smoke signals, airplane banners, billboards, and gaggle of cheerleaders I have bestowed on this client figuratively. The dear soul will not go away.

Alas, I must reach into the same passive-aggressive bag that said client has reached into in an attempt to ignore my relationship-severing attempts. So the plan henceforth is to promise nothing and deliver the same. We do not enjoy this game, but directness got us to the same place we are now.  We do not enjoy the phone calls, which were interesting in that I saw how this client ignores the obvious, clear statements and rewords to suit his particular requirements. If he ever tires of annoying the devil out of the corporate world, he could run for political office with no worries.

I have not responded to his request for more projects, which in the past has meant he’s assumed our fingers are busy typing to meet his deadline, for he does not ask, dear souls. He tells. He is about to be dropped on his almighty tail feathers, for Frump has no intention of responding to any emails or phone calls. She has said for the last time “I am no longer working for you.” He shall see when the project he’s certain I am working on against all indications to the contrary never arrives. He can keep his money, for the pay was well beneath what respectable professionals should be paid, hence the reason I have severed ties.

Continuing to feed the animal with responses and reactions will result in continuation of a relationship that in this Frump’s mind ended months ago. We shall allow him to vanish into the vast spam-filtered universe.

Would You Care for the Grey Poupon, As Well?

One more time, this Frump has had a request–no, I daresay it was framed more as a demand–from a client in no position to make demands. His intent was to tie up my time a week ago with his project. Alas, I had three dear souls already contracted, so I had to turn him down. And let me add that this dear soul is prepared to pay me, well, next to nothing for my talents. He’s such a funny man, isn’t he?

His response to this overworked Frump was to say “I need these four projects completed ASAP and I’ll expect them by next Friday.” Oh, if it were that simple, you silly goose! Stamping the foot does not make my work pile dwindle one bit, though it does make the papers ruffle and takes my attention away from customers who know how to plan ahead.

Take your “offer” of $25 per project and begone, you daft tyrant! We don’t have time to waste on pouters who think a dollar buys them the right to push us around.

Why Not Ask Your Uncle and Aunt, Too?

Sometimes, dearies, clients are not up to the challenge of understanding what their own contracts contain. Take the current situation for this Frump as an example. The client states that one person will work with yours truly in revising the copy for publication. Yet this week, surprise! Two new people show up at the final hours wanting — nay, expecting — this Frump to edit their “fixes” for her work. Worse, as they copied my client on the revisions, the client must now think Frump is a no-talent bum.

Alas, I have had to turn said butter-inners down. While they may have an integral role in this project, Frump’s contract clearly states she will work with ONE person, not three. Frump has met all her contract obligations to this very minute and has no intention of re-opening said project to accommodate people who are simply saying “I’d rather state it this way” for that, dearies is the slow road to insanity. Also, it wastes my time.

Begone, editorial wanna-bes!