In the Kingdom of Overreaction

Today’s tale comes from the annals of Writing Frump history. The was once an amicable client who had the Massive Project to complete. He hired Writing Frump to complete it. Writing Frump worked tirelessly for months on end (and was so intent on getting said Massive Project done that Writing Frump’s friends were called in for writing reinforcement). Writing Frump was given to sending weekly updates to Client of the Massive Project. In said emails, Writing Frump would give a short progress report and page count.

Enter typo! In Writing Frump’s haste to get email to Client, a word count was superimposed. Writing Frump didn’t catch it immediately. However, Client did. Overreation began. How dare Writing Frump lie to Client in the past about the word count! How dare Writing Frump get paid a whole nickel more per word and take it with a clear conscience! Client was upset, disappointed, disenchanted and thinking Writing Frump was a criminal of highest degree.

Writing Frump realized the mistake, sent an urgent email apologizing profusely. To which Client of the Massive Project says, “I thought perhaps that was the case. No sweat.”

Uh, yes. Sweat. For Writing Frump had sent in emails prior copies of work done to date, which clearly showed the word count well above that which Writing Frump mentioned in the now-infamous email. Also, “no sweat” when Client has just torn Writing Frump to bits, and done so on a typo that Client claimed was already on his mind – well, kids, that seems like just a wee bit too little of an effort on Client’s part.

Despite huge urges to do so, Writing Frump did not go there. Writing Frump instead completed the project, cashed the check, and lost the client’s name. Once Writing Frump left the Kingdom of Overreaction, Writing Frump lived quite happily ever after (until the next shmuck showed up).