If You’re the Expert, Did You Hire Me Just to Kick Someone?

Lovelies, I have had an odd conversation with an odd client over an odd document. Now the original document as prepared by yours truly was far from odd. It was prepared with the same information the client provided and done with the same extreme care this Frump takes with all paid documents. Yet the client is now fussing about typos. Oh dear child, there are no typos. In fact, dear one, both Spell Check and my own eyeballs could not locate these “numerous” mistakes you claim are there.  Indeed, the moment one wants to find fault, one does so based on either misperceptions of misspellings or blatant uneducated finger-pointing on the various phantom typos. Why, just last month didn’t this Frump have to inform a client that no, Frumpie did not misuse or misspell the word “innovation” on his brochure.

This dear soul is now claiming that none of what Frumpie put on her marketing piece is correct. Frumpie here has all the evidence in hand, including the exact list of services this client claims Frumpie made up (the list this particular soul provided, nearly verbatim). What’s at work here? This client has brought in other people to “edit” her document, thus making it triply impossible for Frumpie to please, for once you bring in two friends to give you advice on something they’ve no knowledge of, I’m no longer able to please you because your friends are busy trying to please both you and themselves with their crack editorial skills. Let’s just say the “crack” is something they are snorting at this point, shall we?

Lovely. You want to take your money and go home. I want to hold the door open for you. I would love to please you, dearie. But you’ve just given me the “I talked to this expert and he tells me” speech, which means you now think you know more than I do about my job.

Farewell, my lovely. I am not interested in being your clerk-typist.

At the Corner of Crazy and Harassment

She simply will not go away, dearies. I provided Ms. Know-it-All of our last post with the edits she insisted on. She’s now right back, complaining bitterly that Frumpie is making it up as she goes. Frumpie gave her her very own word-by-word edit, one she insisted go in verbatim, but now she’s saying it’s all ridiculous nonsense I’ve made up. I sent back her last edit to show her that the ridiculous one is not on this side of the monitor. I hold no illusions that she will actually shoulder that blame or those words.  This time, she resorted to calling me an amateur, calling me unprofessional, and calling me a waste of her money. Only I’ve done exactly as she’s asked, I’ve not called her character into question, nor have I raised my voice or wasted her money nearly as much as she’s wasted my time and patience. She finds it necessary to bite instead of telling me directly what is troubling her. This time, it was one sentence SHE supplied. I did not. I followed her lead as she pitched an almighty fit because the way I’d worded it was close, but not quite it. But did she tell me in that manner? Oh heavens no! It’s so much more fun to rip someone’s head off instead!

You don’t even realize, woman, that the more you tear apart my character the less inclined I am to care if you’re happy. I do my best for my clients, but I will not be a personal punching bag or doormat. You’re crazy and you’re a massive pain in my rear haunches, woman. Go away. Now. And take your insanity with you on your way out.

I’m not inept; it’s just that you’re a bitch

Dearies, I truly hate using the B word, but I have encountered what is clearly a woman deserving of the title. In two client revisions, this woman has gone out of her way to insult my intelligence, my talent, and my attention to details. In the last revision, Frumpie had to bite back her knee-jerk reaction, which was to tell her to stuff her project. I like to make people happy and I take criticism fairly well. What I cannot abide is a client who lashes out with character assaults over, in this case, the use of one word over another. Instead, why can she not say something like, “I don’t like this word” instead of “did you pick this off a list? I didn’t expect to be teaching YOU writing.”

F*** you, honey. You can do this one yourself. I’m through with people who act like a-holes.

It’s Called A Freebie, and It’s A No-No

Dearies, we have a cute client who enjoys tossing out ideas. “Let’s meet up!”; “Let’s shop together!”

Cute, but the cutest is the veiled attempts to get freebies from this wisened old Frump. The last attempt was “Gee, how would you package this as a marketing plan?” That was preceded by “What comes to mind when you see this particular logo?”

Dear client: I’m so happy to give you my expert opinion, and my invoice is in the mail. If you’d rather not pay, I can forward over my snarky, humourous opinion, which is always free.

Otherwise, stop Frumping me over.

The ‘A’ in ‘Team’ Does Not Stand for ‘And again and again’

The client is to blame for the ‘team-centric’ focus on this ongoing project, dearies. Frumpie is part of a team effort. We have team leaders and team supervisors and team members … yet chaos reigns. Perhaps it is because the team has yet to gel. Why, it has been a mere two years; we cannot rush these things. Frumpie does believe the team has certain bug-a-boos about clearly defining their individual roles. That, my dears, is getting in the way of client progress.

But today’s troubles are a fine example of management-run-amok. One of the many leaders/supervisors (for we do lose track, you know) was given a single question to pass on to the client in question. Instead of passing said question to said client, the person-of-the-day in charge sends this back to Frumpie: “Happy to send a question! Could you send specifics?”

Scratching my Frumping noggin’, I was befuddled. Then the lightbulb came on and I fulfilled her request; I sent over the exact same question in the exact same language, to which she responded, “Great! Thank you!”

No, thank you, dearie. I got my first chuckle of the morning. Plus I was given some keen insight into the workings of a managerial mind. If they don’t hear you the first time, often repeating yourself is all that is needed.

Shh! Don’t Tell!

Dearies, this Frump will never be able to work for the CIA or Secret Service. While working with client, Frump needed to get additional information from a different department. Fine, said client, but don’t tell them you’re not on staff! Don’t let them call you at home! And for heaven’s sake, don’t tell them your real name! What is extremely odd about this is the other department, housed in the same building as the client’s main department, probably already knows that Frumpie is not an employee. Or do they think Frumpie, like Elvis, has left the building?

What’s utterly maddening is that Frumpie was unable to reach the department and could not leave a message, for where would I have told them to call? Frumpie did get a call from the client’s other department. Client seems to have forgotten that most phones have caller ID. The department contact simply hit redial. No questions were posed, no curiosity shown: just a human on the line who wanted to help and didn’t think twice about doing so.

Your secret is safe with me, client, but only as far as I can control said secret. I am not responsible for technological advances that foil your plans.

Why Don’t You Simply Pee On It?

Dear, dear. We have often regarded client wishes as the ultimate last word in any deal, for these are the people paying to get their own way. We respect that. We don’t, however, enjoy being tongue-lashed by extremely high-strung individuals who react first and approach things calmly only after the fluff has been set into motion. One dear soul was recently shown a first draft of a project. In an attempt to liken Frumpie’s attempts to that of shooting this woman’s mother, the client went to the Moon on an express track. Frumpie’s talents were not only called into question, but trampled on as the dear client berated Frumpie’s lack of “action” words.

Oh, if we were only able to share said copy, for Frumpie’s words were much more active than the inertia said client inserted. Gone was the excitement, replaced with fragments that were as passive as a dead man’s argument. This dear soul also inserted numerous edits. Frumpie is not allergic to edits at all, no no. We appreciate the client making the copy provided personal. What we don’t really understand is why sentences are changed haphazardly without thought to alliteration, parallelism, meaning, or relevance. Alas, it is this dear girl’s project, so Frumpie will offer professional suggestions and step back. It’s what one does when one is a professional: advise but allow freedom of thought.

We understand marking one’s territory. It is how we feel we belong to the process. But dear soul, changing “said” to “replied” is just spinning one’s wheels, n’est pas?

Does Your Tail Even Know it Has a Dog?

Let’s call them Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, shall we? These client counterparts are working “together” on a rather big project, one that has yours truly smack dab in the middle as what now seems less like the writer and more like the scapegoat and the blame when their seriously overdue project attracts wrath from the higher-ups.

Frumpie could cry. Once again she’s faced with the obvious fact that these two don’t really talk to each other beyond lunchroom banter. They couldn’t. Why else would Tweedle-Dum be once again requesting a restructuring of their project when Frumpie just completed said restructuring with Tweedle-Dee? Frumpie, who is currently working on a number of other client projects from people who are actually organized and not just throwing darts at their objectives, cannot understand why so much money, and so much of Frumpie’s time, is being poured on a project that is at this very moment obsolete. Frumpie cannot reveal the nature of the project, which would give you a “WTF?” moment and a hearty laugh, but let’s liken it to applying a tourniquet to stop the bleeding on a dead man’s leg. Perhaps they resemble much more the PushMe/PullYou.

Now the dynamic duo wants to bleed this corpse dry just a little more. Yes, we are charging per hour. No, they have not seen the total bill. When they do, they will be reminded of the timely manner in which they received said project and the multiple hundreds of pages that required editing. There is no room for negotiation after the fact.

In the future, we will change our e-mail settings to read next year’s help request as spam. Frumpie’s head may never recover from the thumping-against-the-keyboard motion she’s been prone to of late.

And I Bet You Spell It “Speshul” Don’t You?

Dearies, we are fortunate that we have come to a point in our careers where the clients contact us because we have pleased others. Referrals are lovely! However, in gaining one more referral I wonder if I have somehow upset the referer, for the client-not-to-be is nuts. I apologize in advance for offending anyone who truly is nuts, for this man’s level of oddness is sub-basement.

We are used to clients who have multiple projects and need help finding a first step. We are not, however, used to or even pleased with clients who want EVERYTHING and feel compelled to regale us with odd jokes, strange videos, and links to bizarre sites that ramble with no point whatsoever. Oh, if only these things were remotely related to the job Frumpie is being asked to do! Alas, none are. No, these are being sent by said client for…. well dearies, I really don’t know why they’re being sent. But I looked through the website and thought the dear soul wanted a rewrite. No, he was quite proud of that site! I viewed the video. Again, no. That’s not our project, either. The jokes were not off-color, thank heaven, but they were certainly weird and not funny.

We shall meet with client since we have already arranged the public meeting in advance of the odd stuff. We hope the dear soul has had merely a temporary lapse in judgment by sharing such peculiar items, thus revealing what I expect is his true nature. But we won’t be taking his work unless he’s willing to pay at least double our current rate, for we do not babysit nor do we teach charm school lessons to grown ups who should know better. Those come with our very special fee.

If he laughs at his own jokes, we will keep track and add $10 per occurrence. It is how this Frump eliminates the madness from her life. God bless the weird people, but don’t force me to work with them.

Now That You Mention It…

Oh, we do not enjoy spinning our wheels for any client, even if the meter is running on their project. This particular client handed the job off to yours truly not long ago. In a very brief meeting, it was expressed that Frumpie would do as she’s done before.

Oh, if only before resembled after, for this particular job, much like the last one in name only, is nothing like it in how Frump here has received the information for it. We are expected to know that File #18 contains a few paragraphs that are expected to go into File #3 right there on Page 5. Oh, and those few notes Frumpie was handed in that very fast first meeting are not the ones Frumpie should follow. No, dearies. Those notes are completely forgotten because this particular client remembers nothing of that meeting. (Since it was so very brief, we can fully understand, but we do not sympathize nor care.) For the latest set of instructions, much more detailed now, contain references to “mistakes” Frump made at the initial instruction of the client. Yet the client remembers none of that, for it would frame said client as being scattered. We can’t have that, can we?

Frumpie had asked for specifics midway through said project and was given them in a slightly longer meeting recently, only with a “tsk tsk to you” tone as the client tried desperately to impose their own lack of organization upon said Frump. In fact, most of the work Frumpie has spent weeks performing is now being amended because of the missing instructions in the first place.

Frump it all, because this gal’s meter is still ticking and she’s none too sorry that it will cost the unorganized. Perhaps a valuable lesson to them. Then again, we rather doubt it.