Crappy Clients 8.November.2006
I work in the design/marketing industry. And we love our crappy clients. We love to complain about what a pain in the butt our client is. And when we meet up with our friends in other companies we like to swap stories trying to one up the other as to how has the worst client. We love our crappy clients. Turns out we’re not the only ones limited to crappy clients.
My wife is in a totally different field, and uses a totally different part of her brain, the part of mine that is underdeveloped. She a civil engineer who designs and inspects bridges. (The reason why she’s known as “the smart one” in the family). And there’s really just one big client bridge designers and inspectors have. So we’ll avoid mentioning the “g” word by name. Anyway, they had an initial meeting, kind of a needs assessment type thing, and asked what time of day they were allowed to work. The client had no stipulations. Only until, months later, they started work the first day on this particular inspection job, to find out that “what, you can’t do that during the day. You have to inspect these bridges at night”. Now that is a crappy client. (But I guess I have been to the DMV before, so that pretty much explains it.)
So, well there you have it. More of a story then a point, but now you can complain with anyone at a party who does work for clients. Hurray! One small victory for small talk, one step back for feeling special.