A regular debate on one of the facebook groups I frequent is 'Do clients speak the same language as us?' with my latest one I'm beginning to wonder if we both inhabit the same planet!
Early December got a 'would you be interested in a quick job for us' email, to which I replied a hearty 'yes' with a view to working over the Christmas period when everyone else was on holiday.
Week before Christmas
Client: 'Glad you can take on the project, will be with you hopefully before Christmas but definitely before the New Year'
2nd Jan
Client: 'Here are the series editors' corrections for the text'.
Me: 'Okay, but I don't have the text to add the corrections to'.
10th Jan
Me: 'I have just received the original but there appear to be 2 versions'.
11th Jan
Client: 'There are 2 different versions of the book one with questions and the other with the answers - here's the email with the instructions that I thought I'd sent before Christmas - can you do the checklist over the weekend and get queries to the project manager early in the week?'
Sun 13th
Me (to project manager): 'Okay I've gone through and here are my initial queries and the checklist you wanted me to fill in. Can you check that I am on the right lines and get back to me?'
Mon 14th
Project manager: 'I'm very pushed at the moment will get back to you tomorrow'.
Tues 15th
Me (to PM and client): 'I've finished going through and there appears to be a lot of text missing - changes have been made to the questions but I need matching information for the answers are there any files missing?'
Project manager: 'I have your queries sent on Sunday I'll be in touch tomorrow with an answer'.
Client: 'There aren't any more files'.
Project manager: 'Can you tell me where you are with the project and how long it is going to take you to finish it?'
Me (to PM): 'Depends on when I get the missing information unless you want me to try to write it'.
Yesterday
Project manager: 'Can you tell me where you are with the project and how long it will take you to finish it?'
Client: 'You don't appear to have sent the information we requested to be with us immediately after the weekend.'
Me (to client): 'Was sent to project manager on Sunday'.
Project manager: 'The stuff sent on Sunday is fine. Can you fill in the attached form to say where you are with the project and how many hours you think it will take?'
Me (to project manager): 'All depends on the answers to the queries.'
Today
Client: 'Can you tell me where you are with the project?'
Me: 'I am waiting for answers to queries sent on Tuesday as I am missing a lot of information.'
Client: 'Please find attached information that we have - does this help?'
Me: 'Not really as it is the same as what I have. Can you confirm what you want me to do? Should I wait for answers to the queries or should I try to rewrite the answers book to match the questions myself?'
Client: 'Oh don't wait for the answers to the queries as we won't send them off until we get proofs. Please do write the answers for the book as best you can. Can you let us know when you will be finished?'
Me: argh!!!!
And, yes, this is one of the clients in my last post about asking questions and Wordsmith was quite right in her observations that there are situations where you can ask too many questions but I dread to think what would have happened with this project if I hadn't!
Payment terms are 45 days - so my hair should have started to grow back by then :-)
OK, rant over, back to work!
Coronation Street Parties Senyru
1 year ago
3 comments:
haha yes so true. I don't do editorial work but I write commissioned reports for various organisations and sometimes it amazes me that these people ever get anything done as they are so hopelessly inefficient in their dealings with me.
I think the important thing is to make sure that we stay safely on our planet and let them hop about in disorganised chaos on theirs. Just don't jump into the spaceship and join them eh?
Good luck.
I'm having a good chuckle over this, although I feel your pain. It's just that I recognise the scenario only too well. I must admit I haven't suffered quite as much as you seem to have but some clients really do drive me nuts.
Apart from digging your heels in when a client gets tricky, it's important to ensure you get paid for all the extra hassle, especially if a job runs over and interferes with future work that you have booked in.
Empathy in wheelbarrow-loads from me! I've often found that the questions which spring to mind when assessing a new project are essentially down to being more experienced (and older and more jaundiced through bitter experience) than the in-house staff, to whom a lot of the issues one flags up have simply never occurred.
(I get even more bitter and jaundiced when I think of these wet-behind-the-ears youngsters sitting there, faffing around being totally inefficient and then trotting off home at the end of the day with their nice regular salary while I'm left to wrestle with their mess over an already busy w/end and wondering how to readjust my fee without them dismissing me as a bitter, jaundiced old-timer with whom they'd rather have no further dealings!)
Great blog - keep up the good work - just discovered you via Wordsmith's.
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