Comments on: Aunty Entity #12: Your Client Hates You

By: Rob Mason

Rob Mason — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:10:05 +0000

Add another cliché: You don’t send a document round for comment, you “socialise” it!

By: Oliver

Oliver — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:10:42 +0000

“I’m in a meeting” = Most used expression.

Good read and totally agree with the bad client relationship article. We’ve all had our fair share and agree with Laura’s post too.

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:59:46 +0000

Ahh the dysfunctional client. Nothing makes you feel lower than being civil to someone who just wants to pee in your Cheerios (another phrase for cliché bingo?).

I’d cut ‘em loose. Finish whatever you’re contracted to finish and run for the hills.

I’ve learned that dysfunctional companies harbor dysfunctional people - the experience you had with this individual may only be the beginning. IMHO, it’s not worth putting in the extra effort in hopes that they’ll wake up and realize how they are behaving.

In fact, it may be in your best interest (professionally) to distance yourself from such a client. I ditched a dysfunctional client recently and was later hired on by a customer of theirs. Company B blatantly said they wanted nothing more to do with anyone involved with Company A because of how dysfunctional they are. It’s a good thing we agreed - it helped me land a HUGE account!

By: NatalieMac

NatalieMac — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:16:35 +0000

I had a client who hated me. I finally gracefully offered to allow them to break their contract, and they took me up on it. The person I had been working with on the web site was fired, and she was apparently communicating her own person preferences to me rather than what the company wanted. After she was gone, the remaining staff blamed me for the web site not being what they wanted. I repeatedly tried to point out to them that I built exactly what was spelled out in the contract and that all work had been reviewed and approved along the way. They finally started flat out harassing me. I’d get an email demanding that I call them right away because they’d been trying to contact me for weeks - when I hadn’t heard anything from them. They’d complain that I hadn’t fixed a problem with the website that they had never told me about. It was truly awful and it was such a relief to let them go.

By: Daniel Richard

Daniel Richard — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:01:01 +0000

And yes, while receiving suggestions on creating a header design for my site, one idea was to place “blue sky” (clouds and skies) as background. After that, I threw in the space background with purple to black gradient with stars, and a huge blue marble earth as the feature image.

I wonder if there’s anyone else who have recently heard one of the few meeting clichés that were mentioned in this article.

By: Daniel Richard

Daniel Richard — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:55:14 +0000

I think I saw a similar game about the “cliche bingo” on a Dilbert comic strip before. I recalled playing a quick game on the number of “uh” against my friend’s choice of “hmm” during a light-hearted presentation before.

By: Prescott Perez-Fox

Prescott Perez-Fox — Tue, 13 May 2008 01:25:29 +0000

Regarding corporate speak, all I have to say is the following:

Energistically network scalable imperatives for collaborative leadership skills. Synergistically extend innovative internal or “organic” sources with client-centric markets. Monotonectally scale cross-unit collaboration and idea-sharing through cross functional markets.

Interactively streamline seamless technology through tactical deliverables. Enthusiastically incubate market-driven niche markets vis-a-vis plug-and-play experiences. Competently engage low-risk high-yield quality vectors vis-a-vis intuitive services.

Dummy text generated by the Corporate Ipsum Widget for OS X Dashboard.