. He bites. Hard. 
Douchebaggery at its finest.
Ever had to deal with a really shitty client? One that not only just doesn't get it, but refuses to just get it no matter how much common sense and fact you bring to the discussion? Of course you have.
I had to cut ties with such a client today, and man, I couldn't be happier now that it's done. I started this business relationship at the beginning of 2006 with this guy that we'll call Douchebag, mainly because that's his name. Or at least it should be. Douchebag was fine at first - he wanted a fairly simple project done, and was willing to pay me to do it when I had the time. Being that I really needed the money at the time, I was more than willing to take his business. I finished the project in a fairly reasonable amount of time, and he seemed really happy with what I had done. He was a little weird around the edges, though - he kept referring to himself as "Snapper Hunter" and "Sure Shot" in his emails, and kept insisting to me like I was his best buddy that "white people are kinda becoming the minority here dont you think?" We've all run into some weirdos in the workplace, but to be honest, I didn't really care. He seemed like a decent guy, and up to that point, he had been really patient and helpful.
Then, it was time for me to get paid.
I sent him an invoice for my work once he had approved it, and poof - the guy disappears. Never returned my emails, nothing. He basically just dropped off the face of the planet. I was just about to remove the work I had done for him from the web (yes, it was a design job) when I hear from him, apologizing profusely and telling me how sorry he was for his absence and that "he had been working very hard". Ok, whatever. Shit happens. I re-send the invoice, and he tells me that he'll send me a check.
Weeks go by. No check. My mailbox is about ready to tell me to go get a hobby with how I often I was looking inside it, so I begin round two of emailing Douchebag, asking him where my check was.
"i sent it you should have it by now if not let me know. sorry for the hardship it might have caused you. thanks so much for your canny and hard work. I have received nothing but compliants on the site."
Yeah. Whatever the fuck that means. So finally I get my check, but by that time, I had already told Douchebag that it had probably gotten lost in the mail, and that he should cancel it. So yay me, right? I finally have my check, but the shit has been cancelled. You guessed it - time for Douchebag to send a new check.
So he pulls another disappearing act for a little while, but after yet another salvo of emails from me, he finally tells me that he's sent another check. "ok i have sent another check. kinda weird that this has taken so long because you live right around the corner from me." Oh, really? Fascinating. I have to go out that afternoon to get a new door lock because of how fast I broke my old one trying to get it locked. Shudder.
So I get my check, project's done, yadda yadda. Six months go by.
"hey long time no see! i have another project for you interested?"
Oh christ. Being the sucker that I am, (the broke sucker) I say yes, and the shit begins again. It had a few new features this time around, though - he'd change his mind every few days about what he wanted, he tells me to "bear with him" on getting paid because he's sent the site out for review to a few of his friends, I'm being impersonal and unprofessional because I prefer to keep my business relationships to email rather than over the phone, blah blah blah. The guy's named Douchebag for a reason, you dig?
So by this time, it's the holidays, and I've had WAY too much of his shit to let it spoil my time with the family. Douchebag is in his continual state of changing his mind, so I let his not-really-worth-it-in-the-first-place project slide for a while. I go out of town for a while on a business trip, and I don't hear word one from him. I start to feel bad when I get back, so I tell him that I'll get back to work on his shit as soon as I possibly can. The usual holiday chaos has broken loose, so that eats up a ton of my time, and yes, I will admit - I let his project slip by without much progress for far longer than I should have. I KNEW what kind of an idiot this guy was, and what I should've done is just knock the fuckin' thing out over the course of a weekend just so I could be done with it. I couldn't really do that, though, mainly because the fuckstick couldn't decide what the hell he actually wanted. I definitely blew it off for far too long, but you know those times where you know you have something to do, but you just don't give enough of a shit about it just up and do it? Yeah.
So now it's around the beginning of the year, and Douchebag and I have finally arrived at a point in the project where we need to take a look at what's been completed, and decide where we need to go from there. It's been quite a while since he initially asked me to do the damn thing, so I do the unthinkable and actually ask to get paid for what's been completed. I think you probably know what's coming next.
Yup, he disappears. I send him an invoice, and it's like the fucker's full name is Douchebag Houdini. He tells me to send him an invoice on Friday, (last Friday, to be exact) so I send it, and, um, poof. Gone. No response to the mail with the invoice in it. Not on Friday, not on Saturday, not the following Monday or Tuesday or even Wednesday. Not a word. I mailed him at least 5 times over the course of that week, and I even went so far as to mail a friend of his that we've both worked with in the past to ask him where the hell this asswipe is. "His laptop's down. Don't mail me about it anymore." Thanks. Wonder how many other pissed-off contract workers he's had to fend off because his friend's a deadbeat. Anyway, I don't hear a word from Douchebag for six whole days, and I'm about to pull the content from the webspace when hey! Guess who decides to show up. Yup, you guessed it - the English major.
"i'm very disappointed with being pressured to pay. did you think i was trying to duck you? i would never do that and it took you so long to get this work done, i decided that making you wait a week to get paid would suffice considering. oh and my laptop has been down. did you not consider that?"
Good lord.
So to sum it up, I lose it on this fuck. I tell him a lot of things in the email battle that is about to take place, but I think the finest paragraphs I typed in response to him went as such -
"So tell me - what am I supposed to think and do when the very same thing seems to be happening again? I finish a large section of the work and ask for a payment, and you disappear. If you tell me you weren't ducking me, then I believe you, but what was I supposed to do? Just forget it about it and hope that it worked itself out somehow? This is a part of my income we're talking about here, and if it takes chasing someone down to get monies that I am owed, then that's what I'm going to do. Talk to any collections department in any business in the world, and I assure you that that's exactly what they would have done if a client appeared to have gone delinquent when a payment was due.
You communicated absolutely nothing to me at all for almost a week. I understand that your laptop was down for 3 days, and I sympathize, but you said nothing to me for twice that long. I shouldn't have to feel like I have to contact a friend of yours that has absolutely nothing to do with the situation at all in order to try and get in touch with you. It makes me look like the bad guy of the situation, something that I really don't appreciate.
I don't owe you the benefit of the doubt when you go delinquent again when it comes time to make a payment. You seem to think I do, but I don't. Believe me - I wouldn't take up my precious time to make an issue of it if I didn't see it happening in the very same way over and over again.
Good luck with the site."
I'm a very, VERY calm and laid-back person, so for me to write something like this and stick up for myself to this degree isn't really something that happens too often. To be honest, I'm expecting the fucker to show up on my doorstep with a pickaxe or some shit. Remember, "he lives right around the corner" from me. Jesus.
So we go up and back with this nonsense for about a day and a half, and finally, I tell him to cram it. When I get my check, I'll hand over every last bit of information and file content pertaining to the job I've been doing for him, and that will be that. I'm done with his deadbeat Houdini ass. He keeps trying to bully me with the typical East Coast wiseguy macho man horseshit that's really starting to get on my nerves after almost three years, (why does every young male in this state deliberately try and make themselves resemble Denny Terrio?) but I finally acquiesce to the fact that I'm not going to be able to get the last word here and just stop communicating with him. Done. Kaput. One more check, and this illiterate broke-ass Soprano abortion is out of my life forever. Good riddance.
I still might keep a copy of the login information to his webspace, though. Anyone got any good gay porn they need hosted?
I had to cut ties with such a client today, and man, I couldn't be happier now that it's done. I started this business relationship at the beginning of 2006 with this guy that we'll call Douchebag, mainly because that's his name. Or at least it should be. Douchebag was fine at first - he wanted a fairly simple project done, and was willing to pay me to do it when I had the time. Being that I really needed the money at the time, I was more than willing to take his business. I finished the project in a fairly reasonable amount of time, and he seemed really happy with what I had done. He was a little weird around the edges, though - he kept referring to himself as "Snapper Hunter" and "Sure Shot" in his emails, and kept insisting to me like I was his best buddy that "white people are kinda becoming the minority here dont you think?" We've all run into some weirdos in the workplace, but to be honest, I didn't really care. He seemed like a decent guy, and up to that point, he had been really patient and helpful.
Then, it was time for me to get paid.
I sent him an invoice for my work once he had approved it, and poof - the guy disappears. Never returned my emails, nothing. He basically just dropped off the face of the planet. I was just about to remove the work I had done for him from the web (yes, it was a design job) when I hear from him, apologizing profusely and telling me how sorry he was for his absence and that "he had been working very hard". Ok, whatever. Shit happens. I re-send the invoice, and he tells me that he'll send me a check.
Weeks go by. No check. My mailbox is about ready to tell me to go get a hobby with how I often I was looking inside it, so I begin round two of emailing Douchebag, asking him where my check was.
"i sent it you should have it by now if not let me know. sorry for the hardship it might have caused you. thanks so much for your canny and hard work. I have received nothing but compliants on the site."
Yeah. Whatever the fuck that means. So finally I get my check, but by that time, I had already told Douchebag that it had probably gotten lost in the mail, and that he should cancel it. So yay me, right? I finally have my check, but the shit has been cancelled. You guessed it - time for Douchebag to send a new check.
So he pulls another disappearing act for a little while, but after yet another salvo of emails from me, he finally tells me that he's sent another check. "ok i have sent another check. kinda weird that this has taken so long because you live right around the corner from me." Oh, really? Fascinating. I have to go out that afternoon to get a new door lock because of how fast I broke my old one trying to get it locked. Shudder.
So I get my check, project's done, yadda yadda. Six months go by.
"hey long time no see! i have another project for you interested?"
Oh christ. Being the sucker that I am, (the broke sucker) I say yes, and the shit begins again. It had a few new features this time around, though - he'd change his mind every few days about what he wanted, he tells me to "bear with him" on getting paid because he's sent the site out for review to a few of his friends, I'm being impersonal and unprofessional because I prefer to keep my business relationships to email rather than over the phone, blah blah blah. The guy's named Douchebag for a reason, you dig?
So by this time, it's the holidays, and I've had WAY too much of his shit to let it spoil my time with the family. Douchebag is in his continual state of changing his mind, so I let his not-really-worth-it-in-the-first-place project slide for a while. I go out of town for a while on a business trip, and I don't hear word one from him. I start to feel bad when I get back, so I tell him that I'll get back to work on his shit as soon as I possibly can. The usual holiday chaos has broken loose, so that eats up a ton of my time, and yes, I will admit - I let his project slip by without much progress for far longer than I should have. I KNEW what kind of an idiot this guy was, and what I should've done is just knock the fuckin' thing out over the course of a weekend just so I could be done with it. I couldn't really do that, though, mainly because the fuckstick couldn't decide what the hell he actually wanted. I definitely blew it off for far too long, but you know those times where you know you have something to do, but you just don't give enough of a shit about it just up and do it? Yeah.
So now it's around the beginning of the year, and Douchebag and I have finally arrived at a point in the project where we need to take a look at what's been completed, and decide where we need to go from there. It's been quite a while since he initially asked me to do the damn thing, so I do the unthinkable and actually ask to get paid for what's been completed. I think you probably know what's coming next.
Yup, he disappears. I send him an invoice, and it's like the fucker's full name is Douchebag Houdini. He tells me to send him an invoice on Friday, (last Friday, to be exact) so I send it, and, um, poof. Gone. No response to the mail with the invoice in it. Not on Friday, not on Saturday, not the following Monday or Tuesday or even Wednesday. Not a word. I mailed him at least 5 times over the course of that week, and I even went so far as to mail a friend of his that we've both worked with in the past to ask him where the hell this asswipe is. "His laptop's down. Don't mail me about it anymore." Thanks. Wonder how many other pissed-off contract workers he's had to fend off because his friend's a deadbeat. Anyway, I don't hear a word from Douchebag for six whole days, and I'm about to pull the content from the webspace when hey! Guess who decides to show up. Yup, you guessed it - the English major.
"i'm very disappointed with being pressured to pay. did you think i was trying to duck you? i would never do that and it took you so long to get this work done, i decided that making you wait a week to get paid would suffice considering. oh and my laptop has been down. did you not consider that?"
Good lord.
So to sum it up, I lose it on this fuck. I tell him a lot of things in the email battle that is about to take place, but I think the finest paragraphs I typed in response to him went as such -
"So tell me - what am I supposed to think and do when the very same thing seems to be happening again? I finish a large section of the work and ask for a payment, and you disappear. If you tell me you weren't ducking me, then I believe you, but what was I supposed to do? Just forget it about it and hope that it worked itself out somehow? This is a part of my income we're talking about here, and if it takes chasing someone down to get monies that I am owed, then that's what I'm going to do. Talk to any collections department in any business in the world, and I assure you that that's exactly what they would have done if a client appeared to have gone delinquent when a payment was due.
You communicated absolutely nothing to me at all for almost a week. I understand that your laptop was down for 3 days, and I sympathize, but you said nothing to me for twice that long. I shouldn't have to feel like I have to contact a friend of yours that has absolutely nothing to do with the situation at all in order to try and get in touch with you. It makes me look like the bad guy of the situation, something that I really don't appreciate.
I don't owe you the benefit of the doubt when you go delinquent again when it comes time to make a payment. You seem to think I do, but I don't. Believe me - I wouldn't take up my precious time to make an issue of it if I didn't see it happening in the very same way over and over again.
Good luck with the site."
I'm a very, VERY calm and laid-back person, so for me to write something like this and stick up for myself to this degree isn't really something that happens too often. To be honest, I'm expecting the fucker to show up on my doorstep with a pickaxe or some shit. Remember, "he lives right around the corner" from me. Jesus.
So we go up and back with this nonsense for about a day and a half, and finally, I tell him to cram it. When I get my check, I'll hand over every last bit of information and file content pertaining to the job I've been doing for him, and that will be that. I'm done with his deadbeat Houdini ass. He keeps trying to bully me with the typical East Coast wiseguy macho man horseshit that's really starting to get on my nerves after almost three years, (why does every young male in this state deliberately try and make themselves resemble Denny Terrio?) but I finally acquiesce to the fact that I'm not going to be able to get the last word here and just stop communicating with him. Done. Kaput. One more check, and this illiterate broke-ass Soprano abortion is out of my life forever. Good riddance.
I still might keep a copy of the login information to his webspace, though. Anyone got any good gay porn they need hosted?
posted by Yummsh at 3:15 PM - Permalink
holla back, girls! - (0) comments thus far
