Dungeon Master Forum

This is a rant, just need to get it out of my system. Feel free to ignore!!!!

• A deposit means you pay me up front to start work, not pay me at the end of the project.
• Payment due date means exactly that, not six months from now.
• You don't get to have a design "for free" because you changed your mind about what you wanted.
• Zero Budget plus Deadline "Yesterday" is not a viable proposition. Come back when you've visited planet Earth.
• No, Mr.House Builder, I can't build you a website for £50. Can you build me a house for that?
• Mr. Project Manager, thank you for getting back to me after your six month disappearance. No, I can't complete that old unfinished project tomorrow.
• Mr.Definite Project, thank you for the opportunity to allocate your project in my schedule and then have it cancelled at the last minute. Please now find me some work to replace yours, kthxbai!

Having to deal with this on a daily basis is making me much more agrressive than I would like and I'm getting really tired of it. It seems harder and harder to find good clients. I have some plans afoot to improve that, but it all takes time. Hopefully by this time next year I won't be complaining about these kinds of things!

NNote to self: deep breath, *think positive*, deep breath, *think positive*, deep breath, *think positive*, deep breath, *think positive*....

Yeah, customers and clients suck

There's something about the stupid demands and deadlines of others that seems to be filtering down to everyone now. At least if you stay positive, you aren't passing it along to anyone who will rely of you or custom.

And if they say something about 'the client is the king', tell them about a guillotine

Aargh. I don't effin' believe it!

I'm doing some work for a regular client. Against my better judgement I might add! In the past, I've only invoiced upon completion of his projects, but this causes all sorts of cash flow problems. So now I insist on deposits for all work. It's been virtually impossible to get this client to give me a deposit, yet he still expects the work done. So I did a small amount of the work to keep the relationship sweet (I wouldn't normally do this, but there's supposedly another big project riding on the back of this small job.)

He says last week that he finally has money to pay the deposit, but I checked today and it's still not been paid. He went on holiday at the weekend and is expecting me to finish and upload this work while he's away this week. Yeah, right!

I know he's checking his emails while on hols, so I emailed him politely saying "I checked my account and the deposit for XYZ doesn't seem to have been paid yet. I know the bank holiday might have messed things up, but if it's not been paid yet, could you please arrange this ASAP? Many thanks."

He just replied from his iPhone (*) saying "I honestly can't remember if I paid it. I paid a load of stuff just before I went away.I will check when I get back. Not a lot I can do on the iPhone bankwise..."

Bloody **** nonsense. Project on hold mate!

It's simple: Show me the money or nothing gets done.

(*) so you can splash out on a fancy new phone, but can't pay me a few hundred quid to kick off your project?

And yet he probably thinks he's being a good businessman messing you around like that!

Come to think of it, ALL his other payments have been late!

It's a sign of the times, everyone is delaying as long possible to settle invoices. But I ned to put food on the table, or I can't do their work at all. Muppets!

On the assumption that the money would clear today, I was going to get up early and finish his work. Not any more!

Do you record this stuff in a spreadsheet or anything? Client, contract value due and payment date?
You'd build up a cold view of a client, and maybe realise that a couple of the disagreeable unwashed ones pay on time.

I would say you need a FAQ, but I think you need a FABE (Frequently Assumed But Erroneous)

assumption: "I can pay him next week, he won't mind"
Response: "Sure, I can wait until next week to eat, and I'm sure my landlord won't kick me out in the street for not paying rent... you@#$%^@!!"

.....

Gambit37 wrote:This is a rant, just need to get it out of my system. Feel free to ignore!!!!

• A deposit means you pay me up front to start work, not pay me at the end of the project.
• Payment due date means exactly that, not six months from now.
• You don't get to have a design "for free" because you changed your mind about what you wanted.
• Zero Budget plus Deadline "Yesterday" is not a viable proposition. Come back when you've visited planet Earth.
• No, Mr.House Builder, I can't build you a website for £50. Can you build me a house for that?
• Mr. Project Manager, thank you for getting back to me after your six month disappearance. No, I can't complete that old unfinished project tomorrow.
• Mr.Definite Project, thank you for the opportunity to allocate your project in my schedule and then have it cancelled at the last minute. Please now find me some work to replace yours, kthxbai!

Having to deal with this on a daily basis is making me much more agrressive than I would like and I'm getting really tired of it. It seems harder and harder to find good clients. I have some plans afoot to improve that, but it all takes time. Hopefully by this time next year I won't be complaining about these kinds of things!

NNote to self: deep breath, *think positive*, deep breath, *think positive*, deep breath, *think positive*, deep breath, *think positive*....

Just think 'happy' thoughts...

(I'm gonna stick a VIRUS in his data sheet programming. Grrrrrr!)

seriously, you should put something like this up on your website perhaps a bit more polite.. but honestly I don't think they really get it at all otherwise.. they may assume other people pay you enough to keep yourself in order.. they likley had no clue!

I have a completely new website in the works (two of them in fact!) which will address the "client education" issue, with a whole section of useful articles including my processes. Just no time to implement at the moment!

I have a completely new website in the works

Great news!

with a whole section of useful articles including my processes

I don't see the point of this section on the Dungeon Master Codex but why not.

I missed that response, Christophe. Nice

Ironically enough, once I get a full time job, I'll actually have a better schedule to devote to things like the Codex. Yes, I'm still working on it when I can

Anyway: Bloody hell. I just had a prospective client phone me at home at 2pm on a Sunday, needing some work done tomorrow. I had removed my phone number from my own website for exactly this kind of reason, but I forgot I still had it on my profile on a freelancers site. Still, that's hardly my fault -- I think it's pretty rude that a client would phone at the weekend; I'm not some kind of "always-on" web monkey.

Definitely need to get a full time job ASAP!

Are you sure that these two things are related? I've got a full time job, I'm paid from the national budget, but I'm still an "always-on" monkey too, staring at the stupid computer screen all the stupid weekend. Although it's my stupidity, perhaps.