Job gone bad /honor related
bobbydee
849 Posts
I've spent about 30 hours on a design project for someone that missed the printer today due to many changes on their behalf. All of these were changes to scheduling and ad space, not because of errors on my part.They now tell me they aren't happy with the look of the project at all, and want to take my work to someone else to be "fixed up", and I will be paid in part for what I have done.Do I give it to them and take the money? Or tell them to fuck off and take the moral victory. There is this poster, and a program for the back of 12 DL size folds. 
Comments
How is getting angry at your clients a moral victory? Is this your first professional job or something?
Freaky indecisive people are ubiquitous in all lines of work. Hope you bid the project hourly.
If you don't think they'll use you again then hold out for as many billable hours as possible. If they do come back then make it plain that you can't work on that basis next time and that changes cost time and money. It's a tough call. Only thing you can do is establish firm, written terms for your work with them. Of course, you have to do this before you start.
I parted company recently with a major client for exactly the same reasons. They are one of the largest entertainment companies in the world but their arrogant marketing people are idiots. One day jobs regularly turned into four day nightmares (impacting on properly paid work for other clients) and at the end they wouldn't pay the extra billable hours even though all the changes were their call and nothing to do with our design work. On top of that they'd regularly miss print deadlines and often we had to pick up the tab for ad space they hadn't used.
Ironically the company I'm talking about have started using us again on and off because no-one else will put up with their shit on a regular basis either. Now, every time a change comes through we specify how many extra hours that will add to the bill.