Client from Hell

(Part 1 of 2) Before I start, I'm well aware that this is a tad unprofessional, but I [i]really[/i] need to vent about this guy. I work about forty hours a week as a graphic designer on a three person team for a large format printing and design service that my university runs. We do things like design and print posters and other marketing materials for student organizations, faculty departments, and other entities within the university community. Every now and then, we run into some idiots. Our brochure, which is widely available around campus, makes it pretty clear what services we offer and what our limitations are. Many people tend to play dumb about that information despite making it obvious they [i]have[/i] it already what with knowing our contact information and such. One recent gentleman, however, took the cake recently. I was alone in my office around closing time one afternoon, when the staff from an additional department we share our space with sent a potential client back to see me. I'm not too happy when they do this; it was 5:55pm, and I was scheduled to leave at 6:00pm. However, because I'm such a nice guy, I didn't tell the man to bugger off and come back another day. So the man, without so much as saying a word to me, stumbles into my office. His posture and gait made him nearly seem drunk, but I knew better. He sits down and stares at me for a moment, a long moment. After several seconds of awkward silence, I finally asked "Can I help you?" "What do you people do here?" he asked in a thick African-sounding accent. I didn't appreciate such a vague question, but I answered as politely and thoroughly as one could imagine. He was silent the entire time, only nodding when I finished. "Okay," he said, and I handed him a brochure while he left. Cut to several days later, and I get a call on the office phone. Without issuing any kind of greeting, formal or informal, I'm met with, "Tell how to send file." "I'm sorry," I reply in confusion. "I'm sending you Powerpoint file, and you can print that, right?" the person asks. "Actually, we usually can't. Are you operating on a PC?" I ask, to which he answers in the affirmative, "Our operating system is Mac OSx. We've found that jumping back and forth between operating systems with Microsoft Office files tends to cause unwanted changes to the file's appearance and layout, so we avoid the problem by not accepting those file formats at all." He says a few things I don't understand, but he sound frustrated. "However," I say, "you can easily save the file as a PDF, and we can print that easily." "Yes, tell me how to do that," he says. "I'm not on a PC, so some things may be different, but I believe you simply go to 'File,' then 'Save As,' and then choose 'PDF' from the file type dropdown," I explain. He didn't understand, and I ended up having to repeat this explanation several times. I made the mistake at one point by suggesting that he save the file at 300dpi for print quality purposes, and one can imagine how well that went over. After about ten minutes on the phone with this man, I'm assuming he finally got it, because he simply answered "Okay," and then hung up. Several hours later, guess who pimp walks through my door? Yeah, Mr. Pseudo Drunk Guy ended up being the uncordial gentleman on the phone; I should have seen that coming. He sits down without saying hello, yet again, and asks if his file had been printed. I inform him that he never sent a file, and he nods. I kind of wonder if he even understood what I was telling him. Anyway, he informs me that he needs something printed at poster size and was unable to save the file as a PDF, and that a Powerpoint file would have to do. "You don't understand," I say, "it's not a matter of choice, we're unable to print from MS Office files without encountering problems." He nods, then reaches in his back and pulls out a ragged little laptop. He then stands up and walks around my desk, (invading my space) and plops his computer into my lap. "You figure it out for me then," he says. I'm angry at this point. I'm trying to be accommodating, but it isn't my damn job to walk this guy through the entire process. He's in college, and while he's somewhat old, he should know how to do this on his own. But I relent, and I sort through his disaster of a filing system to find the file he needs to print. Now, bear in mind that he told me he needed a single poster-sized print (about 24x36"). The file he had prepared for me was a 17-page Powerpoint presentation at letter size. I point this out to him, and he reassures me that he has a large poster board to mount it on. While it was completely irrelevant and didn't solve my dilema of his 17 page nightmare, I asked what size it was. He gives to me in meters, and tells me to convert it. Again, not my damn job, but I do it anyway. (It turned out to be some wonky size that is in no way standard. I kind of wonder if the material he has is legitimate poster board or foam core.) Anyway, I explain the 17-page problem. I give him his options; I can either print off the pages individually, or I can simply tile them onto a document at the size he needs. Before I can offer to design a proper poster for him, he asks for the costs of the first two options. I tell him, and he almost seems offended by the costs for the poster-sized option. Keeping that in mind, I assumed that he wouldn't go for the $25 design fee plus the price for the print that he was so offended by. So he goes for option number one: 17 letter-sized color prints, which he could have gotten anywhere. At this point, he's literally sitting right behind me and looking over my shoulder, watching me go through the entire process. I ask him to send me the file, and he opens up his laptop. Sure enough, he can't connect to the internet. He angrily asks me what's wrong, and I say, "I don't know; I'm not IT." I have to repeat that a few more times as he asking me how to configure the network and, of all things, what his password is. I hold back a frustrated sigh, and I ask if he has a flash drive he can put the file on, to which he says no. Alright, I say, and I send him to IT services on the next floor. A half an hour later, he comes back and asks if his poster has been printed yet. I remind him that he didn't order a poster, and no, because I don't have the file yet. So this idiot sits down behind MY desk again, and hovers over me as I check my work email for his file. "You didn't send the file," I say. Without saying anything, he drops his laptop back onto my desk, and he has me log onto his university email account, then attach and send the file myself. I want to kill this man at this point. So I download and set up the file, then send it to print. I take him to the register to cash him out, then hand him his prints. "What are these? This isn't what I asked for." he mutters, confused. "Yes, they are," I say in a stern voice. "We went over this. You gave me a multi-page document at the wrong size and unformatted to be printed on a poster. I gave you your options, and you chose this one." "No, no, no. This isn't what you do. You put things together, you design. Why didn't you design this for me?" he asks. I'm dumbfounded. Not once during this excruciating ordeal did he once even SAY the word 'design,' let alone indicate that it's what he wanted. Hell, he was pissed about the price of a poster print; I can't imagine how he would have reacted when I told him the cost of design plus print. [i][url=http://www.bungie.net/en-us/Forum/Post?id=59909963&path=2](To be continued)[/url][/i]