We finish a garage build for a family, and throughout the entire project, the woman we deal with is a dream client. Warm, grateful, praising every little thing we do. She acts like the sort of person you feel like you’ve known for years. It helps that we all live in the same little village, so being neighbourly comes natural.

A week later, a card arrives in the post (a picture of Jesus on the front) with a handwritten note inside:

Card: “Thank you for the clean, efficient job. We’re so happy with the work. Could you send some business cards? I’d love to share your name with my friends at church.”

We return the thanks and send some business cards. Weeks pass. No payment. No panic, though; she’s that kind of kind, trustworthy client. After a month, I give her a call. She answers cheerfully, chats away like we’re old mates. After a few minutes, I finally mentioned:

Me: “Just giving a friendly reminder about the payment for the garage.”

Client: *Matter-of-factly.* “Oh! Yes. We’ve decided not to pay you.”

Me: “…sorry?”

Client: “Well, the job was completed too quickly.”

A few seconds of pure silence from me. She isn’t joking. She’s fully serious. 

I hang up and spend the next half hour staring at a wall, trying to process the fact that Jesus-on-a-card lady has just told me she’s refusing to pay because… we were efficient? 

Finally, I pick up the phone and call her back.

Me: “Right. I’ll be down at first light tomorrow to take the garage down.”

Twenty minutes later… thunk. Letterbox snaps shut. A cheque slides onto the floor, paid in full.

I still have the thank-you card.

A brief summary of the conversations over the last month:

Me: “So, how much of your data do you need to migrate?”

Client’s Head of IT: “Should just be some person records, some company records. That about right [Operations Manager]?”

Client’s Operation Manager: “Yeah, not even. Just a subset of that.”

Me: “So it’s just flat data? Like one row for one person, no linked tables?”

Client’s Head of IT: “Correct. And we don’t even need much there, just the basic name, address, phone number, etc will do.”

Me: “How clean is the data? Are you sending all of it and expecting us to clean it, or are you sending just the stuff you want to keep?”

Client’s Head of IT: “Oh, we definitely don’t want that in the new system, so we will just send over the parts we want.”

Me: “Are you sure? Are you absolutely doubly sure? Pinky promise, no take-backsies?”

Client’s Head of IT: “Yeah, but tell you what, let’s have a call next week with our data guy.”

Today:

Data Guy: “Yeah, so we have two unique databases we need to merge, one in India and one in England. Hundreds of thousands of people and client records, millions of contact log records. For each worker, there will be around a hundred unique fields that need to be mapped, and for each worker, around a thousand records for previous work history and communication logs, an unknown amount of documents, but let’s say at least 20 PDFs per person. There are around two hundred directly relevant tables, but a lot more that could be useful.”

Me: “Do you want some of this or all of it?”

Data Guy: “…yes? Obviously everything. We need this import so that you can perform a data cleanse, fix duplicates, fill in missing info, sort it properly, etc., as we don’t have the capacity to do it ourselves.”

I should know better at this point, I fall for it every time.

I was working as a sign painter’s apprentice years ago, and we did a bunch of hand lettering work for a local church, the main sign out front, their van, and on their main glass doors.

My boss slams down the phone and, red in the face, spins around in his chair.

Boss: “That was the minister. He says he’s not paying. Said there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Me: “After three months of excuses? Seriously?”

Boss: “Oh, there’s something we can do about it. Are you willing to meet me here tomorrow at 2 AM?”

Me: “Uh… I’m getting paid?”

Boss: “Of course!”

Me: “Then yes.”

The next night, it’s quiet; the whole village is asleep. We ride our bikes under the cover of darkness, backpacks clinking with supplies. We stop in front of the church, the van glinting in the streetlight, the proud glass doors gleaming with the hand-painted lettering we’d worked so hard on.

Boss: *Pulling out four cans of Easy-Off.* “God may forgive, but oven cleaner won’t.”

We spray everything. Every careful brushstroke, every letter, until the paint bubbles and melts. Then we rinse it all down with a weed sprayer. By the time we’re done, the signs look like blank slates, as if we’d never been there at all.

Me: *Chuckling as the paint washes into the gutter.* “Guess he was right, there’s nothing we can do, but we can undo.”

Back at the shop, we crack open a couple of beers and lean back, watching the clock tick past 4 AM.

Boss: “That’s that. If he calls, I’ll tell him to pray on it.”

He never did call. Six months later, the local paper carried the headline: “Minister Charged with Embezzlement, Removed from Position.”

A couple of years ago, I was an art director at a local creative agency; branding, digital campaigns, websites, the usual. One of our bigger accounts was a well-known travel site (let’s call them Big Travel Co.), and my point of contact was their country marketing manager.

One afternoon, my phone lights up.

Client: “I looked at the mock-ups, and the colors are all wrong. Especially our core brand color, the [main brand color] is completely off!”

Me: “Got it. Could you send me the mock-up you’re looking at so I can check?”

I’d built that mock-up myself. I was certain I pulled the exact RGB/hex values straight from their brand guidelines. Still, I open the file, sample the swatches, compare against the guidelines, and even cross-check their website and recent campaigns. Perfect match.

I call her back.

Me: “I double-checked. These are precisely your brand colors; same values as the guidelines, same as your site.”

Client: “No, they’re wrong. I’m looking at them right now. They look… off. Like, washed out.”

Washed out? A terrible suspicion starts to form.

Me: “Could you check your monitor settings?”

Client: “I don’t know how to do that.”

We spiral into a long, circular debate about color, where I (patiently) troubleshoot and she (confidently) implies I don’t know my job. My creative director drifts in and out of the conversation like a concerned weather pattern. Eventually, we agreed to meet in person.

A couple of days later, she arrives at our office, sets down an ancient, battle-scarred ThinkPad, and opens the file.

Client: “See? The colors are all wrong!”

I glance at the screen. It looks like the 1990s called and asked for its VGA palette back.

Me: “Your display is limited to a very narrow color range. That’s why everything looks washed out. On a modern monitor, the [main brand color] renders exactly as specified. Here—look at it on my screen.”

She peers at my monitor. The <main brand color> is bright, brand-correct, and blissfully not-sad.

Client: “…I see.”

We delivered the full campaign shortly after. Feedback was minimal.

When brand colors are “wrong,” sometimes it’s not the branding. It’s the time machine you’re viewing them on.

This is an email conversation with a client about logging in to the service my employer offers. This happened long ago, when automatic password changes were not yet so common.

Client: “I cannot log in.”

Me: *The same day.* “What happens when you try to log in? If you get an error message saying ‘Incorrect username or password’, please contact your administrator for password reset.”

Two days later:

Client: “I still cannot log in. The password is correct.”

Me: *The same day.* “Can you please describe in detail what happens when you try to log in? Does the page freeze, or do you get some error message? If you get an error message saying ‘Incorrect user name or password’, please contact your administrator for password reset. A reset is the only way to get around this error message.”

Three days later:

Client: “I’m still unable to log in. My work is piling. The error message says ‘Incorrect user name or password’, but the password is correct.”

Me: *The same day.* “The only way to get around the error message saying ‘Incorrect user name or password’ is to contact your administrator for a password reset. Even if you are writing the password correctly.”

Two days later:

Client: “Okay, I’ll try that. But the password is correct!”