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As I was minutes away from leaving my home to go get a bagel breakfast sandwich from Bruegger’s Bagels, I got a phone call on my personal phone from a past client whose website has gone offline. Here’s a little bit of background about the services I render as a one-person WordPress web development agency: for the last five years, I’ve built websites for entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and start-ups.
My client who called today just happens to be one of the worst paying clients I’ve ever excepted money from. In short, my client insists on haggling about prices and questioning me about the services I offer even though they don’t understand what the services are. Sometime in 2021, this client acknowledged that they did not have the website expertise nor the time to manage the website for their brick-and-mortar business. The client approached me for help, and we talked discussing prices, fee schedules, and services I could provide. We agreed, and I sent them an estimate for a web care plan that could be paid for in multiple ways. The client read the estimate and did not respond to it, did not ask questions about it, and did not apologize for completely ignoring it when I reminded them of it today in April 2023. Sometime in the year 2022, when the same client’s website was having problems, and she needed someone to repair the website, migrated to a new Web post, and update some of the products on the website, I wrote the client another estimate. I think you can guess what happened with that estimate as well. You are correct if you guessed the client read the estimate, did not respond or ask a question about it, and did not apologize for completely wasting the unbilled minutes I spent producing the estimate for them.
Here we are; it’s April 20, 2023, and this client’s website is totally offline. They explained to me they got an auto-generated email that mentioned something along the lines of a plug-in that is causing a fatal error. To help you keep up with the story, let’s remember that approximately two years ago in the years 2021 in 2022, I offered this client a reasonably priced web care plan that would include me installing and testing plug-in and WordPress updates every Monday of every week forever — for the duration of them paying the recurring fee for the service. In short, what I’m saying is that the client who should have already been paying me to take care of their website has found themselves in a situation they could have avoided. In fact, I made it very very easy for them to choose for this exact situation not to happen to them.
It just doesn’t make any fucking sense. Why so much goddamn friction? Seriously. Imagine walking up to someone who’s starving and when you offered him a piece of bread, they ask if it’s white or wheat. Honestly, it feels like this person is trolling me on some level, except I know that they are very serious. I also know that they do all this rigmarole and bullshit because I allow it. I’m too nice. I am too helpful. I want so much for people to win that I entertain it.
Intuitively, I know that nice people can’t navigate the grown-up world successfully without setting and enforcing boundaries. We get eaten alive out here in our personal and professional lives. So, why did I pick up the phone? Why do I still pick up the phone when is client calls? I literally told them on the phone call this evening that I don’t understand why they give me so much friction. I’ll paraphrase what I said, “[name] do you understand that I want to help you with this problem? I genuinely do not understand why you give me so much friction about prices about listing out services. I don’t understand why you have such an issue trusting an expert to take care of the things that you don’t understand how to do.” Whatever she said after I said those things was not an apology or an admission… holy shit, I just realized I’ve been dealing with a narcissist. Holy geez another one sucked me in, and I didn’t even realize it.
The attributes matchup: the person has no sense of accountability; they regularly make an excuse before acknowledging where they are wrong or when they are the cause of a problem; they are willing to do much more asking and taking than they are giving; they feel entitled for people to do things for them; they disregard the value in another person’s time and money; the person lacks the ability to self analyze their behavior or operate from a place of being tone deaf. Bro, I gotta get out like David Kaluuya. Damn – those narcissists can be so freaking slippery, man!
I don’t want to say anymore because I may cost the line of speaking recklessly. I’m going to close off this post. Before I go, I’ll share that I spoke directly with this client via phone call and professionally reminded them of the multiple opportunities I gave them to trust an expert in their field to take care of their website.
I took three, unpaid hours to prepare two invoices for this client today. One invoice for troubleshooting and restoring an off-line website that is a one-time payment. The other invoice is for a recurring payment for webmaster duties on their website. Even after sending the invoices, my client still wanted to bicker about prices, and just the thought of the conversation we had following my sending those invoices is causing me to feel extremely pissed off. So, I’m going to this post right here and call it a night for the Internets and computers.
I like my journal. Now, I feel like I’ve gotten most of this off my chest, and I can sleep a lot more soundly because of the release. I’m at editing typos by the way. Nope, I’m going to sleep. Maybe I’ll let Grammarly do some cleaning up on the post in the morning. Hard maybe though.