It’s been a strange year, and a lot has happened. I’ve had many clients, some of which disappeared off the face of the Earth before I could get any money off them for the design mockups I sent them. But those ones paled in comparison to one client I (nearly) had early on.
Back then, the business was fresh and exciting. I didn’t know I was in over my head at that stage. I received a phone call from a startup company that wished me to create a website for them. It would be a website based on placing working holidaymakers from Australia in jobs in London.
Sounded fine, I thought. I went and saw them and discussed it. They were pretty nice people. They said they would pay me a little to start off ($250 I think it was) and that I would make a percentage of the profits. 
They complimented the Illawarra Directory, and said that they wanted their website to look similar to that. I was pleased, and went home feeling good about the project. So good that I made a design that day, because they wanted something for the next day – I did consider that somewhat demanding of them, considering I had other clients to work on as well, but I brushed it off and did it anyway. It was a good design. I was proud of it.
The next day they called me and asked me to come around again. They were close by, only in Shellharbour Village, so I obliged.
This time I wasn’t alone. There was another graphic designer there. She was really friendly, and I can only hope that she cut her own ties with this ridiculous company like I did.
Here’s where things began to go downhill.
They didn’t like my design. Apparently, they had decided that they wanted a “grungey” design instead of the sleek design I had given them, modelled off the Illawarra Directory. Okay, I thought, that’s fine. No dramas. I’ll use that design in some other way.
One of the ladies decided that she wanted Photoshop. She actually had me take her laptop home and install Photoshop onto it, and return it to her. Once I got back, the woman decided I needed to stick around for a while and help her use Photoshop. She’d never touched it before, but she wanted to participate in the website design for some bizarre reason.
Finally, I made an excuse that I was meeting another client that afternoon and had to leave.
The next business day, I received another phone call from the Photoshop n00b. She needed me to tell her how to do something. I think it was something to do with erasing a background from a photo. I did my best to explain to her how I achieved that, and then continued to work on another client once the phone call ended. The phone started to ring again. I answered, and the idiot had some other question that I answered, and hung up.
Then, she called again. I pressed “busy” on my phone. Then I switched off my phone.
When the day had ended I turned it back on, and I had two voicemail messages from her.
One of them was something along the lines of “Hi Natalie, I really need your help with Photoshop. I thought it would be easy to do things, but I’m having so much trouble. Can you call me ASAP?”
Yeah, she thought Photoshop was easy. Never mind that I learnt to use it through both trial and error and through my DIGITAL MEDIA CERTIFICATE IV course.
I sent her an email.
Hi,
I’m really sorry that I had to stop taking calls, but I’m really busy with three different websites and I work much better without distractions. I’d like to help you but honestly, I’m a terrible teacher and I’m only a web designer. I know how to do things, but it’s due to a lot of practice, classes and trial and error.If I had limitless time, and didn’t have to earn a living, I would happily teach it to you, but as it stands right now I just can’t afford to. If you want a website, I’ll make you a website, no problem. But I didn’t agree to be a Photoshop mentor as well. I’m sorry, but it’s just too much to handle.To help you out, here are some online tutorials for Photoshop that will easily do a better job than I could:
Regards,
Natalie
As you can see, I really thought it out. I even went to the trouble of seeking out tutorials for her.
Her response? (Red text is my comments)
I’m very sorry you have misunderstood our aim with requesting some help with Photoshop. We wanted to provide you with our ideas so that you could successfully design the website quickly to bring in the sales, which we would all proffer[sic] from.
We respect that you are busy with your other clients’ projects but our aim is to facilitate a team approach as we will be working partners for some time, and quite frankly we may need to teach one another skills from time to time to optimize the business. (What? Not for $250 upfront and a measly 2% profits, thank you bitch – you’re lucky I even gave you the time of day) I think it is best if we detract our partnership at this point as we are looking for someone who has the time for this project. (You mean someone who actually doesn’t object to being part of your little sweatshop operation?)
Thank you for the time that you have given so far and we both wish you well in your future business.
Best Regards
I simply replied “Good luck finding someone.”
They’d need it. Anyone that would do that for them would have to be someone completely unemployed and desperate for work.
I hope those girls’ business fails miserably. They don’t deserve anybody’s money if they think that’s a good way to treat well-meaning but naive people.
ticking them off as I go.
