F*ck The Client

By

If you work in client service you’ll understand this more than if you don’t, and if you’re a client maybe you’ll take this as a hint that… well… I hate you. I don’t hate you as a person, though; I just hate you as a business person.

Somewhere between kissing your ass, faking my enthusiasm for our interactions, pretending to give a shit about your feedback, raising your kids, taking your car to get the oil changed, doing your laundry and wiping your ass – maybe I’ll take some time to find my balls again and take some sense of ownership of my own work back. Until that happens, I’m just going to keep letting you walk all over me, because you’re the client.

I kiss your ass on the daily. I tell you how “valuable your insights are” and how I’m “excited for our call tomorrow” that I’ve painstakingly had to schedule and reschedule numerous times, because you didn’t really look at your own schedule before telling me you were available and then you decided to add more people every day who you hadn’t realized should be in the meeting in the first place and are now conveniently not available at the time we already have booked. I’m one person. You’re now, five. You handle it and let me know when to call in. “My dial-in or yours?” Oh, and I’ll have my little agenda ready for you too because you can’t keep track of anything. Then, after our call that I’ve been looking forward to all week I’ll send you a recap of the call, because I know you weren’t really paying attention to anything as much as you pay attention to every little line item in the budget.

I suck up to you at any given opportunity. Most recently it was creating welcome signs for you and all your coworkers to greet you at the elevator in our building when you came in for a pitch that you’re not even paying me to put my time and resources towards. That, and swapping out products in the office for products that are your brand (that we don’t actually even use when you’re not here), adds the last dollop of lipstick to your butt cheeks. I hope you like sunset red.

I’m constantly doing more work than you pay for, because I need to keep our relationship going and pay the bills. You ask me to do things you could do yourself and are completely out of the scope of the contract. And then you have the nerve to critique them as if your ad hoc request has rounds of review attached to it. Are you fucking kidding me?

You ask me for honesty in my evaluation of your business, but I have to sugar coat everything when I really just want to tell you it’s awful. When we finally get to doing work together you critique my deliverables over and over again. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but the reason you hired me is because you don’t know how to do what I do. Usually your critiques are invalid and your creative direction is awful. If you do have good things to say, you’re all hugs and pats on the back in our meeting, but then when your boss doesn’t like it you completely throw me under the bus. You have no backbone and I’m your scapegoat. I love you too.

We say goodbye from our meetings with a hug or a handshake depending on how many interactions we have during the meeting, how many phone calls you’re on with me and how many times on our emails you’re above or below the Cc:. “It was so great to see you. Next time maybe we’ll have better weather! [LAUGH].” Time to bring the rest of the sandwich platter into the kitchen and get working on those meeting notes.

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