Top 20 Stupid Client Quotes

Back in the early 90's, I was working for a small business, when I overheard my Boss arguing with the IT girl over an upgrade to his computer in order to run a piece of software. She was telling him his machine needed more RAM...he was arguing that his machine had plenty of RAM, but needed more 'Meg'. Because of this, he was refusing to hand over the cash to pay for the memory upgrade because the IT girl 'obviously had no clue what she was talking about.' I eventually walked over and tried to help her explain that 'Meg' is short for 'Megabyte', which is an amount of RAM. I even went so far as to explain that what he was saying was he equivalent of "My car has plenty of gas, it just needs more gallons!" Eventually, after arguing for nearly 45 minutes, Boss man stamps out of the office to go buy his 'meg' himself. About an hour later he stamps back into the office with a satisfied smile on his face. At lunch, the IT girl told me what happened. He'd stamped into her office, slapped a 16mb SIMM on her desk and said "The idiot assistant at the store tried to tell me the same bullshit you did, but I spoke to his boss and he sorted it out." She showed me the envelope the RAM had come in, scribbled on the back was "16 megabytes of MEG". We learned a lot about how deal with the boss from that heroic computer store owner.

Designing a Tomato box, sent it out for approval.... Client: " The Tomatoes are not round enough. " Me: ( Revised the graphic and sent it out again for approval. ) Client: " Could you make it rounder? " Me: I'm sorry, the Tomatoes are perfectly circle. Client: " Ok, then make the circle rounder." Me: ................

About 20 years ago I worked for a company that coated steel in a coating to rust proof it (Galvanising). I met up with the client who turned out to be an artist, specifically he made clock sculptures, it was huge and wieghed maybe 10 tons. Client: So when can we ship this over to you to get the process done? Me: As soon as your ready, would you like us to make the holes or would you? Client: HOLES!?! NO-ONE is to make holes in MY artpiece! Me: Sir the sculpture needs to go into a giant vat of acid as part of the galvanising process, in it's current state it will just float on the surface. Client: Dont be silly, it weighs about 10 tons, of course it will sink! Me: No im sorry, due the shape it will act just like a boat, I think a few minor holes just here (pointing) and here... *slap* *client slaps my hand away* Client: Do you think i'm un-edcuated because im an artist!? I took physics at university! It will sink, NO HOLES do you understand? Me: *sigh* The Titanic did not sink until it had a hole, and I bet its a lot heavier than 10 tons. Client: *look of utter shock* I'll get the drill....

While between two IT jobs, I spent several months working behind the bar at a local pub. (I put this down as "acquiring good customer-facing skills" on my CV, though most software engineering roles do not require evicting agressive, drunk clients from the building.) One busy weekend, some of the bar staff failed to turn up, and the landlord tried to ring other temporary staff. After quarter of an hour receiving "number unobtainable" responses, he thrust a mobile phone and a notebook into my hands and said, "Keep ringing these numbers until the lazy ****s answer!" I replied, "Er, boss, these aren't telephone or mobile phone numbers. They're National Insurance [social security] numbers."

I used to be part of a phone support group for a large retail-photography company. I swear, some of those people had the same mental age as the children they were shooting. Now bear in mind, this is a *professional* photography studio. Both the $2000 camera and the $5000+ multiple-source lighting system have been painstakingly calibrated for exposure (brightness) and color balance. The lighting system has a loud, deliberately obnoxious alarm beeper that goes off whenever there's a problem with the flash, and you'd have to be blind not to see the flash going off. Despite all these precautions, I still got the following call at least twice a day: Caller: All my pictures came out totally black, can you fix it? Me: I'll see what I can do, did the flash go off when you took a picture? Caller: I think so, the beeper went off every time I pushed the silver button. Me: I'm sorry ma'am, that's the alarm. I can help you fix the lighting system, but you'll have to reshoot. Caller: But I can't, the family's already gone home while the mom picks out the pictures. Me: *facepalm* Caller: You can fix it though, it's a digital camera, right? Me, thinking [**Sure, let me just hop in my time-machine so I can magically recover all the light photons that never made it to your camera...**] Despite what CSI makes you think, no amount of retouching can fix a completely unexposed picture, no matter how expensive the camera is. Underexposed, yes. Unexposed, no.

"Hi, can you tell me what you did to fix my printer last time? I only ask because i don't want to pay you $50 to come and unplug it's power and then plug it back in again."

Got a call from a client of mine. We met previously so she could see my photography work (which she loved), then we customized a package for her wedding. She signed a contract and handed me a check for the retainer (50% of the total price, balance due upon completion of the work). Sue (not her real name): Hey, we made some changes to our wedding. I know it is in a few days, but we really need to cut the price in half. Me: [thinking it is kinda late to make changes, eh?] Well, tell me about the changes first and maybe there is something I could do. Sue: We need to cut the last half-hour from the six hours of coverage you were to provide. We decided not to have a DJ so the dancing shouldn't last very long. Me: You want to change the time of coverage from six hours to five-and-a-half hours? Sue: Yes. And we want you to cut your price in half. Me: Why? Sue: We really spent too much money on other things. Cue long discussion of the signed contract details and me telling her politely that they WILL have to pay the remaining 50% balance before I hand over the work.

Working in a call centre - inbound calls only - I got a call from a gentleman who said that he had a letter with our number on it. I ask him if he has any questions about the bill or any information on the letter, he says no, the letter told him to call this number. "So what can I help you with" "The letter said to call this number" "Yes?" This goes on for several minutes until I get him to pull out the letter and read what it says. 'If you have any questions, please call this number' Ok, quoth I, do you have any questions? No, but the letter said to call you. I explained what our number was for, what the bill was about, and this just made him more frustrated. "I KNOW all about the bills, but the letter told me to call this number" "So what can I help you with?" "The letter told me to call you!"

I currently work as a contractor doing phone support for a mid- size east coast bank. I find it scary that some of the people who call us handle other peoples' money. Among all of the horror stories I have of users calling in, this one takes the cake so far: We get a lot of phone calls from users coming back from vacation or disability and they forget their passwords. On this day, I got a phone call from an older woman saying she needed her LAN password reset. The conversation went like this: Me: "Hello [insert bank name here] help desk, this is me speaking, can I have your employee number? User: [gives employee number] Me: And how can I help you today? user: i need my password reset for [network client] Me: OK, no problem, I just need to verify your information. Could I have the first 5 of your SSN? User: *5 keypad tones are heard* me: Oh, I'm sorry ma'am, this is not a computer speaking. I need you to verbally tell me these numbers. User: Oh ok *enters her numbers into the phone again* (At this point I had my head in my hands because it was obvious this woman was oblivious to what I was telling her.) Me: I'm sorry ma'am, but you need to SPEAK into the telephone and verbally tell me the first 5 of your SSN. User: Oh my goodness, I'm sorry *tells me her info* Me: Ok, and your date of birth? User: *keypad tones* Me (thinking): AAAAARRRRRGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I worked in a drug store (pharmacy in NZ) printing 1 hour photos through a mini lab. customer: These photos you just printed for me are blurry. print them again and do it properly this time. me: Um.. that means your originals are probably blurry, we can't fix this sorry, leave the prints if you like and there will be no charge. customer: They were fine when I took them. me: Can I have a look at your camera? I find picture in camera, zoom in and show the customer how blurry her photo is and tell her there is nothing my computer or printer can do to fix this. Customer goes and complains to the shop supervisor. I get told off for not ordering and installing software that can fix blurry photos.

I am a consultant for a small IT firm. Customer calls me frantically about an issue with email. Cust: Email is down can you come out to take a look at whats wrong. Me: I will be there in about 2 hours because I am on-site at another client. Cust: No no we need you right now we are down and losing money. Me: Ok let me find someone to finish up some of this and I will be right over. I get there about 30 min after the phone call. Me: How long has the email been down? Cust: Its been down for about 2 hours. Me: Ok lets seen what the problem is After taking a look at the server they were running the whole exchange environment on a single HDD. But I thought there can be no way that any tech group would allow this to happen. So then i called the main office to talk to a previous tech that had been out about a month ago to fix some other issues. He told me he a signed letter explaining that if they ran there setup on one hdd that we would not be liable for any damages or litigation pertaining to the lost hardware. I talked to the customer explaining that all of the exchange logs, and database were on this damaged drive and that it failed and all of the data would have to be restore from tape. Cust: We dont have any backups. Me: Walk out the door.

A colleague of mine worked in IT support for a company with several office locations. Each office had laserjet printers that they printed receipts from. Each and every week without fail a certain store location would call him to report that they were having problems and could not print. The problem was that when paper was being added to the printer the drawer was not being shut properly and the printer would beep to alert that the drawer needed to be shut. Frustrated at the fact that no one seemed to remember this no matter how many times he told them, he sent out a memo. The memo was received and still he received call after call about the printer beeping and not printing. So during the next support call he advised the person calling in that he had a method to solve the problem but needed their help and he could all but guarantee that this would happen again. Here was the solution.... He asked the gentleman on the other end help him by putting the monitor of the computer into an office chair. He explained that he needed him to pull the computer out from under the under the desk to give some slack in the cords he then asked them to push the monitor in front of the computer so that he could see the printer through the screen. The employee struggled with the computer a bit, put the monitor in an office chair and pushed the monitor in front of the printer. He explained that the monitor had to be set just the right angle. He proceeded to have the employee adjust the screen to be "exactly lined up with the printer". After several minutes of "a little to the left" and "tilt the screen down" he said "AHA! I see exactly what the problem is!" "You need to shut the door on the printer". He heard a click on the other end and needless to say he was right, it fixed the problem once and for all.

Client: Okay, here's the design for the catalog pages. The graphics need to fit into this (400x600) rectangle. Me: But all of your graphics are 400 by 400 squares. Client: Yes, we need you to make them be 400 by 600, but we don't want you to crop or stretch them. Me: I can center them in the area, but it isn't possible to turn a square image into a rectangle without cropping or stretching it. Client: Why not?

It's 2001 and my wife (to-be) and I walk into a local Farm/shooting supplies/IT store that specialise in selling overpriced computers to gullible farmers. They also 'fix' them. My wife is a Pre-school teacher and I am an IT tech support guy, so naturally, I strolled off to look at the guns(!!). My wife wandered over to look up the price on some printer cartridges and overheard one of their IT specialists telling a distraught customer that their computer was fundamentally broken and that they would need to have the motherboard replaced for around £200 including labour and VAT. My wife silently peered at the screen: "NON-SYSTEM DISK OR DISK ERROR". You know what happens next. Whilst the customer and the tech were distracted discussing the price of the repair, she ejected the diskette from the floppy drive and pressed the reset button. My wife simply walked away unnoticed as the computer promptly booted into the Windows 2000 logon screen without any issue. I remember us both stifling chuckles like children as we made our exit from the store watching a delighted customer and a perplexed tech who was now trying to explain that this must have been some kind of glitch. We nearly wet ourselves laughing and have yet to buy a single item from that store nearly a decade later.

A frustrated client, who had recently been promoted in his organisation, emailed me last week to ask why his firm were spending £1000.00 a month on paperclips! Confused – I emailed back letting him know we acted as their digital agency and did not provided their stationary. He emailed me back; suggesting I was wrong, as his Finance Director had specifically mentioned our company looked after their paperclips on a monthly basis... The penny dropped, after much laughing I emailed him his Pay Per Click online advertising report Genius

Creative director/designer (me) and my business associate met to present changes to a logo design that client's new employee had us make--against our strong advice. The proposed logo change resulted in unwieldy asymmetry--something that was going to cause issues down the road in printing, specialty items, banners, stationery, and all manner of layouts/designs. I showed the two proposed versions with the "grid" that the shapes formed. Client interrupts, impatient. "You're thinking like a designer," the client scolded me. I, never at a loss for words: "........................?" (Ummm, yeah... Isn't that why your boss hired, hmmm, I dunno, a DESIGNER?)

When I used to work in the special projects divisions of a large international company: Project: PowerPoint presentation to be used for end of year report for the top dogs at the firm. (Each section was created for a different VP) VP: Hands me a blank piece of paper. "I need this chart put into the PowerPoint presentation tonight." Me: It's a blank page. VP: Of course it is. The information on that chart is confidential! (I don't know why he bothered to hand me a blank piece of paper...I was very tempted to put a page into his section of the PP presentation with the words - confidential chart to go here).

I have had my company mobile for nearly 2 years, out of the 50 odd calls I've had, only 3 were legitimate, the rest were wrong numbers. This is a transcript of the one man who has called me more than 35 times. Me: Hello, XXX IT, XXXX speaking, how can I help? Random: Is that Brian? Me: No, this is XXXX Random: Are you sure? Me: I should think I am. I've never been called Brian, and there isn't a Brian involved with this mobile Random: Oh, can you put me through to him? Me: No, as there isn't a Brian here, or in XXX IT Random: Now I know you're lying, this is the number he gave me, now put him on the phone! Me: I'm sorry, you've got the wrong number Random: NO I HAVE NOT! BRIAN GAVE ME THIS NUMBER Me: Then Brian got the wrong number Random: I THINK HE KNOWS HIS OWN MOBILE NUMBER Me: On the current evidence, I would say he doesn't, I cannot help, goodbye. *click* ---- He rings back, I don't answer. ---- 12 (!) calls later he gives up. Then calls back the next day: Me: I'm sorry you've got the wrong number, you rang yesterday several times. Random: THIS NUMBER WAS GIVEN TO ME SO PUT ME THROUGH Me: *click* He has since called back several more times.

My business is making house calls to do computer repair. The customers original issue was no audio from her new computer. After speaking with a Dell service rep for over an hour the customer called me. I drove to her house, sat down in front of her computer and looked at the setup for about 10 seconds. "Ma'm", I said, "Where are your speakers?" The Dell service rep had never even asked her.

I do PC tech support for a company with multiple locations. We try to get users at distant locations (3-6 hours drive) to ship us their problem PCs and use a spare they keep on-site. One lady at another site apparently saves her problem PCs until she has a bunch. I was talking to her about some issues on one PC that day and she said she would ship it out the next day. Then she said, "Wait, I think I've got another one so I'll ship them both." Good thinking on her part because it saves some shipping costs. Two days later I stopped by our receiving department and sure enough, there was a large box waiting for me. I'm not in bad physical condition, but the box was almost too heavy for me to lift. I had to get help to put it on a pair of handtrucks just to drag it back to our work room. Imagine my surprise when I open it and find EIGHT PCs crammed into one box! I'm just glad I didn't get the free hernia that was included... ;^)