Stupid Client Quote #4840

project manager | posted 10-19-2006 | Number of Votes: 43 | Current Rating: 4.63

I had a government agency client who was balking at our price for graphic design and layout for newsletters. (The project was a repeat, and we had simply multiplied the hours we spent on it the last time by our hourly rate.)

My boss reached a deal with the client; Rather than quote her a flat rate, we'd lay out one newsletter, deliver it, and tell her how long that one took/how much it cost.

My colleague laid out the newsletter until the client called off the project at 5.5 hrs. I returned from a vacation and emailed the client to ask for the PO # against which to bill the 5.5. hrs.

Short story, she goes ballistic. She tells me that she never authorized charges for this project, there's no contract for the project, no one told her we were going to charge, she never accepted delivery of the final artwork, etc. She honestly thought that my boss authorized my colleague to work on the newsletter just to see how long it was going to take. We already knew how long it was going to take. She really believed that a company that bills hourly did 2/3 of a day of work just for our records.