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ef907042
Community Member

What not to say to your customers.

This was the responce to my telling the freelancer that I didn't like the design of the work he was doing for me.   This really caught me off guard.

 

From Freelancer

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

 

FROM CUSTOMER:

This all came as a shock when i read his message to me.  I'm only hoping he found comfort in his heart after releasing his frustrations out on me.  He has blocked me and I can't even responce.  

16 REPLIES 16
petra_r
Community Member


Anthony F wrote:

This was the responce to my telling the freelancer that I didn't like the design of the work he was doing for me.   This really caught me off guard.


Were you asking for your money back? Whilst the freelancer's message to you is out of order, it would be interesting to know what prompted it.

 


Anthony F wrote:

He has blocked me and I can't even responce.  


No, but you could report him.

 


Petra R wrote:

Anthony F wrote:

This was the responce to my telling the freelancer that I didn't like the design of the work he was doing for me.   This really caught me off guard.


Were you asking for your money back? Whilst the freelancer's message to you is out of order, it would be interesting to know what prompted it.


Petra, I recently terminated a contract with a designer who had flat-out rejected and acted against several specific instructions, even after i had pointed them out again and asked for revision, disappeared for several days at a time, and spent about 4x the amount of time other designers had budgeted for the project doing unnecessary work (much of it things I had specifically instructed her not to do). 

 

Despite all that, I told her that I would pay for all of the hours she had worked thus far if she gave me the editable file in progress that day. She spent the rest of the day bombarding me with messages alternately begging and demanding that I give her perfect 5-star feedback, and it took me three days to ultimately retrieve the file.

 

Nutshell: it doesn't take much to trigger some people.

dzadza
Community Member


Tiffany S wrote:

Petra R wrote:

Anthony F wrote:

This was the responce to my telling the freelancer that I didn't like the design of the work he was doing for me.   This really caught me off guard.


Were you asking for your money back? Whilst the freelancer's message to you is out of order, it would be interesting to know what prompted it.


Petra, I recently terminated a contract with a designer who had flat-out rejected and acted against several specific instructions, even after i had pointed them out again and asked for revision, disappeared for several days at a time, and spent about 4x the amount of time other designers had budgeted for the project doing unnecessary work (much of it things I had specifically instructed her not to do). 

 

Despite all that, I told her that I would pay for all of the hours she had worked thus far if she gave me the editable file in progress that day. She spent the rest of the day bombarding me with messages alternately begging and demanding that I give her perfect 5-star feedback, and it took me three days to ultimately retrieve the file.

 

Nutshell: it doesn't take much to trigger some people.


and I do hope you reported her...
if she couldn't do the revisions properly, that means that she is probably just using stock graphics. apparently, quite a few "designers" on upwork do that - or use canva for their "designs"

tlsanders
Community Member

Sanja, it wasn't even that sort of thing. A lot of it was weird stuff. For instance, I asked her to do no more than 2-3 pages and let us review before she went any further. She did 7, and there was a lot that needed to be corrected. One of the problems with those 7 pages was that she had added a bunch of seemingly-random bolding to phrases that weren't at all what we would have wanted to emphasize. I asked her to remove it and to refrain from adding any bolding that wasn't in the original text. When she submitted the full draft, she had added a lot of bolding to the remaining 13 pages, and when I objected to that she went into a rage and told me she had planned to remove it in the final round of revisions.

dzadza
Community Member

...oh boy...
2-4 pages (or 1-2 spreads) is usually the standard - to establish the style. why would anyone do 7 - well, that's beyond me, lol

and why would a designer deal with the content - that's even bigger mystery.

unless... she wanted to add hours for those "revisions"...adding stuff and then you have to pay additional hours for removing stuff...

 

 

kbadeau
Community Member


Sanja D wrote:

...oh boy...
2-4 pages (or 1-2 spreads) is usually the standard - to establish the style. why would anyone do 7 - well, that's beyond me, lol

and why would a designer deal with the content - that's even bigger mystery.

unless... she wanted to add hours for those "revisions"...adding stuff and then you have to pay additional hours for removing stuff...

 

 


I like to do a whole chapter or maybe even the start of a few chapters, to make sure my choices are going to work with shorter/longer chapter titles, etc. I don't normally send all those over, but I *really* hate it when I'm working on a book and suddenly I get a super long recipe, or a long chapter title, or two straggler lines at the end of a chapter, etc.

It confuses me why freelancers are always so angry and ragey all the time. It's the greatest career choice ever and you're supposed to enjoy life much more. Yer girl went out last night and danced her butt off and bought chicks drinks and lemme tell you yer girl can still pull tail. I'm a happy little freelancer with no worries or cares at all. It's great.

dzadza
Community Member

let me tell you...sometimes clients can be a pure hell...
"I'm not in love with this" - example of a super helpful feedback I got just about a month ago 
"spice it up a bit"  - salt? pepper? jalapeno?
"I don't like the font - can you change it to something else?" - but, of course - there's only a few hundred thousand fonts available - and we have plenty of time...before my retirement...
"there's too much space",   - note - not negative space, not blank space...just....space...
"that white is not bright enough" - sure, let me invent supernova white - just for you

after a while, you learn to just laugh at those -  but even after 20+ years of freelancing and almost 30 doing all kinds of designs I can catch myself fuming when reading some of them...but I never let the client know - I'm just not available for their next project 😉

ef907042
Community Member

HI. No I did not ask for my money back, just wasn't happy with the design
and his lack of assistance in helping me set up my shopify store.
It was the strangest reaction I ever had. He ended up refunding me the
money (which I never asked him to do) and then wrote this message and
blocked me. I must say I was really caught off guard.
martina_plaschka
Community Member


Anthony F wrote:

This was the responce to my telling the freelancer that I didn't like the design of the work he was doing for me.   This really caught me off guard.

 

From Freelancer

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

 

FROM CUSTOMER:

This all came as a shock when i read his message to me.  I'm only hoping he found comfort in his heart after releasing his frustrations out on me.  He has blocked me and I can't even responce.  


Wow. I certainly hope that your feedback to him when ending the job will be honest. 

prestonhunter
Community Member

Anthony:

I'm sorry you experienced something like that here on Upwork.

 

That should not happen to any client, not matter what the client has said or done.

 

It helps all of us - freelancers and clients alike - when this kind of thing is reported, and when Upwork removes bad apples like that from the platform.

Well, I missed the original message because it was edited for community guidelines. I guess it was insults or something, and all you can do is to report the freelancer since you have the dialogue even if you were blocked.

 

What I would like to mention is that clients need to be very careful when they choose a freelancer, and while working frequent communication is key to avoid problems. You will spot easily in conversation if they are professionals or amateurs trying their luck. In design and web development there are thousands of people who just use templates, they custom a few things and voilá, but deep down they are clueless about design, code or the software they are using. So when the client doesn't like the template or really needs a customization that requires knowledge they have no place to run and start the roundabout way.


Sergio S wrote:

Well, I missed the original message because it was edited for community guidelines. I guess it was insults or something, and all you can do is to report the freelancer since you have the dialogue even if you were blocked.

 

What I would like to mention is that clients need to be very careful when they choose a freelancer, and while working frequent communication is key to avoid problems. You will spot easily in conversation if they are professionals or amateurs trying their luck. In design and web development there are thousands of people who just use templates, they custom a few things and voilá, but deep down they are clueless about design, code or the software they are using. So when the client doesn't like the template or really needs a customization that requires knowledge they have no place to run and start the roundabout way.


It was bad. Real bad. I wonder how freelancers that can't contain their anger (at their life, the world, ...) think they can be successful. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. 

I recently received a 1 star feedback from a freelancer. I was accused of being rude (I wasn't). It seems she didn't take kindly to me pointing out that her work was not up to par. She was basically spinning articles despite me specifically asking her to rewrite thoroughly. They slipped through the QC net (my fault) leaving me with a very unhappy customer. 

It's just one of those things that we need to take on the chin from time to time. I think her attitude may have backfired on her a little, because she stands out on my feedback profile against the other reviews that are mostly very positive. 

Hi
Thanks for sharing. I'm a pretty mellow guy and it takes a lot for me to
get upset, but this person attached me verbally and I was confused as to
why.
I guess I could report them, but I do not want to affect his ability to
make a living. I'm just righting it off as "oh well"

Hi
Thanks for your insights. You are right that some pose as professionals
and they are not.
Thanks
Tony
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