Face What Isn’t Working: Part II – Graphic Designer Woes

I love doing these redo’s as a way of showing you guys how to deal with scoundrels.

So, as I’ve mentioned in a few podcasts before, I’ve had problems/issues with this specific individual in the past.  What’s even more head-scratching is that I used to work with her.  Yes.  Everyday I used to see her, and she was very snappy at the beginning.  She would have a condescending tone to her voice and she was pretty rude at times.  Nonetheless, I was looking at taking my business to the next level so I used her.  What should’ve been three weeks quickly turned into four months.  At one time, I even blocked her because I thought she was just lying continuously.

However, three weeks ago she mentioned again that she was almost done with a PDF that had taken more than 4 months to do.  ALMOST = key word.

Finally, after another two weeks and just yesterday, she said “your PDF is done now.  Can I receive the payment first?”  Now, with all do respect, I’ll send the payment, but it’s also a general principle to give what’s the clients to him.  Simple procedure and doesn’t take a mad scientist to complete such a process.

I sent the payment of $225 dollars to her and she was gone for twelve hours.  No reading of my messages and no responses.  I then messaged her with a stern tone, “ummmm excuse me, could I please have my PDF and everything that was agreed upon?”

Her being a snappy human being said, “oh, a little patience would be nice. What I did for you people normally have to pay upfront.”

“Yes.  Understand that.  However, payments are through and everything is done.  I just want what’s mine.”

What scared me a bit was that I had to send the payment to a dutch name in New Zealand’s account.  That’s scary as hell, given the fact that the first payment was sent to her account and the second was sent to an account overseas.  That’s just NOT good.

So I woke up this morning feeling a bit anxious.  Do I know where she is? Yes, at the shit house where I used to work. So given the fact how nasty she is, she knows that I would never go there to try and collect my belongings.

Anywho, the responses came in and she began to blah blah blah.  So, this is a really good sign because I’m more than likely going to get my business cards and PDF at all costs.

On the other hand, what was learned? How can I help you, the reader, understand this process?

1. NEVER WORK WITH SNAPPY INDIVIDUALS. If you see that someone is very rude, condescending, and just nasty in general…..cut your losses and find someone else.
2. Written contracts are a must!  She mentioned it in the beginning but it never followed through, unfortunately.  Now, if I had made that payment and she ran away, I would be out of money and everything.
3. Outline the time-frame of your work.  Four months to complete jobs that can be done in a week is absurd.  Her answers, or maybe other people’s answers were/will be, “oh, I was busy. I had to push your work back.  Sorry.”  Those are all unacceptable.  In the contract should be “if the creator fails to deliver the work on the date, all work will be forfeited.”  You need to have a legitimate timeline, or else they will constantly shove your work aside.
4. Intuition! I knew she was a rude girl from the beginning.  She said things that were very ignorant at times and made me question her ability.  If you take a look at my logos, although they’re somewhat nice (and I’m grateful for it), it’s not a $450 dollar job and it came with too much baggage.
5. Be assertive and address the problem from the beginning. The moment they say they can’t get it done in the given timeframe, be very frank and tell them, “look, either you’re going to do this on this timeframe or I’m forfeiting the entire project.”