Comments on: 25 Signs That You’ve Got a Bad Client

By: October 2007 Recap and Traffic Report | DEVTRENCH: Web Development from the Front Lines

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 13:55:32 +0000

[...] Guest post on CodeSqueeze. If you haven’t read it, check out my post on codesqueeze.com: 25 Signs That You’ve Got a Bad Client [...]

By: David Carr

David Carr — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:08:12 +0000

How about “I need you coding right away. I don’t want specifications, can’t you use that Agile approach?”

Quickly followed by “I don’t have time to look at the software or meet you. Just carry on and let me know when its finished.”

Followed by “It doesn’t look like, perform or do what I expected!”

By: S

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 10:31:10 +0000

From personal experience, when the client brings her own pack of fruit tea to leave with us to the first meeting; not a good sign :)

By: K

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:01:12 +0000

“15. The client wants impossible results in an impossible timeframe, like if their 18,000+ static page website can be redesigned and launched in 3 weeks.”

If they used a consistent layout, you could probably make a Perl script to extract the information, but yes, it is an unreaonable request.

By: Chris P

Chris P — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:32:46 +0000

How about:

“We’ve got a state of the art server room. But you’ll never get to see it.”
“Make no assumptions.” (One of our suggestions was Solaris/Oracle) “Hooo, that’s way too expensive.” (So no to Solaris/Oracle then?) “Make no assumptions.”
On a large system of hundreds of pages, before we’d discussed screen design, agreed database design or written a line of code: “Please detail every input field, drop down, button and link, detailing the size, input ranges, any error codes, hidden fields, session states and a graph of the navigation taken in any circumstance.”

All from the same client.

By: devtrench

devtrench — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:51:56 +0000

Jeremy N – LOL, that’s one of my favorites…”the Inter Web”. Lookout!

By: Jeremy N

Jeremy N — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 00:52:07 +0000

Brings me back to some of my own experiences with clients. Here are a few that I figured added to the list of client coolness:

- Website with 1,500 static pages that haven’t changed in 5 years and the client wants to implement RSS feeds.
- The client tells you about their cutting edge project management methodology: Scrum’erfall.
- Your primary contact with the client refers to the Internet as the “Inter Web.”