Burying the product in the back of the garden

[adrianh]

I've been busy with a rush job for a client and it was terrible. It was just push push push and they jst absolutely have the product come hell or high water. They just had to take it back to JHB with them and they were not leaving without it. We had to make a call to stop work three quarters of the way through so that they could make the flight back. Of course the job was half finished. Now they tell us that the job is crap, that our service is crap and that we are just absolute horrible people...and we have one week to fix it.

For F*ck sake....we told you that we are not going to be done in time, we told you that you are pushing too hard, we told you that we would rather bury the product at the bottom of the garden....and now after all of that there is a week left to fix all the shortcuts that we were forced to take to get you on the plane.

There is a lesson in all of this for me: I will never ever take on a rediculous amount of work (even for very good money) at an unrealistic deadline for a new customer.

This job has been one of the most unpleasant experiences I've ever had in business and it was entirely my own fault for not correctly managing their expectations.

[IanF]

Adrian I hope you got a non refundable deposit or as I call it an upfront payment.
When you have to redo a job due to clients unrealistic expectations tell it will take longer as you have to catch up all the work you bumped then you have clean/service the equipment to ensure it is right the next time plus lots of other reasons why this will take so long to redo.
My Favourite now is say 2-3 days and then when possible finish in 1 day, I just say I the suppliers are now taking longer to deliver paper or we have to cater for a technician service.

[adrianh]

Aye I tell you...I would really prefer to bury my head in the sand next to the product...

The problem is that we worked till 11pm three nights in a row over the weekend and then we also worked through Monday night. I spent a lot of cash on overtime and of course we did no work on Tuesday and the one worker also didn't pitch on Wednesday because he was "tired" so, we f*cked the entire week up, bumped a lot of work, lost lots of time, the workers are working at 20% today...and to top it all off we produced a terrible product. This client is pissed and the cliens who we bumped are also pissed (we are now getting the job backfor repairs so more bumping is going to occur)

[wynn]

It better be one of the 20% earners in the 80/20 rule when it eventually comes through???

[adrianh]

Its one of the 5% earners. I quoted very high because of the short time and they accepted the quote.

[Blurock]

Thanks for sharing Adrian. We all make mistakes, but we don't all learn from it.

[Didditmiself]

Hey, shit happens. As my Chaplain in the army said on our first day when we all looked so miserable, "this too shall pass". By the way what job was it? Printing or? (just out of interest)