the lesson there was – never trust a talkative wanna-be internet marketer if he didn’t even had the experience to back him up. he was a cheater. he hired me as a writer, but as time goes, i’m being told to do things that are beyond the scope of the job i applied for – market research, reading his looonng emails that sum up to whining and complaining about his life and relatives.

i quit the job for sure, and it was difficult for him because he had so much high hopes for the online business he’d wanted.

@Contestant #2. Nothing like a revision tennis match to ruin what could be a good working relationship. I’ve learned to limit the number of revisions. But problem clients often don’t understand limitations. That’s what makes them high maintenance.

@Cheri, I use information from Nolo. http://www.nolo.com There’s a whole section on freelancing “Independent Contractors” and you can buy books that included boiler-plate agreements of all kinds. Be sure to keep your receipts for the books, as a tax deductible expense. Also check Amazon.com for the Nolo books, as their prices are often cheaper than purchasing directly from Nolo. Some of titles can be purchased as e-books so you don’t have to wait for shipping to have a boiler-plate contract in hand.

@Jaq, Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience. It’s hard to step away from a project or client. It’s hard to lose that income. But when it starts to impact your health, your stress level, your sleep, it’s time to walk away. Hope you are feeling much saner now.

And thank you, glad you liked my “baby”. It’s a fun blog

@Sue, Setting up phone “on” hours and using voice mail is a fabulous idea and great way to create separation between freelancing and the rest of life. Thanks for adding this tip to the post, and for coming back to comment again.

@#12, Ha! But I think we should use D.A.N. so we don’t discriminate against all the really nice people in the world who have the upstanding name of Dan.

#7, nice writing style, btw. I have ADD and actually read the entire thing, instead of skimming

Obviously, there are things that need to be tolerated in any job, but some clients are just not worth the stress. I found out later that my “Dan had a very high turnover rate with his sub-contractors/freelancers. Some formed a lawsuit against him for contract issues.

Most of my clients have been awesome, and I have learned because of my “Dan” experience how to weed out the “Dans” much more quickly so I don’t take them on.

Maybe some people are wired to deal with the “Dans” of the world – I recognize that I am not one of them, and steer clear of them. It works out better that way for us all.

@#9, I certainly didn’t feel like a saint when that projects was in the works. More like a dunce! But thanks for the complement. I did charge for every minute of time that client took. But he had deep, deep pockets and didn’t mind paying for every minute (makes him sound like a saint, doesn’t it).

Another thing to do (at least, I’ve found it useful),since time is money, and yours is worth every cent, so are their phone calls–per hour after the first 10 minutes of your time.

I love the “escape clause” as well in a contract. I believe legally, that’s called a non-binding contract…but I’m not sure.
(Is there a lawyer in the house who can tell us if that’s the right term?)

Great post #7!

But after I said goodbye to last year’s client, I noticed that I was able to replace that work with higher paying jobs. My income has doubled since then. I’m hoping for the same result from firing yesterday’s client.