High maintenance customer

[Laura Brody]

Quoting Bill Akers <billa at mgmindustries.com>:

> Laura Brody wrote:
>> Quoting Steve Wiltsie <swiltsie at micro-mui.com>:
>>
>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Laura Brody" <laura at hvcomputer.com>
>>> To: <tjpalmquist at bigfoot.com>; "Tom Palmquist" <tjpalmquist at comcast.net>
>>>>
>>>>  I should have put the brakes on this nonsense at the beginning.
>>>> After it became obvious that he wasn't going to pay me until
>>>> EVERYTHING was perfect (according to him), I grew a few IQ points
>>>> and put a time bomb on the code I wrote for him.
>>>
>>> Ummmmm.  I thought that was illegal in most states.
>>
>>
>>    **** Clarification *****
>>
>>    I only disabled the import and export reports that *I* wrote.
>> I did not touch his data or any of his other prc tables. He didn't
>> pay for my prc tables, so they stopped working. He is right back to
>> where he was before I came along. He can add data, print data,
>> delete, change and screw up anything he wants - he just doesn't
>> have the EDI import and export that I wrote.
>>
>>    Doing Bad Things(tm) to a customer's data, prc tables, etc.
>> is VERY ILLEGAL and NEVER recommended.
>
> Once upon a time, I wrote a precursor to MLS listing for someone who
> EVENTUALLY became a very good customer. After I had structured and
> imported the information from the state real estate database, I
> began to suspect that he was intending to stiff me, so I wrote a
> time bomb into the program which said something to the efect that
> "This demonstration software will expire on 'date'. He was livid
> when it began to pop up so his customers could see it and call him
> asking what was going on, so we sat down and negotiated a contract
> at that point that gave each of us specific goals and obligations.
> Being egotistical, he was also livid when I refused to accept
> certain clauses that he had put into the contract that allowed him
> to not pay if he wasn't satisfied. Anyway once we had the bluster
> out of the way, he was a good customer for several years and always
> paid me promptly. You do come out even sometimes.

   I'm glad it work itself out for you.

   I don't expect that to happen for me. G.L. is of the
opinion that he didn't do anything wrong, I'm an idiot -
end of story. He is too busy blaming me and other people
that he is totally incapable of seeing that he contributed
to the mess too. Until he is able to accept responsibilty
for the results of his own actions, I don't see him pulling
his head out of his back pocket area and behaving more
reasonably.

   I understand that successful people don't play the victim
and point fingers, so his business will be limited until he
starts looking in the mirror more. I will be the first one
to say that I should have done things differently. I am far
from perfect. I learned some painful lessons from this and
will make adjustments, he won't. (What doesn't kill you
makes you stronger). I will grow and improve, he will blame
and bad-mouth. It cost me a bit of time and money, but I will
be a better person because of it. Gee, maybe I should send
him a "thank you" card? ........nah! :->

-- 
Laura Brody
+------------- Hudson Valley Computer Associates, Inc ----------+
| PO Box 859 120 Sixth Street    http://www.hvcomputer.com      |
| Verplanck, NY 10596-0859       Voice mail: (914) 739-5004     |
+------ PC repair locally, filePro programming globally --------+