Clients and other strange things

We all have them. You know the ones I mean. Those, weird, slightly eccentric, occasionally scary blank them out with a shot of vodka ones.
Or the know it alls that tell you how its going to be done, when and for how much – before you get into through the door.
Then there are the ones that randomly uninstall pieces of software cause they thought they’d have a go at fixing something that wasn’t broken.

Not sure what I’m talking about ?
Clients, the ones you wish you never got in the first place but just seem to keep calling time and time again.
Every profession has them. Some mechanics have an extra charge added to the bill if you stick around to ‘oversee’. A certain builder I know has actually handed the money back that was already paid on a job and told the then ex-client to go find someone who could put up with the constant ‘advice’ on how to install the new marble kitchen bench.

We all have them. I seem to have several. The one that comes to mind today is a little old lady who seems to think that I’m stupid, she could never do anything to hurt her system, and that big old folder entitled cracks in her Documents folder wouldn’t have anything to do with the 1478 viruses I found on her machine.
To clarify that folder entitled cracks must contain every copy of mahjong known to man. And all kindly added remotely by a dear old guy she met through messenger.

It started with a phone call, help, her computer wouldn’t start probably. Please describe the problem I say.
Well she says it all started to go funny when I removed my antivirus.
My thought was good lord here we go again, my words were something like, uh uh so why did you uninstall your antivirus.
After half an hour or so, I finally had organised an appointment time to go around and examine the beast and it’s particular brand of ailment. (Most of that time was her arguing about why I couldn’t drop everything and come and fix it then and there)
So arriving at the set time and date ( I do actually get busy occasionally) I find the machine in a dark and dank hole out near the potted plants in the green house/tea house/thing with greasy looking half rotted what I am still assuming was a lounge, house.
This dear old client begins going though the same conversation we had on the phone and even brings out documented proof – those being her notes she made after she got off the phone while making the tea – quickly realising she intends to read verbatim from the two whole pages of A4 I quickly bring up my trusty portable tool kit, and go, I’ll just need to pop the side of an take a look.
Seizing the moment where she is still stunned at my not listening to her I bend down whip of the side and begin reaching for something to kill the small pony sized cockroach that skittered out of the dust and leaf debris.
Pointing to the accumulation of dirt I simply say with your permission ma’am I’ll take this back to the workshop, clean it, debug it, and delouse it and then let you know whether it is worth saving.
At which point her nice sane husband walks in and agrees whole heartedly that I take the machine away and have a look at it as soon as possible, Monday he suggests and I readily agree.

I have this thing about not returning phone calls on a Friday evening unless it is urgent, (I believe I pointed out on twitter that Farmville not working isn’t one) and so far my dear old lady client has left me four messages out of six calls – all checking up on my progress.
This isn’t the first time I’ve done work for her (that was a real reference earlier about the viruses – the folder I deleted when I found it, more bugs then games anyway), and I’ve come to expect this kind of behaviour from some of the more umm zealous clients.

Their just lucky l don’t actually answer the phone on a Friday night, after one to four drinks, otherwise it wouldn’t be through a blog I’d be commenting about their weird behaviour.

Have I mentioned how therapeutic it is to write this stuff down?

Night all.