Do you have customers you absolutely hate?

JeffKiper said:

I was diagnosed with Leukemia 1 month ago.

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Jeff

If you or your family need anything let me know I would be glad to help... that said if you want work I can give you work that you can just stay at home and work on your own time.

We will be praying for your speedy recovery

Mark

Mark
I appreciate it. I am be asking for something to do.

I would be glad to work with you again... health first then give me a call when your ready

I am the customer now for a bit and do my best to be nice to contractors. When I worked as field service engineer though I absolutely despised a certain offshore drilling company because they always had the thickest possible people in their crews and chose the cheapest possible always with little thought for value.

An interesting one they had was a thing for GE, everything had to be GE... so on new built ships their GE propulsion drives couldn't get the ship to design speed without tripping, their ballast control system designed by GE nearly toppled the ship (no return point was 12 degrees, they were oscillating the ship side to side peaking at 11), their drilling VFDs couldn't do what pretty much all other vendors did and to top it all off in some instances they were just snapping off motor shafts because of drives fighting each other. Somehow they always went for them.

No usable internet for anyone onboard, no communication between any of the hierarchy levels and strictly no niceties at all... like sticking two guys in the same room at an empty hotel.

The funniest was their lack of knowledge of physics... they wanted this winch to be very fast but had no weight on it, so it couldn't be very fast because it needs space for stopping within the confines of the derrick. Still in business though... they're pretty much the only ones with yellow coveralls.

I could fill pages here on the concrete block factory's dirty tricks.
So why did I go for 30 years?
Each time they sacked me, I raised my rate. They said it didn't matter as I'd not be going again.
I made a lot of money each year by basically standing in their control rooms programming.

I banned the neanderthals from coming in and using it as a chat room because the machine was down.
Trying to concentrate while being interrupted and a constant babble going on is a recipe for disaster.

I was once called at 2am for a fault and I immediately saw the safety relay was off.
I wandered round the plant until I found an e stop pushed in, reset it and left.

They told me they were not paying the bill because I'd charged 4 hours
They had watched the CCTV and seen me come in at 2:15am and leave at 2:45am

So many answere to a simple problem
if you don't want to work with them then just don't respond
of if you don't wan to ghost them then quote them a price thats over the top thne the choice is up to them

many yease a ago i had client that was always 120 + days in paying . when I inquied about what was going on I was told their accounts said not to pay anybody for at least 120 days so they could make intrest on their outstanding payments
on the next job i invoived the the actuial job (Mostly Labor) and a larg servie charge and max intrest rate for teh expected 120 days delayed paymet
problem solved they promply paid and never callme a gain
their loss the only other person that could work on their equipment charged almost twice as much, billed for full days only plus travel time each service call always at least 3 days
I would rather not work then do the job and then finance there repair
they went out of business not long after that

GaryS said:

i had client that was always 120 + days in paying

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1 - Figure quote
2 - Multiply by 2 (or 2.3 to be a jerk)
3 - Submit the new quote with terms 50% down with PO
4 - get paid up front, with a bonus a few months down the road

JeffKiper said:

I did a Ford job. I was supposed to do the drawings and provide parts. Their union guys would install and I would commission it. We had everything setup for Sunday. I would get their guys started in the morning and return when they called. I had a family reunion to get to. Last minute the project manager said I had to stay onsite while they worked. So my 4 hrs quote turned into 12 of double time. They wanted to know why the price changed. I explained thay they changed the parameters of our agreement so i changed the price according to the estimate that I gave them. They pulled the we are Ford and if you ever want to work here again you will change the bill to 4 hours. I explained they I never wanted to work their again if thats how they treated their contractors. The project managers boss agreed with me and paid. I did several more jobs for them. After that they where fun to work with. I just couldn't keep up my current customers and them.

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"We are Ford"

Yep, that sounds about how they are. They're one of our customers and they walk into our plant like they own the place. I'm not even talking about top brass people either, I'm just referring to their engineers and maybe engineering managers. I don't interact with them directly, but if I did, I'd probably be looking for another job because I likely wouldn't be able to keep my cool. Our people that have to interact with Ford regularly say 'they are the worst'. I suppose it must be the culture or something there that teaches them to be A-holes(?).

GaryS said:

many yease a ago i had client that was always 120 + days in paying . when I inquied about what was going on I was told their accounts said not to pay anybody for at least 120 days so they could make intrest on their outstanding payments
on the next job i invoived the the actuial job (Mostly Labor) and a larg servie charge and max intrest rate for teh expected 120 days delayed paymet
problem solved they promply paid and never callme a gain
their loss the only other person that could work on their equipment charged almost twice as much, billed for full days only plus travel time each service call always at least 3 days
I would rather not work then do the job and then finance there repair
they went out of business not long after that

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Oh no. Our accounts do this. If an invoice says "payment within 3 months of receipt" then it's 3 months to the day. I once had a company submit an invoice on their standard letterhead stating 30 day payment, even though they wanted money up front and accounts refused to move until they re-submitted the invoice with ammended terms.
They've dragged their feet with invoices so much in the past that we've been put on stop with our suppliers and not been able to get parts during a breakdown. One breakdown costs more than a years worth of interest from these shenanigans.

Puddle said:

Oh no. Our accounts do this. If an invoice says "payment within 3 months of receipt" then it's 3 months to the day. I once had a company submit an invoice on their standard letterhead stating 30 day payment, even though they wanted money up front and accounts refused to move until they re-submitted the invoice with ammended terms.
They've dragged their feet with invoices so much in the past that we've been put on stop with our suppliers and not been able to get parts during a breakdown. One breakdown costs more than a years worth of interest from these shenanigans.

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Terms are terms, once agreed then backing out says a lot about the party doing that, doesn't it? This being said, above a certain value and size of contractor, I arrange milestone payments which include an upfront payment for purchase of parts/pipe/whatever. That's usually written on the quote to avoid issues with procurement.

You also have to account that the people in purchasing are not being measured on how well your shutdown happens... depending on the company, they can be so far removed that they don't even know it actually happens.

cardosocea said:

once agreed then backing out says a lot about the party doing that, doesn't it?

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The problem is - It's NOT agreed to!


The customer sends out a mailing to you saying they are changing the terms, including already submitted invoices for services performed and items and equipment received.


You reply the terms are invoiced as NET30 and they reply - No, the terms are now NET120, so suck it.