Do you have customers you absolutely hate?

I have been attending a concrete block making company for 30 years.
I have detested every second on site.
In winter the yards are 6 inch deep in cement slurry and in summer, cement dust blows every where. I have to take my car straight to a carwash after to stop it setting.

The employees and management are ignorant and rude and at one time were very bad payers.
That is until I gave them an ultimatum, pay on completion or no more service.

They have sacked me at least 10 times, telling me they have found someone better and cheaper - and every time, a few weeks later, I would get a call.

It's a big site with about 10 plc and HMI controls with thousands of I/O.
And they only use me to fault find with my laptop or alter programs.
20 years ago I designed and built 2 of those systems and somehow they still think some of the problems are of my doing.

Well, I am now going Semi retired and decided I would drop some of my customers.
It's hard to chose who, especially the ones where you have been good friends for decades.
But the concrete block company was easy and top of the list.
They made it easier when I phoned to tell them and halfway through they dropped the call.

Good on you.
Sometimes you have to draw a line.
I have declined to continue working at a cooking oil processing facility in SE Colorado after seven years of supporting them. They also had the notion that because I installed it, every single problem, no matter how far down the line, is my issue to deal with.
They have always had their in-house technician modify my programming, badly, and blame me when it doesn't work.

"This isn't how I originally wrote the code"

"We needed another counter so we could keep track of how often the operator presses the stop button"

"But the counter you used was already assigned to a sequencer, so changing it is going to muck up the entire process. Why wasn't a new counter made instead, with it's own parameters?"


"Look, we hired you to write this program, and now it's not working, so we're not paying you twice."

"But your own in-house team broke the code by modifying the counter presets."

"Sounds like your problem. When do you think you can have this fixed?"

"I'll restore the code the way I wrote it, but I'm going to have to charge you if you want another counter put in for data collection."

"Like I said, we aren't paying twice. Jut go ahead and fix the problem."

"I'm sorry. The original duration of support was for five years. We're now about to enter our eighth year. I'm going to need to send an invoice if you want me to continue supporting this application."

And then the customer gets mad and 'fires' me, only to call back a couple of weeks later.

The cycle is real.

I had a terrible one outside of Toronto. I was getting paid time and material by the machine builder but the final customer, an arrogant kid with no experience, kept changing the hit list of things to be done so the project would get signed off. Thank goodness covid hit and I couldn't cross the border to tend to that fool's demands anymore.

Do you have customers you absolutely hate?

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The only one I hate is one that does not pay, other then that I love them all... I may charge a little more for some because the work environment is not the best but the extra pay makes up for it.

Now the other side of my business... I do have a long list of customers that are on my list of 'cancel and do not sell to', if someone is rude then they are more than welcome to go somewhere else.

I have some unreal stories, I had one customer that was mad, forgot about what but told me he hoped that "the reindeer **** on my roof this Christmas"

If I have to call a customer on 2 different occasions to find out where our money is I stop working for them. I ASSuME the first time that it is a simple mistake or they didnt get me in their accounting system. First time no big deal second time they are out. I give the my competitions phone number and explain that I will no longer be working for them because the pay issues. They usually give me a sad story about this or that. I politely explain that my wife and kids like to eat and with out money they dont eat.

I usually give the first service call away for free. That way I can see if the customer is worth working with and if we are a good fit for each other.
I had 1 customer call me with an emergency. I was in the area but had limited time. They just installed a local disconnect and didnt do a good job terminating the wires. So the VFD saw a short phase to phase and shutdown. I re terminated the disconnect and went on my way. The customer called and wanted to know how I billed. I have a 4 hr minimum per service call. He wanted the rest of his 4 hours. I explained it doesn't work like that. He never called back. About 1 year later he called and wanted help again. He said I never invoiced him. I expalined that i wouldnt be working for him again because of his attitude. He gave me the sad story and said he would pay. I gave him my competitions phone number. After he left that plant I started doing their work.

I have a stack of stories like these that I dont work for this guy or that guy. 1 of my biggest plants hired a new guy and I explained that I wouldn't work for him. He was the guy that could use the words and it sounded good to people who didnt know anything. About 2 weeks later I started working at that plant again.

JeffKiper said:

If I have to call a customer on 2 different occasions to find out where our money is I stop working for them. I ASSuME the first time that it is a simple mistake or they didnt get me in their accounting system. First time no big deal second time they are out. I give the my competitions phone number and explain that I will no longer be working for them because the pay issues. They usually give me a sad story about this or that. I politely explain that my wife and kids like to eat and with out money they dont eat.

I usually give the first service call away for free. That way I can see if the customer is worth working with and if we are a good fit for each other.
I had 1 customer call me with an emergency. I was in the area but had limited time. They just installed a local disconnect and didnt do a good job terminating the wires. So the VFD saw a short phase to phase and shutdown. I re terminated the disconnect and went on my way. The customer called and wanted to know how I billed. I have a 4 hr minimum per service call. He wanted the rest of his 4 hours. I explained it doesn't work like that. He never called back. About 1 year later he called and wanted help again. He said I never invoiced him. I expalined that i wouldnt be working for him again because of his attitude. He gave me the sad story and said he would pay. I gave him my competitions phone number. After he left that plant I started doing their work.

I have a stack of stories like these that I dont work for this guy or that guy. 1 of my biggest plants hired a new guy and I explained that I wouldn't work for him. He was the guy that could use the words and it sounded good to people who didnt know anything. About 2 weeks later I started working at that plant again.

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Feels a lot like a normal job.... If your employer fails to pay you on schedule, you'll likely just end up leaving for a different job that pays on time, because you were there on time.

Which is why it's the same thing for a contract work, for some reason some companies think not paying a contractor is a way of gaming the system, until they need the support and they lose 20x the amount they owed a year ago.

Actually one I never got to do.


A controls company was overbooked and asked if I would subcontract to them for this job.


Dahmler/Chrysler plant in Mexico.
Work only on Sunday - the line had to be up & running by 10:00pm for 3rd shift coming in & run all week every week. Plus as many hours as I wanted to work from 6AM to 10PM each Sunday.

They estimated 10 weeks minimum, probably more to get what they wanted done - paid travel time, airfare, car rental, expenses, and doubletime Sunday rate every weekend. (Easily over $2,400 a weekend)



Problem 1: they wouldn't identify the PLC's, HMI's or the equipment (even the brand or the family of PLC).

Problem 2: they wouldn't provide copies of the existing programs or schematics,

Problem 3: they wouldn't list what they wanted done - just "things".
Problem 4: they wouldn't provide a contact person to get more info.



Both I and that controls company walked from the job.

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.

I had a customer for a number of years who was (is) an OEM building refrigeration tunnels. I built his control systems for him yet despite having done so for years, EVERY TIME I would give him a price, he would beat me down by at least 20% by threatening me with going to someone else. So we had a game where I just started off 25% high and let him beat me down, EVERY single time. Then if anything changed mid stream, he would want me to absorb any change order costs. Every time. If some part was late, he wouldn’t pay for air freight but would threaten to reduce my payment if I missed the deadline.

When I was starting out and hungry, I put up with it but after about year 3, I called his bluff and he went to a competitor. I was busier by then so it was more of a relief than a loss. A few years later I was talking to the guy who got his business, we laughed about how he was at least consistent in how he mistreated everyone. He was at the point of walking away by then too.

The best I have was a customer that had zero electrical experience called and asked for our help. So we started doing a lot of work. I got to know the owners and how they where running their business but it was to late. They started doing business with companies and things where good to start. Payments where on time or early at first. Theeeeen the started dragging out payments but still wanted work done.

The tried to hold $35,000.00 off a job because of some reason that kept changing all the time. I stopped working for them. The hired another local integrator. That company called me and asked why I stopped working for them. So we wnet to lunch and traded war stories for a while. The customer called and threatened to sue me for discussing our business. I explained it was lunch with my friend their name never was spoken. A week later the other intcalled and had a check for $35,000. from the customer. He then required payment in full before he worked. They tried to stick him but he walked before that happened. The third integrator they called said why doesnt Jeff do you work anymore. If he wont work for you I wont either. She went out of business shortly after. It was bittersweet hearing thay they couldn't screw anyone else. A lot of good guys loat there job in the collateral damage.

Another company that became a problem after the plant manager opened a control panel.


Built 2 conveyor based automation machines for a stamping plant outside Detroit. Just had to put 3 flange head screws in stamped parts so they could be slid into place on the assembly line and the workers didn't have to take too long screwing the screws in, so they had a tight tolerance on flange height.


The customer demanded 120 parts per hour with an under 5% reject rate. The machines tested at 350 parts per hour each and a reject rate of 0.001%.


The customer was happy as could be until the plant manager looked in the control panel and saw a micro PLC. These machines only needed 6 inputs and 3 outputs and didn't use half the micro PLC memory.


Immediately started getting calls about the slow production rate and high failure rate all because of the "toys" running the 2 machines. Called me out once and handed me 2 MicroLogic's with 40 IO each that wouldn't fit in the enclosure and ordered me to retrofit them to "real PLC's".


That cost them about $2500 in parts and labor, along with 3 weeks downtime on each machine and it didn't run one part faster per hour.

I have had difficult customers but none that I really hated. Most of the people we talk to on tech support are automation guys that are hired to make the project go. In some cases a company would try to do it themselves but are so clueless. That is OK as long as they listened and followed instructions.

Some could not write the user program or PLC program that controls the motion. Some could not even say what the controller was supposed to do step by step. They hadn't made a flow chart. Sometime I/we just had to tell the customer to think about making a flow chart and call us back. In other cases they could just tell us what kind of machine they were trying to control and we could tell them step by step what to do. I some cases it was faster for us to write the program and send it to them. In some cases we have written the program over the internet. Chances are what ever you are trying to do, it has been done before and someone knows how to do it.

We have had customers that didn't listen and returned out controllers only to buy them back again. Some of the delays caused by their experiments with other solutions or taking short cuts must have been costly.

I had one customer that talked so slow it annoyed me and I dreaded getting his tech support calls. He could start saying a few words and I knew what the rest of the sentence was going to be.

Customers that listened and followed instructions are easy. Most things could be fixed easily UNLESS!!!!....they were trying to make a hydraulic system go when the design was a kludge. In these cases it was the poor automation guy that was being screwed and I felt sorry for them trying to do the impossible.

What I really hate are hydraulic designers that have their heads up their a$$e$. They blame the poor automation guy, you guys, and the blame the controller. The problem is that by the time I/we get called the poor automation guy has wasted a lot of time not due to his fault. Fixing the screwed up hydraulics to make it right is often out of the question because it is too expensive. The end customer has to live with what he has got but at least I can prove it isn't the automation guy or our controller at fault.

On hydraulic forums I used to hear "flow makes it go". I like to make fun of these guys by saying Newton didn't include flow in his 3 laws of motion and they don't like it. These "flow makes it go" guys I hate because they can't design anything that needs precision. It is the poor automation guy and our tech support that pays for the hydraulic designers screw ups.

Things are getting better.... slowly. Very slowly.

I am on the International Fluid Power Society's Electronic Control Specialist committee. We are updating the manual and what must be known to get certified. I hope to straighten out some things there.

Peter I more than likely will never be doing any of this Automation stuff again. I was diagnosed with Leukemia 1 month ago. With that being said what does a guy need to do to learn hydraulic design? I wont be able to work for 2 years minimum. I just ordered a PLC structure text book just so I can learn something and not go crazy looking at the hospital walls.

JeffKiper said:

Peter I more than likely will never be doing any of this Automation stuff again. I was diagnosed with Leukemia 1 month ago. With that being said what does a guy need to do to learn hydraulic design?

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Are you asking as one who wants to design hydraulic systems or the one that puts them together. Some people do both.
I have a design guide that is free.
http://www.deltamotion.com/other/designguide/register.php
Some of it is very basic. Other parts get into some math but not too much.
I have a lot of magazine articles. This is where most are
https://www.powermotiontech.com/home/contact/21888093/peter-nachtwey
but you can search for Peter Nachtwey magazine articles. The design guide and articles will keep you out of trouble most of the time.


However, sometimes it is good to know what is possible before trying to do the impossible. I once was asked about designing a test system to make a sinusoidal motion with an amplitude of 5mm and at 75 Hz. It seems simple but it is impossible for all practical purpose. The acceleration rate would be over 1000 m/s^2 or more than 100g! This took a little understanding of calculus. Knowing and being able to apply Newton's laws of motion is good.
https://forum.deltamotion.com/t/generating-sine-waves-easy-for-the-rmc-but/384
Here is a very good thread about calculating the maximum actuator speed.
https://forum.deltamotion.com/t/the-vccm-equation/378
You can't imagine how many times we have got tech support calls because the system couldn't move as fast as desired because of poor design. I often hear hydraulic people say "flow makes it go". This winds up my integrator. I reply that Newton did not include flow in his 3 laws of motion.

I wont be able to work for 2 years minimum.

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You need a work from home type of job.

I just ordered a PLC structure text book just so I can learn something and not go crazy looking at the hospital walls.

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Yes, I know. I use an iPad or Fire tablet. A phone's screen is too small. My iPad has a keyboard so I can do some typing.



PLCs and motion controllers are just tools. Learning/knowing how things work is more important. I call this "forever knowledge" because the physics and math don't change.


I can provide a lot of stimulating stuff. There is my Peter Ponders PID YouTube channel. It is a lot more advanced than most channels. I have 30 years of Mathcad files.

Peter thank you. Im at home in quarantine now. I have hopefully 4 weeks at home before going back in for more Chemotherapy.
I love learning stuff, not necessarily something directly in my field. Learning anything will show you something you can use in your field.

I dont think I will be designing or building any hydraulic systems. If I go back to work it will probably just programming or electrical design. I've started looking into the pneumatic safety systems. Ross Controls has some nice valves for the safety side of pneumatic controls. I havent used to many of their standard valves. I typically use Mac valves for my pneumatic systems. The systems i typically do are bang bang systems point a to point b. I try to cushion both ends of the stroke with internal and external cushions.

I do appreciate your time and information. Over the next few months I will be learn more info about programming and working remotely because my immune system will be shot for a long time.