Software Developer Shares His Worst Client Stories, And It’s Hilariously Entertaining

They tried to get us to solve the issue first, but we aren't networking or IT, despite what the business management people would like to think - those are entirely different fields.

The company's total loss was estimated at just under 5 million.

One of the fired employees offered to come in as a consultant at $500,000 towards the end of the two weeks. Officially, he got hired for an 'undisclosed' price. Unofficially he's going to have a nice vacation from working for the next few years.

"It runs on your laptop there! Why do I need to put that on a server?! Can't I just send them a link to that?"

Explaining this was... a hassle... to say the least.

The conversation went along the lines of:
* Employee: "It doesn't quite work that way... They are two different types of"
* Client: "It should! App "XYZ" works on both! Why not yours?!"
* Employee: [Wanting to strangle him intensifies]

Explaining this one was a hassle as well. Oddly enough, he paid us to develop on iOS as well but didn't renew the contract once we were done.

Constant issue with this client. Continuously behind on latest updates, and keeps filing bug reports and complaints for things already fixed. We even created pre-configured settings for the client (not part of the requirements, just a sanity check for us) so that it would be harder for the client to not update, or mis-configure the service -- and the client still mis-configures the service.

Personally, I think they are looking for a way to weasel out of the contract and blame us for it - we're apparently expensive.

Basically, We weren't supposed to be able to "see" the code, but we knew the method names to use, and the result of each. We initially spent 2 days trying to figure out why things weren't working (thinking the problem was on our end), and finally got on the phone with the client to figure it out. The client finally gave us their code to look at, after a bit of a fuss, and almost every other word in the client's code was misspelled. The best part was that everything on the code's documentation was spelled correctly, which added to the confusion.

IE: "StartNavigationService()" is very different from "StartNavagationSirvice()"

This was one of many, MANY, problems we had with the client. We probably won't be picking up this contract again.

One of the first times we've had a new client with a clear direction. Though, after two weeks of working on the application, we found out about the other one. None of us had used or seen the other application, and had only heard of it (yup. we all live under a rock), so we had no idea how it looked or worked.

They said they'd run it by the legal department to sort things out... Never heard from them again.

Personal win for myself. I was excited that I created, or helped create, something that would be used in a large-scale production environment, and used almost globally, AND I GOT TO PUT MY NAME ON IT.

If you are the average user, you'll probably never see it, devs - maybe, but I still count it as a win.

The client ended up getting a deal (without consulting us) for a license to a new engine that we weren't developing on, and added requirements to change to the new engine. We explained to them that it's a large move, and it would take time to do. But, we forgot to explain EXACTLY how much time it would take...
They assumed it was just copy/paste, and that "taking time" meant "about a week". It all worked out in the end, but there was a decent amount of yelling during that first meeting back after the change.

Ever wonder why you need to admin or root access to open or move something on a machine you own? This is why. It's a sort of self-protection for the system. Never run as root. Never run as Admin. There are obviously a few exceptions to that rule, but mostly it just makes it easier for malicious software or "hackers" to ruin your computer.

I had to listen to blockchain crap for about 3 weeks straight before it started to die down. Even went to a few meetings with some of the business people and management to listen to them talk about how "Blockchain can improve our business." Got a whole bunch of claps, but it was blatantly obvious nobody in that meeting knew what it was.
*Edit: To elaborate, and give a shortened explanation, blockchain is a software coding method implemented by crypto-currencies, ie: bitcoin, which is super popular right now. (remember the tea company that added blockchain to its name and got a massive bump in stock prices?)