Good riddance!

I don’t think I ever told y’all about this client that I had. He was a pain in the you-know-what from the very start. I typeset his manuscript for him….yes, a man! So you know where I am going with this…male ego!
Well, after reading his manuscript I had formed my opinion of him. Big buckets of his chauvinistic views were splashed across each and every page. But I didn’t let it get to me because this was a job, and I had a job to do. But first let me give you an example of this chauvinism: This was a Christian self-help book, and needless to say the only person who ever needed help was a woman—the man was always the one lending an ear! Also seems like he only had women doing work for him with his book, which may not seem strange but the lady who did his web site, I guess hadn’t been in touch with him, and after my experience with him I can only imagine why, but he tells me that he doesn’t know what’s wrong with her and that maybe she just needs to get some!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, after changes, on top of changes, on top of changes, he decides that he wants a copy of the MS in its original form. Now for those of you who don’t know: I use a software for desktop publishing, so unless a client has this software, which they usually don’t, which is why they come to me, they have to view any changes made in a PDF format. Well he didn’t like the PDF format because he couldn’t make changes. So after telling him over and over again that he wouldn’t be able to view the changes unless I put them in PDF, and that I’d be happy to make as many changes as were necessary, I went ahead and sent it to him…what the hell, right? So immediately he emailed me back asking what program I used. And I told him. Now, mind you that all of this is taking place over a course of about 9months.
In this nine months I have worked with him endlessly on this project. He has gone from being employed to un-employed, to employed, and then unemployed again. And you might ask: How old is he? And I will tell you that the man is at least 50! And while reading this book I found that he has had numerous jobs, including a different job while he was writing his book. What does this have to do with anything? I’m building my case. Well the entire nine months he has been trying to raise money to self publish, he also wanted to pay me to market his book. Alright now let’s zip forward. I didn’t hear from him for about two months, and when I did he tells me that he has been in the hospital and in the same sentence he tells me that the details aren’t necessary…as if I asked him! Then he tells me to just send him the MS in its original format. Well after he realizes he can’t view it, like I told him. He emails back and says, “lets work on this together. My problem was that, in the past, it seemed to take you a really long time to get stuff back to me.” This was a total and complete lie! I think that he didn’t raise the money and was too embarrassed to say so. You see if he had total control over the MS, he wouldn’t have to let me know he didn’t raise the money, he could just never email again. But with me having the MS, he would have to stay in touch. He could have to complete MS, in a PDF format but he has a compulsive need to change it… but if you’re a writer you know how that is, but ain’t no need to take me down that road…I’ve got my own road to travel!
So basically I told him that I have decided to terminate our work relationship. Thank God! And Good riddance!