Slightly unreasonable or frankly absolutely bloody ludicrous work requests

As a freelancer, you’re used to being up against it and essentially firefighting. Nobody gets you in because things are ticking along nicely and they could use the company. In the present economic climate its exaggerated because management won’t sign off any freelance resource until the smell of fear in the air is overwhelming

It goes with the territory, but for 11th hour bail out requests yesterdays was the best yet, so I thought I’d share it. The phone call I got at about 5.30pm went as follows

“Hi… we were just wondering what your availability is like at the moment?”

“Well I’ve got quite a bit on at the moment, but some of it’s not that urgent, so I can maybe move some stuff around if need be”

* goes on to describe quite a substantial amount of quite involved and time-consuming work that needs doing *

“OK, that doesn’t seem like a problem”

“No…. great…erm…. the other thing is that it needs to go to print first thing tomorrow morning. Do you think that if we sent it over in the next hour or so, you could work through the night on it tonight and have it all ready for us for 9am tomorrow morning?”

“Ha ha haaaaaaaaaa! No, but seriously….”

“We are serious. It all needs to go to print first thing tomorrow morning”

“Well actually…. I’m planning on eating and sleeping and stuff really as I’ve been working since 8am this morning. Good luck finding somebody to do that for you though”

You have to laugh really, otherwise you’d be on the dark web trying to procure automatic weaponry 😂

So lets have the most laughably ridiculous work requests you’ve received…..

I got sent to Guam for a week once as no one in our US office was available. I hate flying.

The sad bit is there are plenty who would say yes to that request, even salaried workers. Hence they asked as they have probably had plenty say yes to their requests before.

You could always have said yes but your ‘night rate’ is £1000000

Slightly unreasonable or frankly absolutely bloody ludicrous work requests

Please design and print a banner for your branch with no budget or skill

Not right now but a few years back I was asked for a detailed proposal for a project that I specced out at about 16 weeks. I was told that was not acceptable by the client and I should work harder on the numbers to deliver sooner.

I squeezed out contingency, paralel ran some tests and assumed everything would work first time and got it down to 12 weeks with a high risk of up to 4 weeks of overrun.

I was told, quite robustly, that I was clearly not up to the job, my company clearly were not dynamic and interested in the work and that he had found someone who had quoted 8 weeks.

2 months later I got a call asking if I could come in and ‘just get the project over the line’ and was told it was 1, maybe 2 weeks max. I went and did a quick assessment and shared a quote for 20 weeks to repair what had been done and get the project to deliver what we originally stated. I was almost thrown out of his office.

4 weeks later he had been replaced and we were given a 6 month contract to establish a firm basis for their IT infrastructure.

We outsource a lot of our IT dev work and our CEO and other Corporate Grands Fromages are currently out in India visiting the outsourcer’s offices out there, where much of that work is done. Yesterday one of the outsourcer’s folks asked me to put a pack together to show what a great job they are doing for us, the cheeky get.

Would depend on how much they’re paying.. if it was £1000+ i’d have said yes… Less, then i’d likely be a no.

On a similar deadline driven request I’ve been called on a friday afternoon to see if I can build a filmset in time to shoot on Monday morning. As the conversation continues they add “we should have the drawings ready for you by Sunday”

Not so similarly I worked on a shoot that involved filming in a harbour – the producer pointed out to me that when they recce’d it there had been more water in the harbour but now mysteriously on shoot day morning the water was much lower. I had a quick look at the tide times and come the scheduled shoot time at 3pm the tide was indeed due to be in so reassured them it would all be fine. “Is there anything you can do make sure?”

‘err’ (thinks… move the moon?)

They kept asking me if there was anything I could do, every 15 minutes, all day

Then later when we came to shoot, at high tide, as planned, the harbour was nice and full of water and they thanked me profusely.

I got sent to Guam for a week once as no one in our US office was available. I hate flying.

Just after 9-11 I flew to Chicago for a week as none of our New York based team would fly – my comment “you could get the f**king train” was reported right up to the Group HR Director by an indignant US colleague.

But for any ‘urgent’ work request my first question on hearing an impossible deadline is, “how long have YOU known about this?”.

You could always have said yes but your ‘night rate’ is £1000000

I think this would have been my approach. Would require something like a weeks wage for the night

Edit: if it was doable in the hours required

I once had a woman who sorted out work schedules and people diaries try to book me 2 consecutive days in Stirling and Southampton. Alphabetically close, geographically not so much. She didn’t find it funny when I enquired what time the helicopter would collect me from Stirling.

Would require something like a weeks wage for the night

He said a million quid, that’s not a weeks wage for the Binmeister! Won’t get out of bed etc. etc…..

As a printer (who also does a bit of colouring-in!) – these requests are becoming more frequent.

[Friday morning call] “We have an event and we need need flyers, brochures, business cards, banners etc printing. We have artwork ready (usually a Word doc!). Is that something you can help with?”

[me] “Yes, no problem. Send me an email with quantities required and the artwork (so I can check it), and I’ll get back to you with prices. What sort of lead-time are you looking for?”

[customer] “Can you get back to me asap then please as we need them for the weekend. It’s vital we have them”

…then you’re the bad-guy when you turn them down.

Would depend on how much they’re paying.. if it was £1000+ i’d have said yes… Less, then i’d likely be a no.

I wouldn’t – timescale is too short. Artwork will be full of errors as no-one will proof it properly. Then they won’t pay and try and recover print costs as you cocked-up! 🙂

build a company level powerBI dashboard for trading/sales. never used powerBI and the data is crap.

and access issues ongoing for the last 10 months.

Worked for a company years ago who received a request at 1630 on a Friday for 4 tests.  Client was insistent these tests were done on the Saturday when they would normally be run on the Monday and cost £200.  Client refused to take no for an answer and in the hope that they’d go away we eventually quoted them a ridiculous £10K to do the work on Saturday.  They then accepted the quote so people who worked the Saturday got 5x pay and we all got a nice Christmas bonus.

I’m a GP… my life is FULL of ridiculous requests..often from hospital consultants etc etc…

Something i’m really proud on perfecting is the idea of BOUNDARIES. I’m very comfortable saying “no, that’s not my role/job” to requests, withouth feeling like i’m letting someone down, or being the bad guy…

I’m forever being asked to “arrange this and send results back to them”, or “we’ve requested test X..please chase result and act on it”..!

I just laugh and say nope..

My common place response in letters is often “..you appear to have confused me with your house officer, as this request seems more appropriate for a junor member of your own team to act upon…”

DrP

I wouldn’t – timescale is too short. Artwork will be full of errors as no-one will proof it properly. Then they won’t pay and try and recover print costs as you cocked-up!

You can tell that you know this particular territory. I was taking all that as a given. Last minute final artwork and amends on a brief I’ve never seen before, crazy deadline, working through the night with nobody to ask any questions. No time to proof

What could possibly go wrong? 😂

I used to work with a guy who was fresh out of the forces and still had that “must deliver regardless” attitude that’s drilled into bits of the Mil, and he’d just accept the most ridiculous schedules for work, like getting a service specced on say Wednesday up and accepting referrals the following Monday, and couldn’t work out why all the staff would be less than chuffed to be told they’re working the weekend at no notice.

Totally different mindset

I feel that this is an opportune moment to share Not Always Right

Most of mine are data and kpi related. “Your numbers don’t match mine. Can you make them match? Why are they different?” I normally reply “maths”.

The business I worked for was undergoing a massive headcount reduction and I wangled early retirement due to my area being overstaffed.  A few months after I’d left I got a call from my old boss wanting me to go back as a contractor. I’d be working in my old team, beside guys I’d known for up to 30 years, earning about 4 times what they were and the more work I did, the sooner they’d be out of a job.

That was a firm “no”. I was, at least, polite with my response.

ah that old chestnut @db, glad I’m no longer in a finance role.

why don’t our numbers match, because they have different business rules, you use overlay adjustments, your reference data is out of date, so the scope doesnt match. apportionments, balancing numbers et al,  that you will not share with us.

I had a have you got your passport with you many years ago when in the office. I did and I grabbed a load of kit and flew to Nice. Led to a lot of work for me over the next decade or so in some great places with great people.

On a project team responding to a competitive tender.

Drew up our proposal and estimated our cost at £16 million.

The “boss” came in, worked out that one of our rivals would be able to do the same for around £12 million, using some in house assets we did not have.

He then went through the schedule and shaved everything he could to get the bottom line down £12 million.

We won the contract.

The contract was completed late and over budget.

We lost £4 million.

The “boss” then had a wash up and started pointing fingers trying lay the blame at various people for an array of reasons.

Tosser.

Place i used to work, woefully badly organised, actually had a little subcontract place down the road who was tooled up to do small/short/quick runs when other suppliers let us down, or someone else screwed up (usually purchase).

Just him, his son in law and another mate.

We put enough work his way that he only needed to open up on weekends and maybe on a friday if the engineer in charge realised early enough. Must have loved us, ringing him up lunch time on friday, “yeah we need 48 left handed  imperial sprag widgets for next week, same ones you made last June. We’ve got the materials here.”

“Yup, give me a minute *muttering of maths under his breath, shouts for SiL, more muttering, rustle of papers* £200, each, bit more than last time, but, y’know, got to make a living.”

And we’d just pay. He’d rock up in his van 20 minutes later, load up. Back at 8 on monday with 48 immaculate left handed  imperial sprag widgets and an invoice. (and half a dozen other later ordered packages of bits, at similar prices)

Cost of *not* doing this would have been millions, he could have doubled or tripled his prices and no one would have blinked.

One of my employers, a long time ago, wanted me to go to California to deal with an emissions failure (seriously in breach of the CAA), that we’d failed to fix in nearly a decade, and explain why we hadn’t fixed it. When the only reason we hadn’t fixed it is as management wouldn’t pay the $8-10 per car for an upgraded part.

I didn’t go. Was WAAAAAAAAY above my paygrade.

” while the paint’s in the gun ,can you just……….”
The words every sprayer has heard too often.

I know of a bank in the process  of outsourcing much of IT to an offshore company, with a substantial number of mandatory redundancies. Those being made redundant are expected to perform the migration, training and handover.

Morale is low.

In actuality, this is the third instance of this that I’ve come across, and I can’t really decide whether it’s unreasonable, humiliating or just business as usual.

he could have doubled or tripled his prices and no one would have blinked.

A story my dad used to tell about some semi-custom part that was fitted to some bit of the Lightning, As spares became an issue, they found this bloke in shed who could could turn them out in the low numbers but high quality the RAF needed, and every time he’d just double his price, apparently telling the MOD that if they just ordered more of them the price would come down again, but no, they’d just order 5 or 10 or however many they’d need at the time, and the bloke would say “A thousand each” and the MOD would just pay it…

I guess the “no-one to proof check” could be mitigated if they had someone to hand through the night to act as client rep alongside you.  They didn’t offer that?   🙂

I’ve done a few (early on in startup company) overnight reworks for proof on concepts (*), I was young and didn’t mind the effort. I did have a manager (and later other managers) that would hang about as well rather than f off. Those were mostly internal engineering pushes to be fair, against immovable deadlines (I think Olympics was one of them – I can’t recall the details).

• first, as quite lucrative for us (kept us afloat) was a great tale – our MD had been going in to see senior folk at Microsoft in Seattle – not quite Gates, but possibly dev. director). Waiting in reception, and a fellow Scot comes out, head of the leading global oil services providers at the time. Sounds off that they (Microsoft) wouldn’t build a bespoke (based on old FORTRAN code) Windows UI program to display oil starts data. “We can do that” responds MD without a moments’ hesitation. Cue myself sitting all night in a cold Edinburgh office in 1986 or whatever, mocking up a waterfall display of various geological strata fro Windows 1.01. We got the gig.
• MD then blotted his copybook by being approached by Tim Berners-Lee to develop a web browser for his new hypertext project. MD turned him down. Oh how we’ve laughed about that ever since.

I was asked if I would take a couple of clients to watch the Snooker World Championship, final session, and get paid double time of Sunday rate, so near enough triple time.  I was 19 years old and love snooker.

A ludicrous work request that I was delighted to accept!

Being expected to be present 40hrs a week, pretty much every week?

Not directly me, but my manager.

New caseload targets announced. I calculate real world time available against case times and discover they are at least 50% over realistic. Share to management, ask tbem to show their working, get ignored.

My manager is then asked to forecast case clearance for the next quarter, pulls actual performance data from the MI system, which pretty much confirms my figures, and presents to senior managers, explaining how she got that figure. They accepted her forecast was mathematically correct, but they “needed” it to be higher.

There may be a reason the government wouldn’t release our resourcing forecasts to the public accounts committee.

Surely that equates to a constructive dismissal action?

I know of a bank in the process of outsourcing much of IT to an offshore company, with a substantial number of mandatory redundancies. Those being made redundant are expected to perform the migration, training and handover.

This is far from unusual. I once had to manage such a scenario, it wasn’t a career highpoint.

A story my dad used to tell about some semi-custom part that was fitted to some bit of the Lightning, As spares became an issue, they found this bloke in shed who could could turn them out in the low numbers but high quality the RAF needed, and every time he’d just double his price, apparently telling the MOD that if they just ordered more of them the price would come down again, but no, they’d just order 5 or 10 or however many they’d need at the time, and the bloke would say “A thousand each” and the MOD would just pay it…

I wouldn’t be *hugely* surprised if it was the same bloke. He was making parts which went in and around various commercial and military engines, including the Avon, RB199, Olympus, RB211 family and others.

back when i was in the field.

Finished strathpuffer , just finished kipping in my tent after 24 hours on my bike.

Driving home around 4pm on the sunday evening- Client in turkmenistan phones me.

We need you here in balkanabat to travel tomorrow to rig site at 9am – yeah that’s not going to work. next flight to TKM from here leaves at 5.30am tomorrow.

They get me on that flight i sleep all the way- i arrive in Turkmenistan – driver collects me  from Ashgabat – all the way across the country – with all the crossing region border issues that come with that as an outsider – sleep in the car the whole way . get to balkanabat – they sign my service ticket and tell me im late and to go home they just wanted me there to show their boss how long it takes and we weren’t taking the piss. .

Baring in mind – i was probably about to spend the next 120 hours on 24 hour cover having just finished a 24 hour mtb race   – slept all the way home too – and got paid full rate for it so i was happy to be sent home but how wasteful of resource and time.

When management say “We have a deadline to review Project X, that can’t be moved”. Then “for your welfare you must use all your annual leave before the end of the year, this is not negotiable – no payment in lieu, no roll over”.  Not compatible when the only way to do the review is to work overtime in any case! And they all get flustered when you ask them which of the two non-negotiables gives.

Or the twit who failed to take into account the Christmas holidays when looking at when work came in for review and when work had to be reviewed and signed off by.  The looks around the table when you ask if I’m expected to work Christmas Day during the compulsory Christmas shutdown.

How I miss working on government projects!

I know of a bank in the process  of outsourcing much of IT to an offshore company, with a substantial number of mandatory redundancies. Those being made redundant are expected to perform the migration, training and handover.

Been through this when I worked for Vertex / United Utilities. Don’t know how the Senior Management team slept at night. ****s.

On a similar deadline driven request I’ve been called on a friday afternoon to see if I can build a filmset in time to shoot on Monday morning. As the conversation continues they add “we should have the drawings ready for you by Sunday”

Had a few like that in the past. They seem to forget you have to procure materials etc .
Call always comes in at the end of the day on a Friday too. Usually manage to accommodate them somehow, but they do have to pay a premium for the pleasure 😉

They kept asking me if there was anything I could do, every 15 minutes, all day

Then later when we came to shoot, at high tide, as planned, the harbour was nice and full of water and they thanked me profusely.

I can picture that . I have found there are quite a lot of clever creative people in the industry with very little common sense.
Last project we worked on they wanted to move something over by 150mm, because they thought it would make the shot look better.
A simple job , that took about 30 mins.
But by the time I sent a crew in to do it, and provided the plant etc, then it was almost £3k bill !