Emmanuelle Vs. The Asshole Client
Clooney Dumped for Not Showing Allen Enough "Respect"
George Clooney was dumped by ex-girlfriend Krista Allen - because she felt she wasn't getting enough "respect" from the Hollywood hunk, says her representative. The pair met two years ago during the filming of Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind and have parted ways and reunited a number of times. But earlier this month, pals revealed the latest break is for good. The pretty brunette's spokesperson tells American magazine In Touch Weekly, "Krista broke it off with George because he wasn't treating her with the respect she feels she deserves. She decided it was a good time, as he was about to travel to Europe for four months to work on Ocean's Twelve." While pals say Allen was eager to settle down with Clooney soon after meeting him, the former star of TV's ER has always been very public about his desire to remain a bachelor. The actress' representative adds that the pair will remain friends, and have plans to work on a project together for American cable TV network HBO.
Not even the good news above could brighten my spirits. I seem to be at war with a very difficult client. I refuse to engage in any more shouting matches over the phone over a dispute. I've been crafting careful emails to them in an effort to present my case and settle this dispute. It's pretty ugly. They basically insist that I include a feature they're not paying for, on the grounds that it was included in the original project outline and estimated price. This feature was vaguely mentioned and it wasn't known at the time what was involved in the implementation (it's a 3rd party insurance API). Now that we have the details, it turns out it's a huge undertaking to implement it and the cost has to be adjusted accordingly.
There's also the matter of them treating the initial project estimate based on very little information, as a firm quote (even though I've been saying the whole time that the outline and price would change as the details were settled). They support their arguments with screwed up interpretations of conversations, way too many stupid assumptions and made up time lines of when things were said and information was given. I know I'm right and I have all the proof in our back and forth emails. I've even quoted several things and included commentary that proves my points. I just don't think they pay much attention when I prove them wrong.
This is about to be settled one way or another. They either accept that they have to pay extra, don't get the feature they want, or the project is killed and I keep their deposit (and bill them for extra expenses that weren't covered). If they don't at least pay for what they have right now, I have full control of their website and domain. I'd hate to have to resort to that. I'm having nervous visions of legal talk in a case like that. If something like that ever happened, I'd try to seek some free advice, show them that I can play rough too, try to scare them off.. and eventually have to give in if there's a real legal threat. I'm 100% sure I'd win such a fictional case and have lots of evidence to prove my side. But who the hell wants (or can afford) legal entanglements? It's not worth it.
The thing is, from the very beginning of this project (and throughout) I went to great effort to make everything clear and stop stupid things like this from happening. These people are frustratingly unique. They just don't listen to the facts (maybe they're not so unique but I've never worked for any clients this bad before). No matter what happens, I'll have to examine the whole situation and learn how to protect myself better in the future.
Just in case this gets indexed by search engines and she happens to search for her name.. Krista, there's a bed for you at our house if you need.
George Clooney was dumped by ex-girlfriend Krista Allen - because she felt she wasn't getting enough "respect" from the Hollywood hunk, says her representative. The pair met two years ago during the filming of Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind and have parted ways and reunited a number of times. But earlier this month, pals revealed the latest break is for good. The pretty brunette's spokesperson tells American magazine In Touch Weekly, "Krista broke it off with George because he wasn't treating her with the respect she feels she deserves. She decided it was a good time, as he was about to travel to Europe for four months to work on Ocean's Twelve." While pals say Allen was eager to settle down with Clooney soon after meeting him, the former star of TV's ER has always been very public about his desire to remain a bachelor. The actress' representative adds that the pair will remain friends, and have plans to work on a project together for American cable TV network HBO.
Not even the good news above could brighten my spirits. I seem to be at war with a very difficult client. I refuse to engage in any more shouting matches over the phone over a dispute. I've been crafting careful emails to them in an effort to present my case and settle this dispute. It's pretty ugly. They basically insist that I include a feature they're not paying for, on the grounds that it was included in the original project outline and estimated price. This feature was vaguely mentioned and it wasn't known at the time what was involved in the implementation (it's a 3rd party insurance API). Now that we have the details, it turns out it's a huge undertaking to implement it and the cost has to be adjusted accordingly.
There's also the matter of them treating the initial project estimate based on very little information, as a firm quote (even though I've been saying the whole time that the outline and price would change as the details were settled). They support their arguments with screwed up interpretations of conversations, way too many stupid assumptions and made up time lines of when things were said and information was given. I know I'm right and I have all the proof in our back and forth emails. I've even quoted several things and included commentary that proves my points. I just don't think they pay much attention when I prove them wrong.
This is about to be settled one way or another. They either accept that they have to pay extra, don't get the feature they want, or the project is killed and I keep their deposit (and bill them for extra expenses that weren't covered). If they don't at least pay for what they have right now, I have full control of their website and domain. I'd hate to have to resort to that. I'm having nervous visions of legal talk in a case like that. If something like that ever happened, I'd try to seek some free advice, show them that I can play rough too, try to scare them off.. and eventually have to give in if there's a real legal threat. I'm 100% sure I'd win such a fictional case and have lots of evidence to prove my side. But who the hell wants (or can afford) legal entanglements? It's not worth it.
The thing is, from the very beginning of this project (and throughout) I went to great effort to make everything clear and stop stupid things like this from happening. These people are frustratingly unique. They just don't listen to the facts (maybe they're not so unique but I've never worked for any clients this bad before). No matter what happens, I'll have to examine the whole situation and learn how to protect myself better in the future.
Just in case this gets indexed by search engines and she happens to search for her name.. Krista, there's a bed for you at our house if you need.